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People In General Know Not What Wickedness There Is In This Pretended Word Of God. Brought Up In Habits Of Superstition, They Take It For Granted That The Bible Is True, And That It Is Good; They Permit Themselves Not To Doubt Of It, And They Carry The Ideas They Form Of The Benevolence Of The Almighty To The Book Which They Have Been Taught To Believe Was Written By His Authority. Good Heavens! It Is Quite Another Thing; It Is A Book Of Lies, Wickedness, And Blasphemy.

-Thomas Paine

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People In General Know

Thomas Paine

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People In General Know Not What Wickedness There Is In This Pretended Word Of God. Brought Up In Habits Of Superstition, They Take It For Granted That The Bible Is True, And That It Is Good; They Permit Themselves Not To Doubt Of It, And They Carry The Ideas They Form Of The Benevolence Of The Almighty To The Book Which They Have Been Taught To Believe Was Written By His Authority. Good Heavens! It Is Quite Another Thing; It Is A Book Of Lies, Wickedness, And Blasphemy.

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Those Who Expect To Reap The Blessings Of Freedom Must, Like Men, Undergo The Fatigue Of Supporting It.

O Ye That Love Mankind! Ye That Dare Oppose, Not Only The Tyranny, But The Tyrant, Stand Forth! Every Spot Of The Old World Is Overrun With Oppression. Freedom Hath Been Hunted Round The Globe. Asia, And Africa, Have Long Expelled Her. Europe Regards Her Like A Stranger, And England Hath Given Her Warning To Depart. O! Receive The Fugitive, And Prepare In Time An Asylum For Mankind.

To Reason With Goverments, As They Have Existed For Ages, Is To Argue With Brutes. It Is Only From The Nations Themselves That Reforms Can Be Expected

From Whence, Then, Could Arise The Solitary And Strange Conceit That The Almighty, Who Had Millions Of Worlds Equally Dependant On His Protection, Should Quit The Care Of All The Rest, And Come To Die In Our World, Because, They Say, One Man And One Woman Had Eaten An Apple?

Lay Then The Axe To The Root, And Teach Governments Humanity. It Is Their Sanguinary Punishments Which Corrupt Mankind.

Public Money Ought To Be Touched With The Most Scrupulous Consciousness Of Honor.

One Of The Strongest Natural Proofs Of The Folly Of Hereditary Right In Kings, Is, That Nature Disapproves It, Otherwise, She Would Not So Frequently Turn It Into Ridicule By Giving Mankind An Ass For A Lion.

Call To Mind The Sentiments Which Nature Has Engraved On The Heart Of Every Citizen, And Which Take A New Force When They Are Solemnly Recognised By All:-for A Nation To Love Liberty, It Is Sufficient That She Knows It; And To Be Free, It Is Sufficient That She Wills It.

Europe, And Not England, Is The Parent Country Of America. This New World Hath Been The Asylum For The Persecuted Lovers Of Civil And Religious Liberty From Every Part Of Europe.

We Must Be Compelled To Hold This Doctrine To Be False, And The Old And New Law Called The Old And New Testament, To Be Impositions, Fables And Forgeries.

It Matters Not Where You Live, Or What Rank Of Life You Hold, The Evil Or The Blessing Will Reach You All.

And To Read The Bible Without Horror, We Must Undo Everything That Is Tender, Sympathizing And Benevolent In The Heart Of Man.

One Good Schoolmaster Is Of More Use Than A Hundred Priests.

The Christian System Of Religion Is An Outrage On Common Sense.

[a]ll Churches, Whether Jewish, Christian Or Muslim, Are Simply Human Inventions. They Use Fear To Enslave Us. They Are A Monopoly For Power And Profit.

Liberty Cannot Be Purchased By A Wish.

The Evil That Has Resulted From The Error Of The Schools, In Teaching Natural Philosophy As An Accomplishment Only, Has Been That Of Generating In The Pupils A Species Of Atheism. Instead Of Looking Through The Works Of Creation To The Creator Himself, They Stop Short, And Employ The Knowledge They Acquire To Create Doubts Of His Existence. They Labour With Studied Ingenuity To Ascribe Every Thing They Behold To Innate Properties Of Matter, And Jump Over All The Rest By Saying, That Matter Is Eternal.

All National Institutions Of Churches, Whether Jewish, Christian Or Turkish, Appear To Me No Other Than Human Inventions, Set Up To Terrify And Enslave Mankind, And Monopolize Power And Profit.

Had The News Of Salvation By Jesus Christ Been Inscribed On The Face Of The Sun And The Moon, In Characters That All Nations Would Have Understood, The Whole Earth Had Known It In Twenty-four Hours, And All Nations Would Have Believed It; Whereas, Though It Is Now Almost Two Thousand Years Since, As They Tell Us, Christ Came Upon Earth, Not A Twentieth Part Of The People Of The Earth Know Anything Of It, And Among Those Who Do, The Wiser Part Do Not Believe It.

