Continued...

8.     As I age, past experiences leads my mind to contemplate political and religious conundrums, e.g., humanity’s obeisance to King Josiah’s vengeful “God”, which for 2600 years, prompted us to pusillanimously wallow in the self-deprecating, idea that humans and other species were deposited in full bloom on Earth, by a superhuman god, for a special purpose; subjugating each of us forever. The tortuous ratiocinations required to justify Josiah’s tribal propaganda as divine revelation are not warranted, as the successful Abrahamic faiths spread bogus beliefs worldwide. Religion’s incongruity, combined with our imagination, ignorance and fear was unfathomable; we instinctively conceded to a god’s political promoters and saved our lives by acquiescing to specious beliefs, but blind-faith has been our Nemesis, i.e., “The goddess of retributive justice; anyone or anything by which one must inevitably be defeated or frustrated”.

9.     The god-idea is as old as our primitive cognition; based on fears and imagination, it explained and confirmed our relationship to all we failed to comprehend. Taught to children, it increased believers at the exponential rate of population multiplicity. Humanity’s history of despoliation, torture and malicious, killing in the name of their god, all of which today’s ignorant believers are unaware, belies reasons for berating us nonbelievers who are more sagacious, discerning and erudite about “God”  than our protagonists, the misinformed proponents of “Creationism” and “Intelligent Design”.

10.   Abrahamic faiths succeeded because their gods commanded that nonbelievers, apostates and blasphemers must die. Believers are unaware that Abrahamic faiths were extrapolated from King Josiah’s tribal propaganda. For 2000 years Judaism and Christianity were monarchal theocracies; like the Islamic regimes. Religion’s essence is male superiority; responsible for contentious global divisions, but our diplomatic, perspicacious women will resolve our religious and racial distinctions. In addition to generating new lives, women’s sensibilities and capabilities equal those of men, except for brute strength and male sperm. Free man of obligations, provide adequate sex and a little sustenance and, like stallions, he can be domesticated. Males were intrigued with matriarchal life and miraculous god-ideas. When King Josiah required a monotheistic god to manage his restive subjects, it had to be like man; therefore “God’s” vanity, jealousy and vindictive prejudices; creating a partnership; women weren’t included, an unfortunate oversight. The bible’s god’s inconsideration of women was concocted by males. Men’s blind faith in a vengeful, egomaniacal, tyrannical tho mythical male god, rather than our intelligent, empathetic, sensuously beautiful, real women, is inexplicably perverse and stupid.

 

11.     The Abrahamic faiths’ history of inquisitions, persecutions, stonings, burnings, beheadings and religious wars, all in the name of their god, belies their claims of godliness. They worship King Josiah’s despicable god; we can’t blame religion’s militancy on a fictional god character; the problems are men’s imaginations, testosterone and conspiratorial minds. Religions’ perceived militancy is that of man; his indifference to its past persecutions, degradation and killing only adds to the confusion, amid questions about religion’s purpose. They, hypocritically, avoid references to their less than holy past and present gods as sacred; supported by billions who inherited misguided beliefs without investigating the god vs. secularism situation. If there is a god and a heaven, it’s reasonable to assume we would be allowed a more sensible arrangement, as unsubstantiated theories, concepts, etc. are invalid, even though they were conjured by the ancients. “Illusion and faith aren’t sensible substitutions for sound science”, which accepts only the provable; advancing knowledge, but Abrahamic religions are obstructive, stagnant, backward, waste- lands of hypocrisy; unable, for 2600 years, to add to world knowledge. Islamic fundamental totalitarianism remains in the 7^th century CE when Mohammad claimed Hebrew archangel; Gabriel revealed his koran’s precepts. The region had once been a progressive knowledgeable civilization, but today’s Islamic regimes are theocratic tyrannies, exporting “sacred” terrorism and enforcing sharai law. After its numerous historic religious wars, Western Europe forewent the Abrahamic religions’ illogical divisiveness and formed their secular European Union.

 12.     We are a plague that has infested the Earth’s skin, an infestation of organisms consuming our host while we contemplate global agreements on ways to avoid self-destruction before our host collapses. Alternatively, we may be a malignancy, developing at the exponential rate of population multiplicity. When our host becomes uninhabitable, we will need to move onto another host and begin a new infestation. Globally, we haven’t considered mutually agreeable plans to further enhance our tolerance of each other’s ethnic peculiarities. Earth accepted the single cell microorganisms of life and nourished them for billions of years while they developed into our numerous species of animal life; microscopic viries and bacteria, plus the aquatic, the avian, and mammals including us. All life depends upon global willingness to agree to stabilize and reverse our thoughtless destruction of the Earth’s natural benevolence. We’ve adapted and thrived beyond expectations and our infestation is beyond humane control. We’ve polluted two of life’s necessities, air and water, and must convince global nations to take emergency measures that require compliant agreements to eliminate all elements contributing to global divisiveness or else humankind must anticipate our irreversible extermination as an endangered species.

13.     People believe because they don’t know any better. Our lexicon is rife with words meaning unreal or unknown, which may be used to describe a pseudo universe devoid of human knowledge, where organized religion’s alliance has staked its unholy claim and touts its worthless stock to gullible congregations. Religions allusion to supernaturalism’s gods, ghosts, etc. is unfamiliar territory and opens unlimited fields of thought just as extensive and complex as we will allow our imagination to develop. It’s a fertile field on which to grow fairytales, visions, claims of gods, etc. For instance: if you compose a fable of your grandparent’s adventures with a miracle working god and your ignorant friends believe it and teach their children, and they, teach it to their children ad finitum, believers will about double each generation. A millennium later, innumerable ones will support your fable as factual. If believers have been killing nonbelievers, a majority will have developed a blind-faith and believe your fable is true; that God exists because multitudes, regularly, grovel on their knees, worshipping it.

