you
know. Every creed is a rock in running water; humanity sweeps by it.
Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant
past bullying the enlightened present.

The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science
is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand
completeness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to
them. They demand the complete circle--the entire structure.

In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured
periods. In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the
questions of creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things
must be in the alphabet of their superstition. A religion that can not
answer every question, and guess every conundrum, is in their
estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a kind of theological
dictionary--a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at
all crossings and turns. They mistake impudence for authority,
solemnity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. The beginning and the
end are what they demand. The grand flight of the eagle is nothing to
them. They want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the
dry limb upon which he roosts. Anything that can be learned is hardly
worth knowing. The present is considered of no value in itself.
Happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be
attained by self-denial and faith; not self-denial for the good of
others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self.

Paine denied the authority of Bibles and creeds; this was his crime,
and for this the world shut the door in his face and emptied its slops
upon him from the windows.

I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line,
one word in favor of tyranny--in favor of immorality; one line, one
word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest
of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty,
and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell.
His memory had been execrated as though he had murdered some Uriah for
his wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to starve with his child
upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword
the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to
assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives and three
hundred concubines, or had persecuted Christians even unto strange
cities