Belief In A Cruel God Makes A Cruel Man.

Arms Discourage And Keep The Invader And Plunderer In Awe, And Preserve Order In The World As Well As Property... Horrid Mischief Would Ensue Were The Law-abiding Deprived Of The Use Of Them.

Is It Not A Species Of Blasphemy To Call The New Testament Revealed Religion, When We See In It Such Contradictions And Absurdities.

Let A Crown Be Placed Thereon, By Which The World May Know, That So Far As We Approve Of Monarcy, That In America The Law Is King. For As In Absolute Governments The King Is Law, So In Free Countries The Law Ought To Be King; And There Ought To Be No Other.

The Story Of Jesus Christ Appearing After He Was Dead Is The Story Of An Apparition, Such As Timid Imaginations Can Always Create In Vision, And Credulity Believe. Stories Of This Kind Had Been Told Of The Assassination Of Julius Caesar.

Let Them Call Me Rebel, And Welcome, I Feel No Concern From It.

The Times That Tried Men's Souls Are Over-and The Greatest And Completest Revolution The World Ever Knew, Gloriously And Happily Accomplished.

...the Bible Is Such A Book Of Lies And Contradictions There Is No Knowing Which Part To Believe Or Whether Any.

It Is The Fable Of Jesus Christ, As Told In The New Testament, And The Wild And Visionary Doctrine Raised Thereon, Against Which I Contend. The Story, Taking It As It Is Told, Is Blasphemously Obscene.

The Slavery Of Fear Had Made Men Afraid To Think.

That There Are Men In All Countries Who Get Their Living By War, And By Keeping Up The Quarrels Of Nations Is As Shocking As It Is True.

Man Did Not Make The Earth, And Though He Had A Natural Right To Occupy It, He Had No Right To Locate As His Property In Perpetuity, Any Part Of It.

The Creation Is The Bible Of The Deist. He There Reads, In The Handwriting Of The Creator Himself, The Certainty Of His Existence And The Immutability Of His Power, And All Other Bibles And Testaments Are To Him Forgeries.

Natural Rights Are Those Which Always Appertain To Man In Right Of His Existence. Of This Kind Are All The Intellectual Rights, Or Rights Of The Mind, And Also All Those Rights Of Acting As An Individual For His Own Comfort And Happiness, Which Are Not Injurious To The Rights Of Others.

These Proceedings May At First Seem Strange And Difficult, But Like All Other Steps Which We Have Already Passed Over, Will In A Little Time Become Familiar And Agreeable: And Until An Independence Is Declared, The Continent Will Feel Itself Like A Man Who Continues Putting Off Some Unpleasant Business From Day To Day, Yet Knows It Must Be Done, Hates To Set About It, Wishes It Over, And Is Continually Haunted With The Thoughts Of Its Necessity.

My Country Is Wherever Liberty Lives.

No Nation Ought To Be Without A Debt. A National Debt Is A National Bond; And When It Bears No Interest, Is In No Case A Grievance.

Take Away From Genesis The Belief That Moses Was The Author, On Which Only The Strange Believe That It Is The Word Of God Has Stood, And There Remains Nothing Of Genesis But An Anonymous Book Of Stories, Fables, And Traditionary Or Invented Absurdities, Or Of Downright Lies.

Nothing But Heaven Is Impregnable To Vice.

Our Present Condition Is, Legislation Without Law; Wisdom Without A Plan; A Constitution Without A Name; And, What Is Strangely Astonishing, Perfect Independence Contending For Dependence.

Any System Of Religion That Has Anything In It That Shocks The Mind Of A Child, Cannot Be True.

The World Is My Country, All Mankind Are My Brethren, And To Do Good Is My Religion.

I Have Always Strenuously Supported The Right Of Every Man To His Own Opinion, However Different That Opinion Might Be To Mine. He Who Denies To Another This Right, Makes A Slave Of Himself To His Present Opinion, Because He Precludes Himself The Right Of Changing It.

This New World Hath Been The Asylum For The Persecuted Lovers Of Civil And Religious Liberty From Every Part Of Europe. Hither Have They Fled, Not From The Tender Embraces Of The Mother, But From The Cruelty Of The Monster; And It Is So Far True Of England, That The Same Tyranny Which Drove The First Emigrants From Home, Pursues Their Descendants Still.

Virtue Is Not Hereditary.

But If Objects For Gratitude And Admiration Are Our Desire, Do They Not Present Themselves Every Hour To Our Eyes?

A Government Of Our Own Is Our Natural Right; And When A Man Seriously Reflects On The Precariousness Of Human Affairs, He Will Become Convinced, That It Is Infinitely Wiser And Safer, To Form A Constitution Of Our Own In A Cool Deliberate Manner, While We Have It In Our Power, Than To Trust Such An Interesting Event To Time And Chance.