14.     The Abrahamic faiths credit humanity’s beneficence to “God”, but in reading the bible there is no benevolent god; the Pentateuch portrays the god as a mad monstrous killer, but Religion-Lites prestigious professional proponents credit a god with our moral code. I disagree; the professionals began as jungle scam artists and for millennia aided despotic monarchs and aristocracy by sanctifying their murders of apostates, blasphemers, nonbelievers, proponents of other gods, etc.; all in an attempt to coerce people into ignorant submission. Our concern should be for each other from whom all goodness flows. Our primitive evolutionary experiences developed conviviality and consideration for our fellow humans along with our Moral Code and Golden Rule; primitive guides to morality, kindness, empathy and maternal love which evolved millennia before King Josiah’s god-Yahweh produced its Ten Commandments in Exodus 20: 2-17; eleven  verses, (2-12), pertain to the god’s egomania, leaving only five verses for killing, adultery, stealing, lying and coveting thy neighbor’s possessions.

15.     Among our human masses, ignorance, misinformation and religions flourish; they worship supernatural gods, known only via conjecture, ruse, subterfuge, and lies. Their blind faith in the illogical reveals mortal fears of exclusion by Father, Son or Holy Ghost; similar to Hindu’s supreme trinity. Brahma created the universe, Vishnu is Preserver and Siva is the god of destruction and reproduction. Holy Ghost is undefined. Realistically, the unholy trinity I have gleaned from my 95 years and the Abrahamic religion’s despicable history is: “ignorance, dogma & despotism”.

16.    Abrahamic faiths have no knowledgeable facts; their biblical fables reveal how King Josiah misled our ancestors into believing their salvation required them to torture and murder all those unwilling to obey Josiah’s monotheistic god. Religion’s responsibility for the millions slaughtered by our ancestors, in “God’s” name, is an irreconcilable stain on our collective conscience. I have learned how god-ideas became imbedded in primitive minds amid vast ignorance, and developed religion’s malevolent history. Our delusions, concerning humankind’s purpose, began in primitive times when non-comprehension was explained by the occult powers of mythical gods; there’s no evidence supporting simple-minded solutions devised by primitive imaginations. As I became more familiar with bible’s tyrannical god’s methods for dealing with nonbelievers, critics, etc., curiosity led me to search for why the god was portrayed as vain, vile, vicious, and vengeful and why was man so enthralled with the idea of an immoral violent god? I found that man had created all gods, and was especially enamored with the bible’s god because man had created that particular god in his own exalted, self-image, the perfect male, mean spirited, ready to destroy all who failed to worship the god’s egomania; I learned of the bible’s contrived godliness; its mythology, false prophesies and inherent fallacies. The only goodness in our semi-civilized world comes from fellow humans; we must be tolerant and respectful of each other.  Confucius said: “We are all the same except for our experiences”, but Abrahamic faiths’ intolerant divisive “Gods” are incompatible with our desire to become undiscriminating and inclusive. Gods are offered by their prestigious professional proponents as man’s ideal of holy behavior, but the bible’s Pentateuch does not support them. There is no “God”, heaven, etc. Religion’s gift to man is “hell on Earth” with its deceptive professional proponents. It is wrong to believe threats of hell and promises of eternal life prevent our becoming uncivilized and backward, because the Islamic regimes are the most uncivilized, violent, backward and most religiously devout societies on Earth.

17.     Our only exposure to supernaturalism is in the Holy Books and other fairytales. Supernaturalism is religion’s subterfuge; so why do we worship supernatural gods and why are civilized societies guided by King Josiah’s vengeful dogma?  The bible’s “God” is portrayed as a perfidious tyrant; but believers attribute all goodness to the spurious evil aberration.

 18.     My reasoning is derived from the diametrically opposed positions of King Josiah of Judah, and Charles Robert Darwin, the nineteenth century English author of, On the Origin of Species and of, The Descent of Man. My remarks are unambiguous; uncomplicated by Deuteronomistic History’s convoluted meaninglessness and its consequential theological dogma. As blind-faith reveals more trust in our ignorance than our intellect, I’ll explain how religion’s irrationality came from man’s conspiratorial ruminations, wishful thinking and persistent search for propositions to exploit his fellow man. So when our political leaders promised us suckers eternal life; we didn’t challenge it. Since superstitions ruled the land; we have deceived our stupid selves about the god problem. Our imagination led us to follow leaders espousing a close personal relationship to a fearsome tho specious god. King Josiah’s unabashed desire to unify, inspire and motivate his war weary subjects, led him to deceive them with an epical fable about the personal relationship of their miracle working tribal god, with their mythological ancestors very ingeniously portrayed as Josiah’s political and religious scholars “retrospectively imagined it all should have been”.

19.     Abrahamic faiths promulgate faith in King Josiah’s mystical god that commands death for infidels; an immoral unlawful act, but congregations worship the unholy violent phantasm. There is not a remote connection to an ever-present, all-knowing, all-powerful superhuman God. Promoting unknowns under the guise of personal salvation convinces humankind they must submit their will to a god’s prestigious professional proponents and refuse information that’d set them aright.

20.     Religion’s unsubstantiated dogma is insidious hearsay. Suffering is not virtuous; and each child born is not burdened with original sin. It is masochistic to confess and plead mercy from the perfidious Judaic god’s prestigious professional proponents, or worship a savior god to access heaven or avoid hell’s fires; self-serving threats by clergy, who appear to be unaware that Heaven’s God, Jesus and Allah plus Hell’s Devil are all legendry.  It is vital for us to treat the world’s people as we wish to be treated.

21.     Ignorance embraced Abrahamic religions’ fallacies. Our brains and computers, both require rational, factual input in order to develop rational factual solutions, but Abrahamic religion’s lack thereof forced it to rely upon conjecture, blind faith, and murdering millions of nonbelievers, to obtain its illogical imposition upon the world’s trustful societies.

22.     Archaeologists & epigraphists have found history simpler than King Josiah’s biblical fable about the Patriarchs, the ancient Israelites, etc.; a good reason to reject the holy books’ prophesies and miracles; which are the sole source of Abrahamic faiths’ relevant knowledge; Disclosure, leaves large segments of our world’s population suffering from delusive blind faith in stultifying beliefs that encourage religious terrorism, but inhibits proposals for global programs to reduce world apprehensions.

