validity.

It is all things to all people, and is as meaningless as it is
indefinable.

It is the most dangerous in the hands of the unscrupulous, and is the
joker that trumps the ace.

It is the poisoned word that has paralyzed the brain of man.

"The fear of the Lord" is not the beginning of wisdom; on the contrary,
it has made man a groveling slave; it has made raving lunatics of those
who have attempted to interpret what God "is" and what is supposed to be
our "duty" to God.

It has made man prostitute the most precious things of life--it has made
him sacrifice wife, and child, and home.

"In the name of God" means in the name of nothing--it has caused man to
be a wastrel with the precious elixir of life, because there is no God.

Ingersoll could not understand the mind of those who, once having been
told the truth, preferred to remain under the spell of superstition and
in ignorance. He could not understand why people would not accept "new
truths with gladness."

He also knew, however, that once a person's mind had been poisoned with
religious superstition, it was almost impossible to free it from the
paralyzing fear which destroyed its ability to think.

It is now established by verifiable evidence that religion stultifies
the brain and is the great obstacle in the path of intellectual
progress.

The more religious a person is, the more he is steeped in ignorance and
superstition, the less is his sense of moral responsibility. The more
intelligent a person, the less religious he is. There is an old saying
that "where there are three scientists, there are two atheists."

The countries whose governments are dominated by religion and religious
institutions are the most backward. By the same token, the countries
whose people are the most enlightened, and whose governments are based
upon the principle of secularism--the separation of church and
state--are the most progressive.

And let me tell you: When man is intellectually free, the progress he
will make is beyond calculation.

What better illustration than this: More progress has been made since
the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution than was
made in the previous five thousand years!

Yes, more intellectual and material progress has been made by man since
the establishment of the American Republic than during all the
intervening years from the Pharaohs of Egypt up to and including the
time of "the grandeur that was Greece, and