,
conceived by man, written by man, altered by man, translated by man,
printed by man, but--and this is where it differs from every other
book--the Bible is swallowed by man. And it has disagreed with him; man
has not digested it properly through lack of sufficient dissection of
its parts. It has been taken with a spiritual sauce that has disguised
its real flavor. Anything in the Bible, no matter how raw, is taken as
God's food. It is used to demonstrate problems of diet which do not
provide a balanced ration; it is accepted by the gullible though
contradicted by the revelations of Geology, Astronomy, Anthropology,
Zoology, and Biology. Taken as prescribed by the doctors of divinity,
the Bible is a poisonous book.

LLEWELYN POWYS

The idea of an incarnation of God is absurd: why should the human race
think itself so superior to bees, ants, and elephants as to be put in
this unique relation to its maker? Christians are like a council of
frogs in a marsh or a synod of worms on a dung hill croaking and
squeaking, "For our sakes was the world created."

THEODORE DREISER

And why again, composed though we may be of this, that, and the other
proton, electron, etc., etc., why should we not in some way be able to
sense why we are as we are--assembled as we are of the same ultimate
atoms and doing as we do? Why? Good God--surely in the face of all this
sense of aliveness and motion, and this and that, there should be some
intimation of WHY? But no--none.

UPTON SINCLAIR

It is a fact, the significance of which cannot be exaggerated, that the
measure of the civilization which any nation has attained is the extent
to which it has curtailed the power of institutionalized religion. There
are a score of great religions in the world, each with scores or
hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its complicated creed
and ritual, its heavens and hells. Each has its thousands or millions or
hundreds of millions of "true believers"; each damns all the others,
with more or less heartiness, and each is a mighty fortress of Graft.

* * * * *

_The Middle Guard_

_It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you
should salt your truth that it will no longer quench thirst_?

NIETZSCHE.

* * * * *

ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

Indeed, history, down to the present day, is a melancholy record of the
horrors which can att