23.     Ralph Waldo Emerson warned us not to follow the crowd; but to think and reason independently. I argue for a world managed by its perspicacious peace-loving women; dedicated to ethnological sameness, undiscriminating inclusiveness and global harmony. The idea of world-government was promoted “by eleven U.S. presidents from Franklin Roosevelt through Bill Clinton”. The possibility of a peaceful healthy world for humanity to enjoy should encourage the worlds astute and discerning to temper their contentious attitudes about ethnological disparities, and diplomatically and reasonably organize, socially, politically, religiously and otherwise to promote and work toward a more peaceful ecumenical world.

24.     Dear reader, to understand the magnificent release I experience by sensing freedom from gods, and other mythical delusions see Ingersoll’s Vow in FINAL NOTES. Also recognize the historical clues of the Abrahamic religion’s deceptive fearsome illusions which misled our ignorant ancient ancestors, and  provided religions’ bloody success. Everyone wants to live forever, but from the seventh century BCE, until the sixteenth century CE, nonbelievers were killed by either Jews or Christians. Religion subjugated the faithful, which makes me question why today’s believers don’t know about the bible’s egomaniacal pathological killer, “God”; as they inherited an instinctive fear of the specious god’s wrath. Please be aware of what is expected if Christianity ever gains its anticipated opportunity to govern us, because Christian ideology embraces the Old Testament’s fundamentalism; relegating our secular democracy to another Islamic tyrannical theocracy; constraining government’s flexibility and stemming its ability to expand and improve beyond the limited capabilities of the prestigious professional proponents of the government’s god, who since man’s earliest cognitive experiences have convinced him to believe in their gods; it’s a competitive business. There has never been tangible evidence that gods exist and in spite of the Jesus fables, no one claims they do. Creeds say “I believe”, but billions fought and died defending a particular religion’s stupid beliefs.

25.     Like many of history’s curious individuals, I have explored religion’s devious quandaries. I’m satisfied biblical faith is erroneous. I presume believers are not curious and regret their disinterest. There is something mentally devastating in believing we are subjugated to imaginary spiritual powers; although evidence is plentiful that fearsome gods were created by monarchs and promoted by priests, in order to subjugate the people. Our Founding Fathers warned us to remain alert to religion’s deathly threats and its devious ruses directed toward ecclesiastical control of our nation’s governing apparatus.

26.     Non-thinking men depended upon gods, thus it remains, but now we consider ourselves informed and understand how our ancestors’ faults were due to their lack of knowledge, which encouraged the worship of false gods. But how do we explain to progeny why we inexplicably grovel before mythology’s misbegotten gods?

27.     Our Electorate’s enthusiasm for specious Jesus is our Nemesis, which will probably destroy us. Whatever evil deeds ancient clergy decreed, modern clergy’s misperception of their “holy powers” will tempt them to replicate. I reject religion’s spurious salvation; my main interest is saving our country from deceptive divinity and religious tyranny. Our America was organized as a secular democracy; the first 10, plus the 14^th amendments to our constitution, guarantees us freedom from religion and a separation of Church & State, plus freedoms of speech, press, etc. Each of us is sovereign and has natural rights of  “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

29.     Having read this far, you surely realize that the bible’s Pentateuch’s stupid god character was teaching the Jews revengeful hatred toward all foreigners, and not to marry them, but It was written specifically to serve as King Josiah’s enforcer. Such a menacing intimidating god, threatening death for every infraction and eliciting revenge and death for foreigners is frighteningly unsuitable to influence a peace seeking world, but the Jews and Christians followed their bible’s teachings, and killed their apostates, blasphemers, nonbelievers, proponents of other gods, and in the 30 year war, Christians slaughtered Christians. Believing in false gods drove man to commit inconceivable brutal bloody crimes as per today’s religious Islamic regimes. The deaths, despoliation and ignorance caused by those particular religious ideas are regretted. Realistically, our world’s salvation depends upon global agreements to stop global-warming; and that depends upon a respectful cooperation of global humanity. Jewish exclusiveness resulted in resentment and their ignominious existence. The racial purity of nation-states is inimical to world peace and consanguinity accentuates debilities. Charles Darwin’s research accentuated the inherent advantages in cross-breeding plants. I have observed superb individuals whose parents were racially diverse, and haven’t heard anyone complain. Like plants, humans are improved by cross-breeding; we must conclude that NATURE’S grand plan for us includes the eventual interbreeding of all races; so why not now? I oppose Yahweh’s stupid racial purity and advocate undistinguishing inclusiveness and unfettered knowledge as our path to world peace.

30.     Prestigious professional proponents of mystical gods are bogymen, who, like Santa Clause promise us joy if we’re good and disappointment if we’re bad. It is analogous to a childhood scare; older boys explained that I would live forever if I scratched my name on a magnolia’s blossom; I did it and was then told to keep it safe from harm forever or else I would die. I panicked; as the blossoms were so delicately fragile and I was so young.

Primitive humans’ prelogical mentality believed in magic and accepted the hype of professional proponents of all sorts of imaginary gods; having imperceptible powers to punish or reward; similar to our children dealing with the idea of Santa Clause; except that It grew to be governing monarchs manipulating their multitudes; collecting work or taxes in payment for the protection a specious wrathful god’s prestigious professional proponents.

Male superiority demeaned female’s brainy influence. It also created our 2^nd oldest profession; pimping for mystical gods; finding its niche, supporting despotic monarchs and creating three superficial faiths. I seek truth in all things; including man’s fascination with mystical deities; his disdain for intellectualism, his overt militancy, his neglect of planet Earth, and global divisiveness. I believe our world’s contentious societies could be enriched when and if all humankind has the same color skin and speak the same language. You say that is too idealistic? But an “omniscient omnipotent omnipresent” benevolent sensible “God” would have created the ideal in the beginning instead of nature’s thoughtless happenstantial erratic system of evolution that creates and sustains all Earthly life.

My premise: gods have not materialized, but slaughtering our discerning sagacious nonbelievers for 2000 years has limited philosophers, thinkers and scientists who have revealed that life began about 3.5 billion years ago when Earth’s chemicals evolutionarily mutated into single-cell organisms that multiplied by dividing; occasionally mutating; eventually evolving into all of our life forms (See Wikipedia’s History of the Earth). Primitive man’s experiences and experiments evolved his undeveloped intellect into more astute Homo sapiens; groping for answers; mystified by small seeds that produced huge trees; unaware atmospheric pressure gradients developed nature’s terrifying storms, which led to our 2^nd profession, the prestigious primitive proponents of mystical gods who devised divination’s simple solutions for unfathomable conundrums. Gods were pawns serving scheming scammers and the priests of dynastic kings; meting out justice, upholding order, and sanctifying the riddance of their realm’s more discerning, erudite, non-allegiant dissidents.