If There Must Be Trouble, Let It Be In My Day, That My Child May Have Peace.

The United States Of America Will Sound As Pompously In The World Or In History As The Kingdom Of Great Britain.

For Freemen Like Brothers Agree; With One Spirit Endured, They One Friendship Pursued, And Their Temple Was Liberty Tree

Those Words, Temperate And Moderate, Are Words Either Of Political Cowardice, Or Of Cunning, Or Seduction. A Thing, Moderately Good Is Not So Good As It Ought To Be. Moderation In Temper, Is Always A Virtue; But Moderation In Principle, Is A Species Of Vice.

The Reformation Was Preceded By The Discovery Of America, As If The Almighty Graciously Meant To Open A Sanctuary To The Persecuted In Future Years, When Home Should Afford Neither Friendship Nor Safety.

The Nearer Any Disease Approaches To A Crisis, The Nearer It Is To A Cure. Danger And Deliverance Make Their Advances Together; And It Is Only In The Last Push That One Or The Other Takes The Lead.

The Moral Duty Of Man Consists Of Imitating The Moral Goodness And Beneficence Of God, Manifested In The Creation Towards All His Creatures. Everything Of Persecution And Revenge Between Man And Man, And Everything Of Cruelty To Animals Is A Violation Of Moral Duty

Government, Even In Its Best State, Is But A Necessary Evil; In Its Worst State, An Intolerable One.

The Bible: A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalise Mankind.

It Is The Duty Of Every Man, As Far As His Ability Extends, To Detect And Expose Delusion And Error.

The More Men Have To Lose, The Less Willing Are They To Venture.

It Is Easy To See That When Republican Virtue Fails, Slavery Ensues.

The State Of A King Shuts Him From The World, Yet The Business Of A King Requires Him To Know It Thoroughly.

All This [paul's Writing] Is Nothing Better Than The Jargon Of A Conjurer Who Picks Up Phrases He Does Not Understand To Confound The Credulous People Who Come To Have Their Fortune Told. Age Of Reason

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph. What We Obtain Too Cheap, We Esteem Too Lightly; It Is Dearness Only That Gives Everything Its Value. I Love The Man That Can Smile In Trouble, That Can Gather Strength From Distress And Grow Brave By Reflection. 'tis The Business Of Little Minds To Shrink; But He Whose Heart Is Firm, And Whose Conscience Approves His Conduct, Will Pursue His Principles Unto Death.

When All Other Rights Are Taken Away, The Right Of Rebellion Is Made Perfect.

Our Citizenship In The United States Is Our National Character. Our Citizenship In Any Particular State Is Only Our Local Distinction. By The Latter We Are Known At Home, By The Former To The World. Our Great Title Is Americans.

A Little Matter Will Move A Party, But It Must Be Something Great That Moves A Nation.

Government, Like Dress, Is The Badge Of Lost Innocence; The Palaces Of Kings Are Built On The Ruins Of The Bowers Of Paradise.

Taxes Were Not Raised To Carry On Wars, But That Wars Were Raised To Carry On Taxes.

The Christian Religion Begins With A Dream And Ends With A Murder.

The Instant Formal Government Is Abolished, Society Begins To Act. A General Association Takes Place, And Common Interest Produces Common Security.

It Is Often Said In The Bible That God Spake Unto Moses, But How Do You Know That God Spake Unto Moses? Because, You Will Say, The Bible Says So. The Koran Says, That God Spake Unto Mahomet, Do You Believe That Too? No. Why Not? Because, You Will Say, You Do Not Believe It; And So Because You Do, And Because You Don't Is All The Reason You Can Give For Believing Or Disbelieving Except That You Will Say That Mahomet Was An Impostor. And How Do You Know Moses Was Not An Impostor?

When It Becomes Necessary To Do A Thing, The Whole Heart And Soul Should Go Into The Measure, Or Not Attempt It.

Cultivation Is At Least One Of The Greatest Natural Improvements Ever Made By Human Invention. It Has Given To Created Earth A Tenfold Value. But The Landed Monopoly That Began With It Has Produced The Greatest Evil. It Has Dispossessed More Than Half The Inhabitants Of Every Nation Of Their Natural Inheritance, Without Providing For Them, As Ought To Have Been Done, An Indemnification For That Loss, And Has Thereby Created A Species Of Poverty And Wretchedness That Did Not Exist Before.

The Circumstances Of The World Are Continually Changing, And The Opinions Of Men Change Also; And As Government Is For The Living, And Not For The Dead, It Is The Living Only That Has Any Right In It. That Which May Be Thought Right And Found Convenient In One Age, May Be Thought Wrong And Found Inconvenient In Another. In Such Cases, Who Is To Decide, The Living, Or The Dead?

There Are Two Distinct Classes Of What Are Called Thoughts: Those That We Produce In Ourselves By Reflection And The Act Of Thinking And Those That Bolt Into The Mind Of Their Own Accord.

