Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other EssaysWashburn, L. K. (Lemuel Kelley)
Religion
Is The Bible Worth Reading, and Other Essays
Washburn, L. K. (Lemuel Kelley)
Free thought
Now, let us admit that humanity needs a wiser purpose to guide it, but let
us also admit that it can be found in a wiser human head and human heart.
If what is called the infinite purpose is working for the highest end of
human life, there is no evidence of the fact. If there is anything better
than human energy back of a good human thought that will help this world,
we do not know what it is.
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The man who accepts the faith of Calvin is miserable in proportion to the
extent he carries it out.
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Whatever tends to prolong the existence of ignorance or to prevent the
recognition of knowledge is dangerous to the well-being of the human race.
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A higher respect for man has been one of the chief promoters of
civilization. Advancement has always been toward right and truth when the
ranks were imbued with a proper regard for human hearts and human
happiness.
FREETHOUGHT COMMANDS
Say nothing about others that you would not have others say about you.
Be severe toward yourself; be kind to your fellow-man.
Do not give advice that you cannot follow.
Do not thank God for what man does.
Serve neither God nor Mammon, but humanity alone.
Do not try to be perfect as a "Father in heaven," but try to be better
than you yourself are.
Seek first to improve the earth, and heaven will be of less consequence.
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Let us not forget that men speak according to the measure of their
knowledge and light, and that a superior enlightenment is a higher
authority.
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History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and nothing so hard
to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the double enemy of
civilization. By its servility it is the prey of tyranny, and by its
credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.
A RAINBOW RELIGION
There is little doubt that the faith of the early Christians was what
might be classed under the head of rainbow religion. We learn from the New
Testament that it was taught that those who accepted the faith held by
John and Jesus and Paul were in some peculiar manner to be protected from
the common ills of life, and were to be especial favorites of their
“Father in heaven.” How sincerely this faith was held we cannot now
determine, nor to what extent it was put into practice, but that it
possessed the mind in a considerable degree there is no room whatever to
doubt. But this is not the question that we want settled, but rather the
value of this faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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