Christianity Is Incompatible With American Liberty
Christianity Is Incompatible With American Liberty
The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the bible.
Artificial Intelligence generated this artwork.
Christianity cannot live in peace with any form of faith. Such a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive, and insolent. Our liberty is not safe in the hands of any church, and wherever the bible and government are in partnership, the people are enslaved.
It is the real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people, filling this world with bigotry, hypocrisy, and fear. In it, you will find no description of a civilized home. The free mother surrounded by free and loving children, adorned by a free man, was unknown to the inspired writers of the bible. They did not believe in democracy.
The bible is opposed to religious toleration—to religious liberty. Whoever differed with the majority was stoned to death. Husbands were ordered to assist in killing their unbelieving wives. “Thou shalt make no graven image” is a direct enemy of the First Amendment.
We know the bible is not civilized. God condones and encourages lying, larceny, robbery, murder, and human sacrifice. Would a civilized God cover his altar with the blood of oxen, lambs, and doves? Would a Civilized God make all its priests butchers? Did God delight in the smell of burning flesh? Did these actions come from a heart of love or the mouth of savagery? Is Jehovah a god or a devil?
Our liberty is not safe in the hands of any church, and wherever the bible and government are in partnership, the people are enslaved.
Has man in his ignorance and fear ever imagined a greater monster? Have the barbarians of any land, at any time, worshipped a more heartless god? They forget his ignorance and savagery, hatred of liberty, and endless and violent religious persecution.
And yet some will still argue that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law, which could not be more absurd. How much grander would the Ten Commandments have been if Jehovah had been civilized?
He would have replaced the commandment about keeping the sabbath with “Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men.”
But he did not.
He could have omitted the one about graven images and said, “Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defense.”
But he did not.
All that we call progress has been achieved despite the Old Testament, and the bible is not any closer to being right in its ideas of justice, mercy, or morality than in its conception of the sciences. It makes no mention of liberty, democracy, or freedom.
Is it moral? No. It upholds slavery. In war, it commanded the extermination of the sick, the elderly, the women, the children, and the unborn. Hundreds of offenses were punished with death. Picking up sticks on Sunday and murdering your Father on Monday were equal crimes.
Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery. Think of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post. This was done, remember, in the name of civilization, in the name of law and order, in the name of mercy, in the name of religion, in the name of the most merciful Christ. If there is a God, there should be no slavery, and yet our “Christian nation” clung to the institution as others ended the violent practice.
Science, the only possible savior of humanity, must give women the power to decide for themselves whether they will or will not become a mother.
There is no book with a bloodier code. The law of revenge is the law of Jehovah. The bible is a book of savagery, not philosophy, and we know, if we know anything, that this book was written by savages who used religion to enforce slavery, hate, war, sexism, and genocide. They believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised free thought. They abhorred liberty. They feared equality.
These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of human rights. They were the advocates of brute force—disciples of the lash. They knew nothing of the rights of children, and if we wish to find what the bible thinks of women, all that is necessary is to read it.
We will find that she is spoken of simply as property—as belonging absolutely to the man. Within its lids is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. As long as women regard the bible as the charter of their rights, they will be the slave of man.
Science must make the woman the owner of herself. Science, the only possible savior of humanity, must give women the power to decide for themselves whether they will or will not become a mother.
As long as men and women are afraid of the church, the minister inspires fear, the church has power, and humankind worships this book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants covered with the soiled and faded rags of superstition.
Millions have regarded this book as the foundation of all human progress and, at the same time, looked upon slavery as a divine institution. Millions have declared this book infinitely holy, and to prove that they were right, they have imprisoned, robbed, and burned their fellow men.
The believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world, and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God.
The inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword and fire, by dungeon, chain and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell and bribed with promises of heaven to believe in it.
The bible has polluted the hearts of children and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain and perpetual terror to every good man, woman, and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear, but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base.
It contains pages that no minister in the United States would read to his congregation for any reward. There are narratives utterly unfit to be told, and the time will come when humanity will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired.
The believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world, and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God. This doctrine should never be preached again. And do not, I pray you, soil the minds of your American children with this foreign, fascist dogma.
If you made it this far, you might be relieved to learn that these aren't my words—not entirely. I remixed numerous selections from Republican Robert Green Ingersoll's body of work into a thematic essay. Most passages came from three of his speeches: Some Mistakes of Moses; The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child; and About the Holy Bible. A few others originated from a smattering of his other works collected in 12 volumes.
I implore you to read him in full. Ingersoll was one of the most well-known Americans in the late 19th century, giving speeches on religion, literature, and history across the country to millions of people. He was an early advocate for women's suffrage, contraception, and labor rights. Read him to see a different side of American history, and come to your own conclusions.
Help Spread the Word!
If you’re new to this newsletter, why not subscribe? Enjoy articles like this and many more for free!
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please help others find this amazing content by sharing it. Thank you!