Tears May Soothe The Wounds They Cannot Heal.

The American Constitutions Were To Liberty, What A Grammar Is To Language: They Define Its Parts Of Speech, And Practically Construct Them Into Syntax

Those Who Knew Benjamin Franklin Will Recollect That His Mind Was Forever Young, His Temper Ever Serene; Science, That Never Grows Gray, Was Always His Mistress. He Was Never Without An Object, For When We Cease To Have An Object, We Become Like An Invalid In A Hospital Waiting For Death.

Mingling Religion With Politics May Be Disavowed And Reprobated By Every Inhabitant Of America.

People In General Know Not What Wickedness There Is In This Pretended Word Of God. Brought Up In Habits Of Superstition, They Take It For Granted That The Bible Is True, And That It Is Good; They Permit Themselves Not To Doubt Of It, And They Carry The Ideas They Form Of The Benevolence Of The Almighty To The Book Which They Have Been Taught To Believe Was Written By His Authority. Good Heavens! It Is Quite Another Thing; It Is A Book Of Lies, Wickedness, And Blasphemy.

It Is A Faculty Of The Human Mind To Become What It Contemplates, And To Act In Unison With Its Object.

The Countries The Most Famous And The Most Respected Of Antiquity Are Those Which Distinguished Themselves By Promoting And Patronizing Science, And On The Contrary Those Which Neglected Or Discouraged It Are Universally Denominated Rude And Barbarous.

I Do Not Believe In The Creed Professed By Any Church That I Know Of. Each Of These Churches Accuse The Other Of Unbelief; And For My Part, I Disbelieve Them All.

Prejudice Will Fall In A Combat With Interest.

...thomas Did Not Believe The Resurrection [john 20:25], And, As They Say, Would Not Believe Without Having Ocular And Manual Demonstration Himself. So Neither Will I, And The Reason Is Equally As Good For Me, And For Every Other Person, As For Thomas.

A Constitution, Therefore, Is To A Government What The Laws Made Afterwards By That Government Are To A Court Of Judicature. The Court Of Judicature Does Not Make The Laws, Neither Can It Alter Them; It Only Acts In Conformity To The Laws Made: And The Government Is In Like Manner Governed By The Constitution.

Universal Empire Is The Prerogative Of A Writer. His Concerns Are With All Mankind, And Though He Cannot Command Their Obedience,he Can Assign Them Their Duty. The Republic Of Letters Is More Ancient Than Monarchy, And Of Far Higher Character In The World Than The Vassal Court Of Britain.

To Establish Any Mode To Abolish War, However Advantageous It Might Be To Nations, Would Be To Take From Such Government The Most Lucrative Of Its Branches.

As To The Book Called The Bible, It Is Blasphemy To Call It The Word Of God. It Is A Book Of Lies And Contradictions And A History Of Bad Times And Bad Men.

Oppression Is Often The Consequence, But Seldom Or Never The Means Of Riches; And Tho' Avarice Will Preserve A Man From Being Necessitously Poor, It Generally Makes Him Too Timorous To Be Wealthy.

America Could Carry On A Two Years' War By The Confiscation Of The Property Of Disaffected Persons, And Be Made Happy By Their Expulsion. Say Not That This Is Revenge, Call It Rather The Soft Resentment Of A Suffering People, Who, Having No Object In View But The Good Of All, Have Staked Their Own All Upon A Seemingly Doubtful Event. Yet It Is Folly To Argue Against Determined Hardness; Eloquence May Strike The Ear, And The Language Of Sorrow Draw Forth The Tear Of Compassion, But Nothing Can Reach The Heart That Is Steeled With Prejudice.

A Man Does Not Serve God When He Prays, For It Is Himself He Is Trying To Serve

Titles Are Like A Magicians Wand Which Circumscribe Human Facility And Prevent Us From Living The Lives Of Man.

When A Man Has So Far Corrupted And Prostituted The Chastity Of His Mind, As To [profess] Things He Does Not Believe, He Has Prepared Himself For The Commission Of Every Other Crime.

Truth Never Envelops Itself In Mystery, And The Mystery In Which It Is At Any Time Enveloped Is The Work Of Its Antagonist, And Never Of Itself.

It Has Been The Political Career Of This Man To Begin With Hypocrisy, Proceed With Arrogance, And Finish With Contempt

He Who Dares Not Offend Cannot Be Honest.

When I See Throughout This Book, Called The Bible, A History Of The Grossest Vices And A Collection Of The Most Paltry And Contemptible Tales And Stories, I Could Not So Dishonor My Creator By Calling It By His Name.

Of All The Systems Of Religion That Ever Were Invented, There Is No More Derogatory To The Almighty, More Unedifiying To Man, More Repugnant To Reason, And More Contradictory To Itself Than This Thing Called Christianity.

