The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel. He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament. He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lowest of the low. But the Gospels actually taught this: Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected. So it goes. The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn’t look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again: Oh, boy—they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch _that_ time! And that thought had a brother: “There are right people to lynch.” Who? People not well connected. So it goes. The visitor from outer space made a gift to the Earth of a new Gospel. In it, Jesus really was a nobody, and a pain in the neck to a lot of people with better connections than he had. He still got to say all the lovely and puzzling things he said in the other Gospels.So the people amused themselves one day by nailing him to a cross and planting the cross in the ground. There couldn’t possibly be any repercussions, the lynchers thought. The reader would have to think that, too, since the new Gospel hammered home again and again what a nobody Jesus was. And then, just before the nobody died, the heavens opened up, and there was thunder and lightning. The voice of God came crashing down. He told the people that he was adopting the bum as his son, giving him the full powers and privileges of The Son of the Creator of the Universe throughout all eternity. God said this: From this moment on, He will punish horribly anybody who torments a bum who has no connections. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
About This Quote

A quote from the book "The Crucible"(1953, Arthur Miller). The people of Salem were under a lot of pressure. In the spring of 1692, a man named George Burroughs had complained that girls in the village had been bewitched. A few weeks later, another man, Parris, had made similar accusations, and a woman named Osborne was accused of witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials began in May 1692 and lasted for several months.

Over 200 people were accused of witchcraft and 86 executed. The trials ended in September. Miller uses two quotes which he titles "The Witch." First, a judge is quoted as saying: "It is quite true that men were tried for witchcraft here years ago...

but they were not witches... If they were witches, it is true they were hanged..." Second, one of the accused witches quotes Scripture to explain why she was innocent, saying: "I am no witch." There's something tragic about this second quote which fits in with the theme of the play. It's just before dawn when she makes this statement which reveals her ignorance about how things work in this world.

She says that she isn't a witch because there are some witches who are greater than she is. That's probably some kind of reference to God. We can't really understand what happened at Salem without understanding what went on there before the trials started.

The social conditions which produced these bizarre actions must be examined; but Miller wants his audiences to concentrate on them by using words like “bizarre� and “absurdity� rather than “tragedy� and “drama� (quoted above).

Source: Slaughterhousefive

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