"One man will tell you that God is a Roman Catholic, another that he is a Presbyterian, another that he is a Baptist, and so on. One man will say that he is a Republican, another that he is a single taxer, another that he is a Socialist, and so on. What we must come to see is, that nothing is done in human society that is not done by men. Poverty must be destroyed, not because it is God's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. And general wealth must be achieved, not because it is God's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. Beware of those men who tell you what is or what is not the will of God. In every case you will find a person who is intellectually asleep, or half asleep, or mentally dishonest, or else you will find--and this is more likely--a priest or a politician, a person who wants to get you to not think about what he is teaching you. We have been dragged through enough mire and blood and darkness doing things according to the will of God. It is now time we began to think things out for ourselves."--Pentecost. "Mr. Barnum said that Christians had a different way of thinking about God now from that of fifty years ago. 'When I first heard of the doctrine of the Universalists,' said he, 'I felt so utterly astonished that I thought I'd drop dead in my boots. The orthodox faith painted God as so revengeful a being that you could hardly distinguish the difference between God and the Devil. If I had almighty power and could take a pebble and give it life, knowing beforehand that fifty-nine seconds out of every sixty would be extreme misery, I would be a monster. Yet this is how God was described, and people talk about loving such a being.'" (Newspaper clipping.) Atheism. 1. Something (substance) must have always been, or anything could not now be. 2. Then this something was eternal, and hence self-existent. 3. Since self-existent and eternal, it must have been infinite, and hence was everything existing everywhere. 4. Therefore, all that is, has always been; that is, everything has eternally existed everywhere.