From Such Beginnings Of Governments, What Could Be Expected, But A Continual System Of War And Extortion?

The Greatest Characters The World Has Known, Have Rose On The Democratic Floor. Aristocracy Has Not Been Able To Keep A Proportionate Pace With Democracy.

They Took Care To Represent Government As A Thing Made Up Of Mysteries, Which Only Themselves Understood, And They Hid From The Understanding Of The Nation, The Only Thing That Was Beneficial To Know, Namely, That Government Is Nothing More Than A National Association Acting On The Principles Of Society.

A Nation Under A Well Regulated Government, Should Permit None To Remain Uninstructed. It Is Monarchical And Aristocratical Government Only That Requires Ignorance For Its Support.

There Is Something Absurd In Supposing A Continent To Be Perpetually Governed By An Island.

Suspicion And Persecution Are Weeds Of The Same Dunghill, And Flourish Best Together.

The Word Of God Is The Creation We Behold: And It Is In This Word, Which No Human Invention Can Counterfeit Or Alter, That God Speaketh Universally To Man.

The Study Of Theology, As It Stands In The Christian Churches, Is The Study Of Nothing.

Great Part Of That Order Which Reigns Among Mankind Is Not The Effect Of Government. It Has Its Origin In The Principles Of Society And The Natural Constitution Of Man. It Existed Prior To Government, And Would Exist If The Formality Of Government Was Abolished. The Mutual Dependence And Reciprocal Interest Which Man Has Upon Man, And All The Parts Of Civilised Community Upon Each Other, Create That Great Chain Of Connection Which Holds It Together.

We Ought Therefore To Suspect That A Great Mass Of Information Respecting The Bible, And The Introduction Of It Into The World, Has Been Suppressed By The United Tyranny Of Church And State, For The Purpose Of Keeping People In Ignorance, And Which Ought To Be Known.

Titles Do Not Count With Posterity.

The Bible Is A Book That Has Been Read More And Examined Less Than Any Book That Ever Existed.

The Book Of Job And The 19th Psalm, Which Even The Church Admits To Be More Ancient Than The Chronological Order In Which They Stand In The Book Called The Bible, Are Theological Orations Conformable To The Original System Of Theology.

Yet This Is Trash That The Church Imposes Upon The World As The Word Of God; This Is The Collection Of Lies And Contradictions Called The Holy Bible! This Is The Rubbish Called Revealed Religion!

He Is Not Affected By The Reality Of Distress Touching His Heart, But By The Showy Resemblance Of It Striking His Imagination. He Pities The Plumage, But Forgets The Dying Bird.

Not All The Treasures Of The World, So Far As I Believe, Could Have Induced Me To Support An Offensive War, For I Think It Murder; But If A Thief Breaks Into My House, Burns And Destroys My Property, And Kills Or Threatens To Kill Me, Or Those That Are In It, And To "bind Me In All Cases Whatsoever" To His Absolute Will, Am I To Suffer It?

Wisdom Is Not The Purchase Of A Day

I Consider The War Of America Against Britain As The Country's War, The Public's War, Or The War Of The People In Their Own Behalf, For The Security Of Their Natural Rights, And The Protection Of Their Own Property.

There Is No Greater Tyranny Than That Of The Dead Over The Living.

Not A Place Upon Earth Might Be So Happy As America. Her Situation Is Remote From All The Wrangling World, And She Has Nothing To Do But To Trade With Them.

Society In Every State Is A Blessing, But Government Even In Its Best State Is But A Necessary Evil; In Its Worst State An Intolerable One; For When We Suffer, Or Are Exposed To The Same Miseries By A Government, Which We Might Expect In A Country Without Government, Our Calamity Is Heightened By Reflecting That We Furnish The Means By Which We Suffer.

Ye That Dare Oppose, Not Only Tyranny, But The Tyrant, Stand Forth!

...for Though The Flame Of Liberty May Sometimes Cease To Shine, The Coal Can Never Expire.

The Church Was Resolved To Have A New Testament, And As, After The Lapse Of More Than Three Hundred Years, No Handwriting Could Be Proved Or Disproved, The Church, Which Like Former Impostors Had Then Gotten Possession Of The State, Had Everything Its Own Way. It Invented Creeds, Such As That Called The Apostle's Creed, The Nicean Creed, The Athanasian Creed, And Out Of The Loads Of Rubbish That Were Presented It Voted Four To Be Gospels, And Others To Be Epistles, As We Now Find Them Arranged.

Wrong Cannot Have A Legal Descendant.

Panics, In Some Cases, Have Their Uses; They Produce As Much Good As Hurt. Their Duration Is Always Short; The Mind Soon Grows Through Them And Acquires A Firmer Habit Than Before. But Their Peculiar Advantage Is, That They Are The Touchstone Of Sincerity And Hypocrisy, And Bring Things And Men To Light, Which Might Have Lain Forever Undiscovered.