King Josiah’s father’s assassination was due to polytheism’s divisive gods; and Israelite’s had only folktales for history, Josiah’s scholars fabricated an inspirational motivating epical tribal legend that subjugated them. It was tribal propaganda; its evil quixotic character, Yahweh, coerced them away from polytheism’s gods by demanding death for apostates, etc. Yahweh named Josiah his ideal king and limited all worship to Jerusalem’s Temple. Egypt killed Josiah, and Babylon burned Jerusalem, but scholars revised the tribal legend while in Babylonian exile; adding Joshua, judges, 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings. Persia’s King Cyrus seized Babylon and Ezra and Nehemiah returned Jews to Jerusalem, rebuilt its wall, and proclaimed Josiah’s tribal legend Holy Scripture; culminating in Jerusalem’s newly established Jewish community founding its new sect of monotheistic Judaism.

 Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity; and established Constantinople’s Eastern Christian Church. He then killed Europe’s pagan kings who refused the cross; appointing Christian kings; forcing them to convert pagan Europe to Christianity, which thrived with surveillance, censorship, torture and killing infidels, heretics,  etc. for 1000 years, but a 30 year religious war, pitted Christians against Christians, reducing Europe’s population by a third; starving Christians into eating their most recently killed fellow-Christians. (See CHRISTIANITY)

Americans declared independence from England’s Church-State dynasty; proclaiming: freedom of/from religion, but multitudes continue groveling and worshipping Abrahamic religions’ perfidious inscrutable gods, which have caused more persecutions, premeditated malicious murder and debilitating contentious wars, than all of our other idiotic idiosyncrasies, but now Christianity is pursuing our nation’s management, where a god’s spurious sovereignty rescinds our constitution and nulifies laws; leaving us citizens impotent; subject to the gods’ prestigious professional proponents.

My conclusion: although billions believed their particular religion’s creed, have been baptized and “born again”, or whatever; seeking eternal life after death; why do today’s prestigious professional proponents of mystical gods continue promulgating incomprehensible unsubstantiated beliefs? I realize credulity is not a crime, but it’s injudicious; misleading and consequentially it warps one’s cognitive processes. My search found no reason to believe in the Abrahamic faiths’ mythological suppositions; which remain our world’s most magnificent confidence games, but at some point throughout history the conspiring vainglorious professional proponents of their mystical gods became discombobulated and self-righteous; believing their own deceitful hype. The Abrahamic religions have no historical basis, but are hearsay; plagiarized from antiquity’s many “redeeming-godmen”, whose mythology was often worshipped as living gods; although most of the ancient records, of our world’s religions, appear to have been repetitiously corrupted.

My goal: is to expose Abrahamic religions’ deplorable perfidious history and introduce reason, honesty and truth to believers, or else multitudes of our “born again” Christian electorate will rescind our secular democracy, and retroact Christianity’s ancient surveillance, censorship, inquisitions, tortuous persecutions and its tyrannical death-dealing totalitarianism. If this is extreme; recall: ancient clergy misrepresented their misperceived powers and colluded with politicians. Laws must govern; not intimidating threats of self-righteous prestigious professional proponent’s imaginary gods. We cannot achieve nirvana by killing all those who disagree with our particular brand of absolutism, but we, the world’s people must forego the bible’s stupid exclusivity and expound upon our secular nation’s undiscriminating inclusiveness. Any goodness we receive is bestowed upon us by fellow human beings, which obligates each of us to follow the golden rule.

 

THOMAS PAINE

 

The following is An Oration on the Life and Services of Thomas Paine; by Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) delivered at Fairbury, Ill. on the evening of January 30, 1871.

To speak the praises of the brave and thoughtful dead is to me a labor of gratitude and love. Through all the centuries gone, the mind of man has been beleaguered by the mailed hosts of superstition. Slowly and painfully has advanced the army of deliverance. Hated by those they wished to rescue, despised by those they were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these immortal delivers, have fought without thanks, labored without applause, suffered without pity, and they have died execrated and abhorred. For the good of mankind they accepted isolation, poverty, and calumny. They gave up all, sacrificed all, and lost all but truth and self-respect.

One of the bravest soldiers in this army was Thomas Paine; and for one, I feel indebted to him for the liberty we are enjoying this day. Born among the poor, where children are burdens; in a country where real liberty was unknown; where the privileges of class were guarded with infinite jealousy, and the rights of the individual trampled beneath the feet of priests and nobles; where to advocate justice was treason; where intellectual freedom was Infidelity, it is wonderful that the idea of true liberty ever entered his brain.

Poverty was his mother—Necessity his master.

He had more brains than books; more sense than education; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for past mistakes—no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for the truth’s sake, and for man’s sake. He saw oppression on every hand; injustice everywhere—hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the titled few.

In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes. There was no avenue open for him. The people hugged their chains, and the whole power of the government was ready to crush any man who endeavored to strike a blow for the right.

At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine left England for America with high hope of being instrumental in the establishment of a free government. In his own country he could accomplish nothing. Those two vultures—Church and State—were ready to tear in pieces and devour the heart of anyone who might deny their divine right to enslave the world.

Upon his arrival in this country, he found himself possessed of a letter of introduction, signed by another Infidel, the illustrious Franklin. This, and his native genius, constituted his entire capital; and he needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George the 3^rd by the grace of God, for a restoration of their ancient privileges. They were not endeavoring to become freemen, but were trying to soften the heart of their master. They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharoah would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation. They did not dream of independence.

Paine gave to the world his “Common Sense”. It was the first argument for separation, the first assault upon the British form of government, the first blow for a republic, and it roused our fathers like a trumpet’s blast. He was the first to perceive the destiny of the New World.

