For nearly two thousand years Christianity has done its utmost to sustain the fiction portion as being absolutely true, and still it teaches these absurdities to be true, and anyone doubting their accuracy is liable to persecution. For every doubter of the current belief, whether in ancient or modern times, is subject to discipline of the church to which he belongs. Recently in our own city many have been subjected to a mild form of persecution for doubting. They were declared to be heretics, blasphemers, etc. I speak of such men as Dr. Newton, Dr. Briggs, and others. Yet, we must concede that every organization has a right to judge as to the qualifications of any one of its members, especially if he is an office-holder. They may reject or accept any member. But since his membership depends on whether he believes in their mode of interpreting this fiction, he must say that he believes it, and proclaim to others that it is true, though he knows it is not. Nothing on earth has given rise to so much dispute, angry quarrel, bitter hatred and abuse, as this fiction. It has been the cause of more villainy, brutality, massacres, and bloody wars than all matters that concern humanity put together. Science universally agrees that the biblical story has not a particle of truth in it; and the older it gets the more it suffers, the weaker it gets, and it finally must undergo complete dissipation, in the presence of the strong light of natural truth. We have a great deal to be thankful for, to have and to enjoy the privilege, the freedom, of exercising and giving expression to opinions concerning matters that have been considered too sacred to be contradicted or criticised. The time has come, or is coming very fast, that we shall be able to dispense with God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the Bible as a sacred text-book, both the Old and New Testament. In order to do this we must examine some portion of its text. We should do this for educational purposes. Every man and woman should acquire a proper amount of knowledge, to enable them to think for themselves. Every person knows, or ought to know, that priest and preacher are especially educated to keep the masses as ignorant as they can possibly keep them. It is their trade. It is their bread and butter, like that of every other trade or profession--it is their business, their function, their profit, to sustain and uphold this tottering fabric, this hollow sham, this aerial nothing, with not a truth, not even a shadow of a truth, to support it. Chapter i, verse 1, of Genesis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." Verse 2: "The earth was without form and void." (1) God could not have created the earth, as a planet distinct and separate by itself. This terrestrial globe belongs to a system of planets, and they are all not only dependent on one another, but all dependent on the sun for their existence.