What Is It The Bible Teaches Us? -- Rapine, Cruelty, And Murder.

Founding Fathers Religion

The First Was A Government Of Priestcraft, The Second Of Conquerors, And The Third Of Reason.

A Man May Write Himself Out Of Reputation When Nobody Else Can Do It.

No Man Is Prejudiced In Favor Of A Thing, Knowing It To Be Wrong. He Is Attached To It On The Belief Of Its Being Right; And When He Sees It Is Not So, The Prejudice Will Be Gone.

In Reviewing The History Of The English Government, Its Wars And Its Taxes, A Bystander, Not Blinded By Prejudice Nor Warped By Interest, Would Declare That Taxes Were Not Raised To Carry On Wars, But That Wars Were Raised To Carry On Taxes.

We Feel Something Like Respect For Consistency Even In Error. We Lament The Virtue That Is Debauched Into A Vice; But The Vice That Affects A Virtue Becomes The More Detestable.

There Never Did, There Never Will, And There Never Can Exist A Parliament, Or Any Description Of Men, Or Any Generation Of Men, In Any Country, Possessed Of The Right Or The Power Of Binding And Controlling Posterity To The 'end Of Time,' Or Of Commanding For Ever How The World Shall Be Governed, Or Who Shall Govern It. Every Age And Generation Must Be As Free To Act For Itself, In All Cases, As The Ages And Generations Which Preceded It.

I Detest The Bible As I Detest Everything That Is Cruel.

Every Age And Generation Must Be As Free To Act For Itself.

I Have Never Made It A Consideration Whether The Subject Was Popular Or Unpopular, But Whether It Was Right Or Wrong; For That Which Is Right Will Become Popular, And That Which Is Wrong, Though By Mistake It May Obtain The Cry Or Fashion Of The Day, Will Soon Lose The Power Of Delusion, And Sink Into Disesteem.

There Is A Natural Firmness In Some Minds, Which Cannot Be Unlocked By Trifles, But Which, When Unlocked, Discovers A Cabinet Of Fortitude.

It Is The Madness Of Folly, To Expect Mercy From Those Who Have Refused To Do Justice; And Even Mercy, Where Conquest Is The Object, Is Only A Trick Of War; The Cunning Of The Fox Is As Murderous As The Violence Of The Wolf.

The Guilt Of A Government Is The Crime Of A Whole Country.

Every Tory Is A Coward; For Servile, Slavish, Self-interested Fear Is The Foundation Of Toryism; And A Man Under Such Influence, Though He May Be Cruel, Never Can Be Brave.

Civilization, Or That Which Is So Called, Has Operated Two Ways To Make One Part Of Society More Affluent And The Other Part More Wretched Than Would Have Been The Lot Of Either In A Natural State.

He Who Is The Author Of A War Lets Loose The Whole Contagion Of Hell And Opens A Vein That Bleeds A Nation To Death.

It Is, I Believe, Impossible To Find In Any Story Upon Record So Many And Such Glaring Absurdities, Contradictions, And Falsehoods, As Are In The Books [the Gospels Of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John]. They Are More Numerous And Striking Than I Had Any Expectation Of Finding, When I Began This Examination.

Whence Arose All The Horrid Assassinations Of Whole Nations Of Men, Women, And Infants, With Which The Bible Is Filled; And The Bloody Persecutions, And Tortures Unto Death, And Religiosu Wars, That Since That Time Have Laid Europe In Blood And Ashes; Whence Arose They, But From This Impious Thing Called Religion, And This Monstrous Belief That God Has Spoken To Man?

The Most Extraordinary Of All The Things Called Miracles, Related In The New Testament, Is That Of The Devil Flying Away With Jesus Christ, And Carrying Him To The Top Of A High Mountain; And To The Top Of The Highest Pinnacle Of The Temple, And Showing Him And Promising To Him All The Kingdoms Of The World . How Happened It That He Did Not Discover America? Or Is It Only With Kingdoms That His Sooty Highness Has Any Interest.

We Do Not Admit The Authority Of The Church With Respect To Its Pretended Infallibility, Its Manufactured Miracles, Its Setting Itself Up To Forgive Sins. It Was By Propagating That Belief And Supporting It With Fire That She Kept Up Her Temporal Power.

The Creation Speaks A Universal Language, Independent Of Human Speech Or Human Language, Multiplied And Various As They Be. It Is An Ever-existing Original, Which Every Man Can Read. It Cannot Be Forged; It Cannot Be Counterfeited; It Cannot Be Lost; It Cannot Be Altered; It Cannot Be Suppressed. It Does Not Depend Upon The Will Of Man Whether It Shall Be Published Or Not; It Publishes Itself From One End Of The Earth To The Other. It Preaches To All Nations And To All Worlds; And This Word Of God Reveals To Man All That Is Necessary For Man To Know Of God.