No other pamphlet ever published accomplished such wonderful results. It was filled with argument, reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. It opened a new world. It filled the present with hope and the future with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in a few months the Continental Congress declared the colonies free and independent states.

A new nation was born. It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause the Declaration of Independence than any other man. Neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon Great Britain, were also attacks upon monarchy; and while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to separate from the mother country, he also proved to them that a free government is the best that can be instituted among men. In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. “What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together”.

Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect upon him. He examined into the why and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm to be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, never for one moment did he despair. Year after year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of “Common Sense”, filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of freedom.

Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was with the army. He shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When the situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, he gave them the “Crisis”. It was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted to them, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”.

To those who wished to put the war off to some future day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice he said: “Every generous parent should say, ‘If there must be a war let it be in my day that my child may have peace’”. To the cry that Americans were rebels, he replied: “He that rebels against reason is a real rebel; but he that rebels against tyranny has a better title to ‘Defender of the Faith’ than George the Third”.

Some said it was not to the interest of the colonies to be free. Paine answered this by saying, “To know whether it be the interest of the continent to be independent, we need ask only this simple, easy question: ‘Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life’”? He found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, :That to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead”. This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church.

There is a world of political wisdom in this:--“England lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles”; and there is real discrimination in saying, “The Greeks and Romans were strongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time that they were determined not to be slaves themselves, they employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind”.

In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them that war was not to their interest, occurs the following passage brimful of common sense: “War never can be the interest of a trading nation any more than quarreling can be profitable to a man of business. But to make war with those who trade with us is like setting a bull-dog at the shop door”.

The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact logical statements that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudiced. He had the happiest possible way of putting the case: in asking questions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his premises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided.

Day and night he labored for America; month after month, year after year, he gave himself to the Great Cause, until the banner of the stars floated over a continent redeemed, and consecrated to the happiness of mankind.

At the close of the Revolution, no one stood higher in America than Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his friends and admirers; and had he been thinking only of his own good he might have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in comfort, and in ease. He could have been what the world is pleased to call “respectable”. He could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors and statesmen. At his death there would have been an imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation in mourning. And above all, a splendid monument covered with lies.

He chose rather to benefit mankind.

At that time the seeds sown by the great infidels were beginning to bear fruit in France. The people were beginning to think. The Eighteenth Century was crowing its gray hairs with the wreath of progress.

On every hand Science was bearing testimony against the Church. Voltaire had filled Europe with light; D’Holbach was giving to the elite of Paris the principles contained in his “System of Nature”. The encyclopaedists had attacked superstition with information for the masses. The foundation of things began to be examined. A few had the courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began to get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire. America had set an example to the world. The word liberty began to be in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe the dust from their knees.

The dawn of a new day had appeared.

Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new movement he threw all his energies. His fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the human race, and as a champion of free government.

He had never relinquished his intention of pointing out to his countrymen the defects, absurdities and abuses of the English government. For this purpose he composed and published his greatest political work. “The Rights of Man”. This work should be read by every man and woman. It is concise, accurate, natural, convincing, and unanswerable. It shows great thought; an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government; deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that compels respect and admiration. The most difficult political problems are solved in a few sentences. The venerable arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question—answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of statement, and absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled.

The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prosecuted for libel and found guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man. It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an honor, not only to Thomas Paine, but to human nature itself. It could have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the goodness to say, “The world is my country, and to do good my religion”.

 There is in all the utterances of the world no grander, no sublimer sentiment. There is no creed that can be compared with it for a moment. It should be wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed upon every human heart: “The world is my country, and to do good my religion”. In 1792 Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their representative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in France that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments. Upon taking his place in the Assembly he was appointed as one of a committee to draft a constitution for France. Had the French people taken the advice of Thomas Paine there would have been no “reign of terror”. The streets of Paris would not have been filled with blood. The revolution would have been the grandest success of the world. The truth is that Paris was too conservative to suit the leaders of the French Revolution. They, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred, and a desire to destroy. They had suffered so long, they had borne so much, that it was impossible for them to be moderate in the hour of victory. Besides all this, The French people had been so robbed by the government, so degraded by the Church, that they were not fit material with which to construct a republic. Many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent and just government, but the people asked for revenge.

Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His philanthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy—not the monarch. He voted for the destruction of tyranny, and against the death of the king. He wished to establish a government on a new basis; one that would forget the past; one that would give privileges to none, and protection to all.

In the Assembly, where nearly all were demanding the execution of the king—where to differ from the majority was to be suspected, and where to be suspected was almost certain death. Thomas Paine had the courage, the goodness and the justice to vote against death. To vote against the execution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, imprisoned and doomed to death.

   Search the records of the world and you will find but few sublimer acts than that of Thomas Paine voting against the king’s death. He, the abhorrer of monarchy, the champion of the rights of man, the republican, accepting death to save the life of a deposed tyrant—of a throneless king. This was the last grand act of his political life—the sublime conclusion of his political career.

All his life he had been the disinterested friend of man. He had labored—not for money, not for fame, but for the general good. He had aspired to no office; had asked no recognition of his services, but had ever been content to labor as a common soldier in the army of progress. Confining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field of action, filled with a genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned by the very people he had striven to save.

Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block, he would have escaped the calumnies and the hatred of the Christian world. In this country, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest of names. On the anniversary of the Declaration his name would have been upon the lips of all the orators, and his memory in the hearts of all people.

Thomas Paine had not finished his career.

He had spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings, and now he turned his attention to the priests. He knew that every abuse had been embalmed in Scripture—that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text. He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar and both behind a pretended revelation from God. By this time he had found that it was of little use to free the body and leave the mind in chains. He had explored the foundations of despotism and had found them infinitely rotten. He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he would take a look behind the altar.

The result of his investigation was given to the world in the “Age of Reason” from the moment of its publication he became famous. He was calumniated beyond measure. To slander him was to secure the thanks of the Church. All his services were instantly forgotten, disparaged or denied. He was shunned as though he had been a pestilence. Most of his old friends forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and at bare mention of his name the bloody hands of the Church were raised in horror. He was denounced as the most despicable of men.

Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satisfaction the supposed horrors of his death-bed; gloried in the fact that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death.

