stry to protect the fruits of its labor.
Why is there a law against murder? Simply because a large majority of
people object to being murdered. That is all. And all these laws were
in force thousands of years before that time.

One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images,
and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever
enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any
commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. But
they say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no
civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as
you do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation without
a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with?
Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go
down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally
inspired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this
thing, because I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon
this question--whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not and
upon that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who
believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who
believes in that infamy? You say: "No, we do not." Then you are
better than your God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years
ago he believed in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and
denounce it the infamy of infamies. It robs our language of every
sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fire-side away forever. It
takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and
turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes
of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago, and was on the
mountain where God used to talk to Brigham Young. He never said
anything to me. I said that it was just as reasonable that God in the
nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist in Utah as it was that
four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he talked to Moses upon that
hellish and damnable question.

I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no
heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the
one man loves the one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the
polygamy question. May be it is inspired about religious liberty. God
says if anybody differs with you about religion, "kill him."