It Is A Position Not To Be Controverted, That The Earth ... Was And Ever Would Have Continued To Be, The Common Property Of The Human Race.

But Such Is The Irresistable Nature Of Truth, That All It Asks, And All It Wants Is The Liberty Of Appearing.

It Will Be Proper To Take A Review Of The Several Sources From Which Governments Have Arisen, And On Which They Have Been Founded.

Customs Will Often Outlive The Remembrance Of Their Origin.

Positive Atheism

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls. The Summer Soldier And The Sunshine Patriot Will, In This Crisis, Shrink From The Service Of His Country; But He That Stands It Now, Deserves The Love And Thanks Of Man And Woman.

If Anything Had Or Could Have A Value Equal To Gold And Silver, It Would Require No Tender Law; And If It Had Not That Value It Ought Not To Have Such A Law; And, Therefore, All Tender Laws Are Tyrannical And Unjust And Calculated To Support Fraud And Oppression.

Everything Wonderful In Appearance Has Been Ascribed To Angels, To Devils, Or To Saints. Everything Ancient Has Some Legendary Tale Annexed To It. The Common Operations Of Nature Have Not Escaped Their Practice Of Corrupting Everything.

Aristocracy Has A Tendency To Degenerate The Human Species.

My Country Is The World, And My Religion Is To Do Good.

There Are Matters In The Bible, Said To Be Done By The Express Commandment Of God, That Are Shocking To Humanity And To Every Idea We Have Of Moral Justice.

Mutual Fear Is A Principal Link In The Chain Of Mutual Love.

I Had Come To Realize The Importance Of The Nation, And Of Shared, Communal, Social Responsibility, To Be Held As Equally Important As Individual Concerns. The Elderly, The Widowed, Newly Married Couples, The Poor, The Unemployed, Disbanded Soldiers And Children, Who Would Be Required To Attend School, Must Be Provided For From State Funds. And All This Support Is Not The Nature Of Charity, But Of A Right.

A Constitution Is Not The Act Of A Government, But Of A People Constituting A Government; And Government Without A Constitution Is Power Without A Right. All Power Exercised Over A Nation, Must Have Some Beginning. It Must Be Either Delegated, Or Assumed. There Are Not Other Sources. All Delegated Power Is Trust, And All Assumed Power Is Usurpation. Time Does Not Alter The Nature And Quality Of Either.

When The Tongue Or The Pen Is Let Loose In A Frenzy Of Passion, It Is The Man, And Not The Subject, That Becomes Exhausted.

It Is A Fraud Of The Christian System To Call The Sciences Human Invention; It Is Only The Application Of Them That Is Human.

Man Must Go Back To Nature For Information.

Religion Is A History Of Wickedness That Has Served To Corrupt And Brutalize Humankind; And, For My Part, I Sincerely Detest It As I Detest Everything That Is Cruel.

Thus Commerce, Though In Itself A Moral Nullity, Has Had A Considerable Influence In Tempering The Human Mind....he Trades With The Same Countries ...(that He) Would Have Gone To War With.

The Strength And Power Of Despotism Consists Wholly In The Fear Of Resistance.

To Argue With A Person Who Has Renounced The Use Of Reason Is Like Administering Medicine To The Dead.

A World Of Little Cares Is Continually Arising, Which Busy Or Affluent Life Knows Nothing Of, To Open The First Door To Distress. Hunger Is Not Among The Postponable Wants; And A Day, Even A Few Hours, In Such A Condition Is Often The Crisis Of A Life Of Ruin.

Public Money Ought To Be Touched With The Most Scrupulous Conscientiousness Of Honor. It Is Not The Produce Of Riches Only, But Of The Hard Earnings Of Labor And Poverty. It Is Drawn Even From The Bitterness Of Want And Misery. Not A Beggar Passes, Or Perishes In The Streets, Whose Mite Is Not In That Mass.

The Christian Religion Is A Parody On The Worship Of The Sun, In Which They Put A Man Called Christ In The Place Of The Sun, And Pay Him The Adoration Originally Payed To The Sun.

To Take Away (voting) Is To Reduce A Man To Slavery.

The Essential Psychological Requirement Of A Free Society Is The Willingness On The Part Of The Individual To Accept Responsibility For His Life. - Edith Packer When The Government Fears The People, It Is Liberty. When The People Fear The Government, It Is Tyranny.

The Christian Church Has Set Up A Religion Of Pomp And Revenue In Pretended Imitation Of A Person (jesus) Who Lived A Life Of Poverty.

For All Men Being Originally Equals, No One By Birth Could Have The Right To Set Up His Own Family In Perpetual Preference To All Others Forever, And Tho' Himself Might Deserve Some Decent Degree Of Honours Of His Cotemporaries, Yet His Descendants Might Be Far Too Unworthy To Inherit Them.

