“ Do you understand that any better than you do the production of thought? Do you understand that any better than you do a dream? Do you understand that any better than you do the thoughts of love that you see in the eyes of the one you adore? Can you explain it? Can you tell what matter is? Have you the slightest conception? Yet you talk about matter as though you were acquainted with its origin; as though you had compelled, with clenched hands, the very rocks to give up the secret of existence. Do you know what force is? ”

“ Ignorance has stood the attack of knowledge for a much longer time, and yet ignorance has not so very materially suffered—it is still ignorance.
Vice has stood the attacks of virtue ever since the world began. Superstition has been besieged by science for many centuries, and yet superstition seems hale and hearty and bids fair to have a long life. Is it true that those who believe in the Bible are willing to have it tested by reason, justice, or humanity? It is not true that it has stood the test of science. Christians are not willing to have the Bible tested. ”

“ And yet the world is so constructed that at every step we take we crush to death creatures as minutely and curiously formed as ourselves. They kill one another in numerous struggles, and life has been such a series of bloody battles, resulting in destruction of life, that the Waterloos and Solferinos of history are nothing in comparison. Where is the design in the volcano that belches forth its fiery billows and buries in ruins a Pompeii and a Herculaneum? Where is the design in the tornado that sends a fleet with its precious freight of humanity beneath the remorseless waves? ”

“ It has always seemed reasonable that an infinite God ought to have been able to make man grand enough to know, even without a special revelation, that it is not altogether right to steal the labor, or the wife, or the child of another. When the whole question is thoroughly examined, the world will find that Jehovah had the prejudices, the hatreds, and superstitions of his day.
“If there is anything of value, it is liberty. Liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of life. Without it the world is a prison and the universe an infinite dungeon. ”

“ He knew that above these fields of death, these dungeons, these burnings, for a thousand years would float the dripping banner of the cross. He knew that in his name his followers would trade in human flesh, that cradles would be robbed, and woman’s breasts unbabed for gold, and yet he died with voiceless lips. Why did he fail to speak? Why did he not tell his disciples, and through them the world, that man should not persecute, for opinion’s sake, his fellow man? Why did he not cry, You shall not persecute in my name; you shall not burn and torment those who differ from you in creed? ”

“ Is it more reasonable to suppose the universe was created, or constructed by a being in whom exists the most wonderful order and harmony, and the most admirable adaptation to construct a universe (which order, harmony, and adaptation could have had no designing cause) , than to suppose that the universe itself in its entirety is eternal, and the self-producing cause of all the manifestations we behold? ”

“ But the most powerful consideration with a truly benevolent man, if he be a Christian, for the extirpation of heresy by force, is the belief that its unfortunate victims will suffer unending torments in hell. Not for a few days, not for a few years must they suffer, but forever. Under the burden of such an awful thought can the sincere, kind-hearted Christian fold his arms and look calmly upon the efforts of men who are spreading unbelief or heresy in every direction, who are not only going to hell themselves, but are taking with them thousands of their fellow men. ”

“ If religion be a fallacy, its votaries are slaves. Whereupon, then, rests the assertion, that if the believer does not gain, he cannot lose? Is it nothing to lose time and talents, to waste our labor on that which is not bread, and our money upon that which profiteth not? Is it nothing to feel that the human beings that surround us are children of the devil and heirs of hell? ”

“ So you must equally bear with the comparatively small number of scientists who, within the last three hundred years, have worked out the hypothesis that the soul is not matter, substance, or entity, at all, but simply the continuous action or process of the nervous systems of animals, and especially of the brain of man, in answer to their environment. In a word, the life, soul, spirit, mind, thought, feeling, and consciousness are but varying tones of the music which our nervous systems give out when the world plays upon them—much as the piano answers to the touch of our hands. ”

“ It is a solemn day, and for one to smile is a desecration of the holy day, while laughing is gross wickedness. To entertain one’s friends on Sunday or to enjoy music, is carnal and therefore a desecration of the Lord’s day. To love flowers is evidence of depravity; to admire the beauties of nature, as a golden sunset, or a summer’s sunrise, are palpable evidences of being a “man of sin.” To do anything but attend church, look solemn, mourn and pray, weep and read the Bible, is of the Devil. ”

“ Infidelity does not palm its guess upon the ignorant as a demonstration. Infidelity proves nothing by slander—establishes nothing by abuse.
“Infidelity has nothing to hide. It has no ‘holy of holies,’ except the abode of truth. It has no curtain that the hand of investigation has not the right to draw aside. It lives in the cloudless light, in the very noon of human eyes.
“Infidelity has no bible to be blasphemed. It does not cringe before an angry god.
“Infidelity says to every man: Investigate for yourself. ”

“ According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon, and had to be purified, for the crime of having borne sons and daughters. If in this world there is a figure of perfect purity, it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy arms her child. The doctrine that the woman is the slave, or serf, of man—whether it comes from heaven or from hell, from God or a demon, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition—is savagery, pure and simple. ”

“ Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic, the Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other, and each Christian felt in duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.... They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. ”

“ Why is it that religion has always condemned learning, discoveries, inventions, reforms, etc.? Knowledge is the forbidden fruit of all the gardens of the gods. But how could these celestial creators expect to prevent man from gaining knowledge after they had created him with a brain to think? To think is to have knowledge, and to have some knowledge is to thirst for more, and thus it was absolute madness to create man with a brain and command him not think. ”

“ Is it no loss to live in disquiet by day, and in fear by night; to pass through dark seasons of doubt and temptation, and to be conscious that we are but as strangers and pilgrims here, toiling through a weary valley of cares and sorrows? Is it no loss to hold back when truth oversteps the line of orthodoxy, and when there ought to be free discussion, to shrink before we know not what? ”

“ A religion that teaches a mother that she can be happy in heaven, with her children in hell—in everlasting torment—strikes at the very roots of family affection. It makes the human heart stone. Love that means no more than that, is not love at all. No heart that has ever loved can see the object of its affection in pain, and itself be happy. The thing is impossible. Any religion that can make that possible is more to be dreaded than war or famine or pestilence or death. ”

“ Not always; but even suppose it were true, did not Jesus reject the religion of his mother? Did not Paul, Peter, Luther, Wesley—did they not all reject the religion of their mothers?
Does not preaching consist in asking people to reject the religion of their mothers and to come over to the preacher’s religion?
“Freethinkers are ruthless, and do not care how much they hurt our feelings. They speak coarsely upon sacred subjects.” Yes; but do not Christians hurt our feelings? They send us to hell, and then put on a look of injured innocence if we do not sweetly return them “thanks.” ”

“ Every civilization of the past has been false in this respect. The pyramids of Egypt have a record of kings possessing millions of slaves. Greece produced a civilization inspired by a love of the beautiful, and has consequently contributed more toward the civilization of mankind than any other people. But no nation has conspicuously sought to secure to its people the rights of liberty and justice. And until the time comes when the people get these rights, there can be no true civilization. Humanity must become the supreme purpose of life. ”

“ Is it wonderful that matter should be self-existent; that it should possess the power to form suns, planets, and construct that beautiful ladder of life that reaches from the lowest forms of the vegetable kingdom up to man? How much more wonderful that a great being should exist, without any cause, who had no [241] beginning, and who is infinitely more admirable than the universe itself.
Again, the plan of a work is as much evidence of intelligence and design as the work which embodies the plan. ”

“ But the believer in the inspiration of the Bible is compelled to declare that there was a time when slavery was right—when men could buy, and women could sell, their babes. He is compelled to insist that there was a time when Polygamy was the highest form of virtue; when wars of extermination were waged with the sword of mercy; when religious toleration was a crime, and when death was the just penalty for having expressed an honest thought. ”

“ Mythology abounds in stories about the gods; about their imperfections and weaknesses, but this account of the Serpent-devil and the tree of knowledge is the silliest fable of all, and has entailed indescribable misery upon the human race. The prohibition of knowledge has left an inherited twist in human nature. Even now in the afternoon of the nineteenth century mankind does not know much—and it is largely due to this first commandment not to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. ”

“ So when we are told that wine was made out of water, and bread and fish out of nothing in large quantities, we know that we are listening to statements that simply go out of the field of credible testimony into the realm of supreme credulity. Such assertions require you to believe not only what you have not seen, but what all reason and experience tell you, you never can see. ”

“ If Infidelity be true, all Christians are superstitious idolaters. If Infidelity be true, Christians are deceived and are corrupting the minds of millions of children with superstition which will render them bigoted, cruel, and unhappy. And this is about the size of it. How, then, can it be the safe side. The safe side is always to be fair and honorable. It is safe always to examine both sides. It is safe to be on the alert for more truth. It is safe to accept the truth even when it cuts away old prejudices and old beliefs. It is safe not to be a sectarian. ”

“ It has often been argued that credulity is safer than skepticism—that “it is safest to believe;” inasmuch as if a man believes in heaven and hell, and there be no such places, he is, if no gainer, at least no loser; whereas the Infidel may lose, and cannot gain. Upon the same principle, it were safest to believe all the religions of the world at once—Christian, Mohammedan, Jewish, Hindoo, Confucian, and all the rest; because it is but insuring the matter by halves to trust to one only. If Allah be not the only God and Mahomet be an imposter, there is no harm done and nothing lost ”

“ What a sight for gods and men! To see the ex-premier of England pettifogging at the bar of Reason for a dying, nay dead superstition; for certainly Genesis as a revelation is dead so far as reason and science are concerned.
But this hostility to knowledge instituted in the garden of Eden has been perpetuated through all the ages. Faith [18] has been held up as the all-important virtue, as by it the priests could get the people to believe anything. Somewhere Goethe says, “Belief is not the beginning but the end of knowledge.” ”

“ But these good people who think that the world is out of joint and they are called to set it right, find it a greater task than they had bargained for, and so they soon tire, and the old world wags along as it did before the “Law and Order” society came into existence.
Sunday laws are a solemn farce, and a burning shame. They are a warfare upon the rights of man, in the interest of ancient traditions and modern despotism. ”

“ In the center stood a huge pile of faggots, from out its logs and branches rose a stake, crowding around the pile were eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph, religion was about to be avenged; a heretic was coming to expiate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas proclaimed by the church—the crime of teaching that the earth moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds. ”

“ Annihilation the Portion of all Mankind.
Why died not I from the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?... For now should I have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest, with kings and counselors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver; or as a hidden, untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw the light. There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest.... ”

“ How could he with such a small head and not even a spoonful of brains, know so much more than Adam and Eve? Yea, he even knew more than God himself—for God did not know, or else he fibbed, that man would not die if he ate the forbidden fruit. He did not seem to know that man would become as the gods by partaking of this tree, but the Serpent knew all this and possibly much more; but how could so much superior knowledge be crowded into so small a head? Some of our congressmen with domes of unusual dimensions do not know as much as this inexperienced Serpent did. ”