gentle! This is the book recognized
in our Constitution as the source of authority and justice!

Strange that no one has ever been persecuted by the Church for
believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed for
thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the
Universalist for saying "God is love." It has always been considered
as one of the very highest evidence of true and undefiled religion to
insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It
has always been heresy to say, "God will at last save all."

We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws
of war, because the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact,
there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to
prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive
evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at
the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The
instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even
reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to
suppose that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings,
and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames for them to
use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding his
communication. If we have the right to use our reason, we certainly
have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god can have the
right to punish us for such action.

The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It
is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be
rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason,
observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for
refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of
insanity and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can
believe that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of
religion is based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the
blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of
Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the
salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind
can give assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read
the bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.

Whether the bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparis