would go out of the man provided they would be permitted to go into
swine. How can fits that attack a man take up a residence in swine?
The church must not give up the devil. He is the right bower. No
devil, no hell; no hell, no preacher; no fire, no insurance. I read
another miracle--that this devil took Christ and put him on the
pinnacle of a temple. Was that fits, too? Why is not the theological
world honest? Why do they not come up and admit what they know the
book means? They have not the courage. Now, their next doctrine is
the absolute necessity of belief. That depends upon this: Can a man
believe as he wants to? Can you? Can anybody? Does belief depend at
all upon the evidence? I think it does somewhat in some cases. How is
it that when a jury is sworn to try a case, hearing all the
evidence--hearing both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing
the law, and upon their oaths, are equally divided, six for the
plaintiff and six for the defendant? It is because evidence does not
have the same effect upon all people. Why? Our brains are not
alike--not the same shape; we have not the same intelligence or the
same experience, the same sense. And yet I am held accountable for my
belief. I must believe in the Trinity--three times one is one, once
one is three--and my soul is to be eternally damned for failing to
guess an arithmetical conundrum. And that is the poison part of
Christianity--that salvation depends upon belief--that is the poison
part, and until that dogma is discarded religion will be nothing but
superstition. No man can control his belief. If I hear certain
evidence I will believe a certain thing. If I fail to hear it I may
never believe it. If it is adapted to my mind I may accept it; if it
is not, I reject it. And what am I to go by? My brain. That is the
only light I have from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only
torch that this God has given me by which to find my way through the
darkness and the night called life. I do not depend upon hearsay for
that. I do not have to take the word of any other man, nor get upon my
knees before a book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and consult
the God--that is to say, my reason--and the oracle speaks to me, and I
obey the oracle. What should I obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I
take another man's word and not what he thinks, but what God said to
him?

I would not know a god if I should see one. I have said