aptured on their spurting blood. You must hold this belief before
you can believe in the doctrine of blasphemy. You must believe that
this God loves ceremonies, that this God knows certain men to whom He
has told all His will. It then follows that, if this God loves
ceremonies and has certain men to teach His will and perform these
ceremonies, these men must have a place to live in. This place was
called a temple, and it was sacred. And the pots and pans and kettles
and all in it were sacred too. No one but the priests must touch them.
Then the God wrote a book in which He told His covenants to men, and
gave this book to priests to interpret. While it was sacrilege to
touch with the hands the pots and pans of the temple, it was blasphemy
to doubt or question anything in the book. And then the right to think
was gone, and the right to use the brain that God had given was taken
away, and religion was entrenched behind that citadel called blasphemy.

God was a kind of juggler. He did not wish man to be impudent or
curious about how He did things. You must sit in audience and watch
the tricks and ask no questions. In front of every fact He has hung
the impenetrable curtain of blasphemy. Now, then, all the little
reason that poor man had is useless. To say anything against the
priest was blasphemy and to say anything against God was blasphemy--to
ask a question was blasphemy. Finally we sank to the level of
fetishism. We began to worship inanimate things. If you will read your
bible you will find that the Jews had a sacred box. In it were the rod
of Aaron and a piece of manna and the tables of stone. To touch this
box was a crime. You remember that one time when a careless Jew thought
the box was going to tip he held it. God killed him. What a warning
to baggage smashers of the present day.

We find also that God concocted a hair oil and threatened death to any
one who imitated it. And we see that He also made a certain perfume
and it was death to make anything that smelt like it. It seems to me
this is carrying protection too far. It always has been blasphemy to
say "I do not know whether God exists or not." In all Catholic
countries it is blasphemy to doubt the bible, to doubt the sacredness
of the relics. It always has been blasphemy to laugh at a priest, to
ask questions, to investigate the Trinity. In a world of superstition,
reason is blasphemy. In a world of ignorance, facts are blasphemy.