The Final Event To Himself Has Been, That As He Rose Like A Rocket, He Fell Like The Stick.

An Avidity To Punish Is Always Dangerous To Liberty. It Leads Men To Stretch, To Misinterpret, And To Misapply Even The Best Of Laws.

Toleration Is Not The Opposite Of Intoleration, But It Is The Counterfeit Of It. Both Are Despotisms. The One Assumes To Itself The Right Of Withholding Liberty Of Conscience, And The Other Of Granting It. The One Is The Pope, Armed With Fire And Fagot, And The Other Is The Pope Selling Or Granting Indulgences.

We Repose An Unwise Confidence In Any Government, Or In Any Men, When We Invest Them Officially With Too Much, Or An Unnecessary Quantity Of, Discretionary Power.

The Harder The Conflict, The More Glorious The Triumph. I Love The Man That Can Smile In Trouble, That Can Gather Strength From Distress And Grow.

The Error Of Those Who Reason By Precedents Drawn From Antiquity, Respecting The Rights Of Man, Is That They Do Not Go Far Enough Into Antiquity.

A Share In Two Revolutions Is Living To Some Purpose.

For The Fate Of Charles The First, Hath Only Made Kings More Subtle — Not More Just.

Virtues Are Acquired Through Endeavor, Which Rests Wholly Upon Yourself. So, To Praise Others For Their Virtues Can But Encourage One's Own Efforts.

It Is From Our Enemies That We Often Gain Excellent Maxims, And Are Frequently Surprised Into Reason By Their Mistakes.

It Is From The Power Of Taxation Being In The Hands Of Those Who Can Throw So Great A Part Of It From Their Own Shoulders, That It Has Raged Without A Check.

Common Sense Will Tell Us, That The Power Which Hath Endeavoured To Subdue Us, Is Of All Others, The Most Improper To Defend Us.

Commerce Diminishes The Spirit, Both Of Patriotism And Military Defence.

There Is Existing In Man, A Mass Of Sense Lying In A Dormant State. The Construction Of Government Ought To Be Such As To Bring Forward, By A Quiet And Regular Operation, All That Extent Of Capacity.

It Is Far Better That We Admitted A Thousand Devils To Roam At Large Than That We Permitted One Such Imposter And Monster As Moses, Joshua, Samuel, And The Bible Prophets, To Come With The Pretended Word Of God And Have Credit Among Us.

If Those To Whom Power Is Delegated Do Well, They Will Be Respected; If Not, They Will Be Despised.

It Is A Fool Only, And Not The Philosopher, Nor Even The Prudent Man, That Will Live As If There Were No God... Were A Man Impressed As Fully And Strongly As He Ought To Be With The Belief Of A God, His Moral Life Would Be Regulated By The Force Of Belief; He Would Stand In Awe Of God And Of Himself, And Would Not Do The Thing That Could Not Be Concealed From Either.

I Prefer Peace. But If Trouble Must Come, Let It Come In My Time, So That My Children Can Live In Peace.

There Is A Happiness In Deism, When Rightly Understood, That Is Not To Be Found Inany Other System Of Religion. All Other Systems Have Something In Them That Either Shock Our Reason, Or Are Repugnant To It, And Man, If He Thinks At All, Must Stifle His Reason In Order To Force Himself To Believe Them.

As Priestcraft Was Always The Enemy Of Knowledge, Because Priestcraft Supports Itself By Keeping People In Delusion And Ignorance, It Was Consistent With Its Policy To Make The Acquisition Of Knowledge A Real Sin.

Practical Religion Consists In Doing Good: And The Only Way Of Serving God Is That Of Endeavoring To Make His Creation Happy. All Preaching That Has Not This For Its Object Is Nonsense And Hypocrisy.

The Christian Religion And Masonry Have One And The Same Common Origin: Both Are Derived From The Worship Of The Sun. The Difference Between Their Origin Is, That The Christian Religion Is A Parody On The Worship Of The Sun, In Which They Put A Man Whom They Call Christ, In The Place Of The Sun, And Pay Him The Same Adoration Which Was Originally Paid To The Sun.

Men Who Look Upon Themselves Born To Reign, And Others To Obey, Soon Grow Insolent; Selected From The Rest Of Mankind Their Minds Are Early Poisoned By Importance.

Arms, Like Laws, Discourage And Keep The Invader And Plunderer In Awe And Preserve Order.

Wisdom Degenerates In Governments As Governments Increase In Age.

The Nt, Compared With The Old, Is Like A Farce Of One Act.

It Is Error Only, And Not Truth, That Shrinks From Inquiry.

Politics And Self-interest Have Been So Uniformly Connected, That The World, From Being So Often Deceived, Has A Right To Be Suspicious Of Public Characters.

The Intimacy Which Is Contracted In Infancy, And Friendship Which Is Formed In Misfortune, Are, Of All Others, The Most Lasting And Unalterable.

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