It is wonderful that all his services were thus forgotten. It is amazing that one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that someone did not accord to him, at least—honesty. Strange, that in the general denunciation someone did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellowmen. He had by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of progress. He had made it impossible to write the history with his name left out. He was one of the creators of light; one of the heralds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, and in the name of God, with every drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. Under these divine banners he fought the battle of his life. In both worlds he offered his blood for the good of man. In the wilderness of America, in the French Assembly, in the somber cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same undaunted champion of universal freedom. And for this he has been hated; for this the Church has violated even his grave.

This is enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have crucified and glorified. Whoever, lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show his commission, or question the authority of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority of your own mind, Self-reliance has been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of living and dying without the aid and consolation o superstition has always horrified the Church.

By some unaccountable infatuation belief has been, and still is considered of immense importance. All religions have been based upon the idea that God will forever and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. Belief is regarded as the one essential thing. To practice justice, to love mercy, is not enough. You must believe in some incomprehensible creed. You must say “Once one is three, and three times one is one”. The man who practiced every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. Nothing so outages the feelings of the Church as a moral unbeliever—Nothing so horrible as a charitable Atheist.

When Paine was born, the world was religious. The pulpit was the real throne, and the churches were making every effort to crush out of the brain the idea that it had the right to think.

The splendid saying of Lord Bacon that “The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, are the sovereign good of human nature”, has been, and ever will be, rejected by religionists. Intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either praise or blame-worthy, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom. Paine recognized this truth. He also saw that as long as the bible was considered inspired, this infamous doctrine of the virtue of belief would be believed and preached. He examined the Scriptures for himself, and found them filled with cruelty, absurdity, and immorality.

He again made up his mind to sacrifice himself for the good of his fellowmen.

He commenced with the assertion, “That any system of religion that has anything in it shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system”. What a beautiful, what a tender sentiment! No wonder that the Church began to hate him. He believed in the God, and no more. After this life he hoped for happiness. He believed that true religion consisted in doing justice, loving mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy, and in offering to God the fruit of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. This was his crime.

He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication, and after that it is only an account of something which another person says was a revelation to him. We have only his word for it, as it was never made to us. This argument never has been and probably never will be answered. He denied the divine origin of Christ, and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies of the Old Testament had no reference to him whatever; and yet he believed that Christ was a virtuous and amiable man; that the morality he taught and practiced was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and that it had not been exceeded by any. Upon this point he entertained the same sentiments now held by the Unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened Christians.

In his time the Church believed and taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day (January 30, 1871) would pretend to settle any scientific question from the bible? The old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The Church itself, will before long, be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine. The best minds of the orthodox world, today, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, Jonah and all. You are simply required to believe in God, and to pay your pew rent.

There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that Samson’s strength was in his hair, nor that the necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. These follies have passed away, and the only reason that the religious world can now have for disliking Paine is that they have been forced to adopt so many of his opinions.

Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of God. He believed that murder, massacre, and indiscriminate slaughter, had never been commanded by the Deity. He regarded much of the bible as childish, unimportant, and foolish. The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine attacked the bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretentions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no “Holy of Holies”, except the abode of truth. The sciences were then in their infancy. The attention of the really learned had not been directed to an impartial examination of our pretended revelation. It was accepted by most as a matter of course. The Church was all powerful and no one, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The famous doctrine that salvation depends upon belief—upon mere intellectual conviction—was then believed and preached. To doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul. This absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of Thomas Paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. This doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as senseless. For the overthrow of the infamous tenet, Paine exerted; all his strength. He left few arguments to be used by those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted. The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought; neither can they show why anyone should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet, a doctrine with every possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox world. Can it be possible that we have been endowed with, reason simply that our souls may be caught in its toils and snares, that we may be led by its false, and delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads to joy into the broad way of everlasting death? Is it possible that we have been given reason simply that we may through faith ignore its deductions, and avoid its conclusions? Ought the sailor throw away his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? If reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in respect of our duties to the Deity, why should it be relied upon in matters respecting the rights of our fellows? Why should we throw away the laws given to Moses by God himself, and have the audacity to make some of our own? How dare we drown the thunders of Sinai by calling the ayes and noes in a petty legislature? If reason can determine what is merciful, what is just, the duties of man to man, what more do we want either in time or eternity?

Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant altar the sacrifice of the goddess Reason that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the imperial purple; snatches from her hand the scepter of thought and makes her the bond woman of a senseless faith!

If a man should tell you that he had the most beautiful painting in the world and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your eyes shut. You would likely suspect, either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiable daub. Should he tell you that he was a most excellent performer on the violin, and yet refuse to play unless your ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had he had an odd way of convincing you of  his musical ability. But would his conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your reason? The first gentleman says “Keep your eyes shut, my picture will bear everything but being seen”; the next “Keep your ears stopped, my music objects to nothing but being heard”. The last says, “Away with you reason, my religion dreads nothing but being understood”.

So far as I am concerned I most cheerfully admit that most Christians are honest, and most ministers sincere. We do not attack them; we attack their creed. We accord them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful. We believe that the frightful text, “He that believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned”, has covered the earth with blood. It has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty and murder. It has caused the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has poisoned the sprigs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave Infidels it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.

The maligners of Pane say that he had no right to attack this doctrine because he was unacquainted with the dead languages; and for this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence in him to investigate the Scriptures.

Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not a virtue, and that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? Is it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as to the genuineness of a pretended revelation from God? Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not confined to, nor has it been buried with the dead languages. Paine attacked the bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct it.

The Christianity of Paine’s day is not the Christianity of our time. There has been a great improvement since then. One hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of our time would have perished at the stake. A Universalist would have been torn to pieces in England, Scotland, and America. Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in Maryland:

“Be it enacted by the Right Honorable, the Lord Proprietor, by and with the advice and consent of his lordship’s governor, and the upper and lower houses ot the Assembly, and the authority of the same:

That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, wittingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blasphemy or curse God, or deny our Saviour, Jesus Christ to be the son of God, or shall deny the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or the God-head of any of the three persons, or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons thereof, and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the first offence be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty pounds to be levied of his body. And for the second offence, the offender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead with the letter B, and fined forty pounds. And that for the third offence, the offender shall suffer death without the benefit of clergy.

