A handbook of Freethought : $b containing in condensed and systematized form a vast amount of evidence against the superstitious doctrines of Christianity
Religion
A handbook of Freethought : $b containing in condensed and systematized form a vast amount of evidence against the superstitious doctrines of Christianity
Christianity -- Controversial literature; Free thought
Adore and tremble, for your God
Is a consuming fire;
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher.
Almighty vengeance, how it burns!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for his foes.
These grisly rhymes full of horrors are found in one of Watt's hymn
books written in England in the early part of the last century,
but they are omitted from all modern hymn books.
Tertullian finds great joy in the idea of seeing his enemies in hell.
"What shall be the magnitude of that scene! How shall I laugh! How
shall I rejoice! How shall I triumph when I behold so many and such
illustrious kings, who were said to have mounted into heaven, groaning
with Jupiter their god, in the lowest darkness of hell." (Quoted by
Lecky, "Rationalism in Europe," vol. 1, p. 329.)
"One great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to
have been commanded by God, but all the cruelties recounted in the
Old Testament ceased with death. The vengeance of Jehovah stopped at
the portal of the tomb. He never threatened to avenge himself upon
the dead; and not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the
last curse of Malachi, contains the slightest intimation that God
will punish in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament
to make known the frightful doctrine of eternal pain. It was the
teacher of universal benevolence who rent the veil between time and
eternity, and fixed the horrified gaze of man on the lurid gulfs of
hell. Within the breast of non-resistance was coiled the worm that
never dies." (Ingersoll's Reply to Black.)
"Is it necessary that heaven should borrow its light from the glare
of hell? Infinite punishment is infinite cruelty, endless injustice,
immortal meanness. To worship an eternal gaoler hardens, debases,
and pollutes the soul. While there is one sad and breaking heart in
the universe, no perfectly good being can be perfectly happy. Against
the heartlessness of this doctrine every grand and generous soul
should enter its solemn protest. I want no part in any heaven where
the saved, the ransomed, and the redeemed drown with merry shout the
cries and sobs of hell--in which happiness forgets misery--where the
tears of the lost increase laughter and deepen the dimples of joy. The
idea of hell was born of ignorance, brutality, fear, cowardice, and
revenge. This idea tends to show that our remote ancestors were the
lowest beasts. Only from dens, lairs, and caves--only from mouths
filled with cruel fangs--only from hearts of fear and hatred--only
from the conscience of hunger and lust--only from the lowest and
most debased, could come this most cruel, heartless, and absurd of
all dogmas." (Ingersoll's Reply to Black.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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