The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and is still in force in the District of Columbia. Laws like this were in force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the Church had power.

In the Old Testament, the death penalty was attached to hundreds of offences It has been the same in all Christian countries. Today, in civilized governments. The death penalty is attached only to murder and treason; and in some, it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary upon the divine humbugs of the world!

In the day of Thomas Paine the Church was ignorant, bloody and relentless. In Scotland the “Kirk” was at the summit of its power. It was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of which the infamous “Kirk” disapproved, her children were taken from her arms. Her baby from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. It would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on Sunday. It sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious heatless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: “The Kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy”. And this same Scotch Kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral grandeur to say, “The world is my country, and to do good my religion”. And this same Kirk abhorred the man who said “Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system”.

At that time nothing so delighted the Church as the beauties of endless torment, and listening to the weak wailings of damned infants struggling in the slimy coils and poison folds of the worm that never dies.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried for having denied the inspiration of the Scriptures, and having on several occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with stones. Prosecutions and executions like this were common in every Christian country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime.

No wonder the Church hated and traduced the author of the “Age of Reason”

England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant  poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods—had added to the story of Christ the fables of mythology. He gave to the Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned All the angels into soldiers—made heaven a battlefield, put Christ in uniform, and described God as a militia general. His works were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind Milton.

Heaven and hell were realities—the judgment day was expected—books of account would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him read. God was supposed to sit on a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. The goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep on the right, were to gambol on the sunny slopes forever and forever.

The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned.

In Europe, Liberty was lying chained to the Inquisition—her white bosom stained with blood. In the new world the Puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of God, and selling white Quaker children into slavery in the name of Christ, who said, “Suffer little children to come unto me”.

Under such conditions progress was impossible. Someone had to lead the way. The Church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. Religion always looks back. The Church has already reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.

Someone not connected with the Church had to attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the world. Someone had to sacrifice himself for the good of all. The people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power. Progress is birn of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts—never inquires. To doubt is heresy—to inquire is to admit that you do not know—the Church does neither.

More than a century ago Catholicism, wrapped in robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, trampling beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud moment of almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the deadly dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the Church never can recover. Livid with hatred she launched her eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.

In our country the Church was all powerful, and although divided into many sects, would instantly unite to repel a common foe. Paine struck his first grand blow.

The “Age of Reason” did more to undermine the power of the Protestant Church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount of food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and is a straight forward, honest investigation of the bible and the Christian system.

Paine did not falter from the first page to the last. He gives you his candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable. The “Age of Reason” has liberalized us all. It put arguments in the mouths of the people; it put the Church on the defensive; it enabled somebody in every village to corner the parson; it made the world wiser, and the Church better; it took power from the pulpit and divided it among the pews.

Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the Church has lost power. There is no exception to this rule.

No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders.

No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the Church without losing its power, honor, and existence.

Every Church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of its progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know?

Every creed is a rock in running water: humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, “Halt”! A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the enlightened Present.

The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand completeness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, is of no value to them. They demand the complete circle—the entire structure.

In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods. In religion they insist upon immediate answers to the questions of creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things must be in the alphabet of their superstition. A religion that cannot answer every question, and guess every conundrum is, in their estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a kind of theological dictionary—a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns. They mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. The beginning and the end are what they demand. The grand flight of the eagle is nothing to them. They want the nest in which he was hatched, and especially the dry limb upon which he roosts. Anything that can be learned is hardly worth knowing. The present is considered of no value in itself. Happiness must not be expected this side of the clouds, and can only be attained by self-denial and faith: not self-denial for the good of others, but for the salvation for your own sweet self.

Paine denied the authority of the bibles and creeds—this was his crime—and for this the world shut the door in his face, and empyied its slops upon him from the windows.

I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny—in favor of immorality; one line, one word against what he believed to be for the highest and best interest of mankind; one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty, and yet he has been pursued as though he had been a fiend from hell. His memory has been execrated as though he had murdered some Uriah for his wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to starve with his child upon her bosom; defiled his own daughters; ripped open with the sword the sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; advised one brother to assassinate another; kept a harem with seven hundred wives, and three hundred concubines, or had persecuted Christians even into strange cities.

The Church has pursued Paine to deter others. No effort has been in any age of the world spared to crush out opposition. The Church used painting, music and architecture, simply to degrade mankind, But there are men that nothing can awe. There have been at all times brave spirits that dared even the gods. Some proud head has always been above the waves. In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to sll the gods. True genius never cowers, and is always some Samson feeling for the pillars of authority.

Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants—temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold—altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe—censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and alb—organs and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest—maniple, amice and stole—crosses and crosiers, tiaras and crowns—mitres and missals and masses—rosaries, relics and robes—martyrs and saints; windows stained as with the blood of Christ, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with liberty—that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. The music of the organ was not loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. He could not forget that the tapor had lighted the fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned.

The doubter, the investigator, the Infidel, have been the saviors of liberty. This truth is beginning to be realized, and the intellectual are beginning to honor the brave thinkers of the past.

But the Church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders why any infidel should be wicked enough to endeavor to destroy her power

I will tell the Church why.

You have imprisoned the human mind; you have been the enemy of liberty; you have burned us at the stake—wasted us upon slow fires—torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains—treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and children from our arms; you have confiscated our property; you have denied us the right to testify in courts of justice; You have branded us with infamy’ you have torn out our tongues; you have refused us burial. In the name of your religion you have robbed us of every right’ and after having inflicted upon us every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands, implored your God to torment us forever.

Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines—that we despise your creeds—that we feel proud to know we are beyond your power—that we are free in spite of you—that we can express our honest thought, and that the whole world is grandly rising into the blessed light?

Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact, that infidelity has never been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all?

Can you wonder that we are proud to know, that we have always been disciples of Reason, and soldiers of Freedom; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept our hands unstained with human blood?

We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so considered it becomes destructive of happiness—the real end of life. It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who dwells not in temples made with hands), and allows his children to die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heavens with hatred, the present with fear, and the future with despair.

Virtue is a subordination of the passions to the intellect. It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in believing, but in doing.

This is the sublime truth that the Infidels in all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of Reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith, they fed the divine flame.

Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed, man is the slave of God—woman is the slave of man, and the sweet children are the slaves of all.

We do not want creeds; we want knowledge—we want happiness.

And yet we are told by the Church that we have accomplished nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.

Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill th world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells, where the souls of men are chained to the floors of stone, to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright, to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice?

 Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day—to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to leave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word—Freedom?

Is it a small thing to quench the flames of hell with the holy tears of pity—to unbind the martyr from the stake—break all the chains—put out the fires of civil war—stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the Church from the white throat of Science?

Is it a small thing to make men truly free—to destroy the dogmas of ignorance, predudice and power—the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of Fear?

It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a thousand years the Church had to a great extent, control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nation’s patterns of charity and forbearance?

On the contrary, their principal business is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-Christians. Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war against other Christians, or defending themselves from Christian assault. The world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians; and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of Christian warfare. There must be some other way to reform this world. We have tried creed, and dogma and fable, and they have failed in all the nations dead.

The people perish for the lack of knowledge. Nothing but education—scientific education—can benefit mankind. We must find out the laws of nature and conform to them.

We need free bodies and free minds—free labor and free thought—chainless hands, and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth.

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance of his time; but he was orthodox compared with the Infidels of today.

Science, the great Iconoclast, has been busy since 1809, and by the highway of progress are are the broken images of the past.

On every hand the people advance. The Vicar of God has been pushed from the throne of theCaesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal City falls once more the shadow of the Eagle.

All has been accomplished by the heroic few. The men of science have explored heaven and earth, and with infinite patience have furnished the facts. The brave thinkers have used them. The gloomy caverns of superstition have been transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the angels of today.

Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods their thunderbolts; and now the electric spark freighted with thought and love, flashes under all thr waves of the sea. Science took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted into steam, created a giant that turns with tireless arm, the countless wheels of toil.

Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes—one of the men to which we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the great republic. As long as free government exists he will be remembered, admired and honored.

He lived a long, laborious and useful life. The world is better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach for his portion. He ate the bitter bread of sorrow. His friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself, and true to them. He lost the respect of what is called society, but he kept his own. His life is what the world calls failure, and what history calls success.

If to love your fellow men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine was good.

If to be in advance of your time, to be a pioneer in the direction of right, is greatness, Thomas Paine was great.

 If to avow your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.

At the age of seventy three, death touched his tired heart. He died in the land of his genius defended—under the flag he gave to the skies. Slander cannot touch him now—hatred cannot reach him more. He sleeps in the sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars.

A few more years—a few more brave men—a few more rays of light, and mankind will venerate the memory of him who said:

“Any system of Religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system”.

“The world is my country, and to do good my religion”.

“Justice is the only worship”.   “Love is the only priest”.

“Ignorance is the only slavery”.   “Happiness is the only good”.

“The way to be happy is to make others so”.

“They say the religion of your fathers is good enough.—why should your father object to your inventing a better plow than he had? They say to me do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do”.

“An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going into partnership with state legislatures”.

“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments—there are only consequences”.

“I belong to the Great Church which holds the world within its starlit aisles that claims the great and good of every race and clime; that finds with joy the grain of gold in every creed, and floods with light and love the germs of good in every soul”.

“The book called the bible is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice”.

“The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or reasoned about, we are mental serfs—if we have the right to use our reason, we have the right to act in accordance with it, and no god has the right to punish us for such action”. The above is Robert G. Ingersoll’s Oration on the Life and Services of Thomas Paine, with a few quotations from other lectures.

EDUCATION

1.     Elementary and secondary schools, in the U.S., are managed like home-grown enterprises. Poorly educated citizens usually beget and rear poorly educated children. If we could interrupt that paradigm, and initiate a new pattern, we might educate an entire generation and get ahead of our population’s climbing curve. Indolence is insupportable. To divert children from worse pursuits, each should become interested in investigating something that has attracted their attention. It’s important for them to explore new sources of information, where they’ll discover developments they’ll enjoy learning more about; curiosity expands with new knowledge. Children can’t start too early and the pursuit will fill their lives with exuberant pleasure; exercising their developing brain; it is the secret of successful lives supplanting their need to be constantly entertained. A preschoolers’ curiosity embraces natural phenomena, which can lead them to science, and research in the physical sciences. Middle school and high school youth have with too many distractions, and an average drop-out rate of 22.5%. Without the benefits of parental restrictions, this age is not wise enough to make meaningful decisions about their future. History and current news extoll activities of 15-24 year old male cohorts, whose inexperience, lack of responsibility and natural virility have “set them up” to risk their life for a few worthy causes and many unworthy ones, and they are apt to ignore education’s obstacle course. It is essential for children to develop a VOCABULARY; it makes reading comprehensive and enjoyable. Ignorance is endemically debilitating for all those with an inadequate education, and incapable of self-education. Improving vocabularies is our first step toward reducing our nation’s ignorance.

2.     Our method of funding elementary and secondary education with local real estate taxes is archaic and inadequate, as our children are our nation’s future and everyone’s responsibility. We should be taxed by the state or nationally to provide professional management, and classroom teachers with a commensurate compensation.

3.     Magazine polls emphasize the deficiency of our secondary schools; how only 77.5% of students graduate, while other nations produce college-entry students’ superior to ours; arousing consternation as to why this is true and why we cannot improve. Surveys show a number of fine high schools in the U.S.A. graduate exceptional students. However many schools are evidently mediocre and some dysfunctional. Polls also show 84-86% of our population admits to a blind-faith in unproven suppositions; and only 15 % will accept the proposition that we humans developed over millions of years, which suggests a relationship between our inadequate, locally guided, schools and a population with more faith in ancient ignorance than in proven scientific evidence. Religiously motivated managers, principals and teachers are contributing their faith’s ignorance to our schools, helping to degrade the learning experience. It is essential that our very young be scientifically motivated; that high schools and colleges explore and explain the natural forces of the universe plus our planet’s physical laws, scientific principles, etc. Anything less allows ignorance to expand exponentially; further inhibiting our nation’s future capabilities, i.e., less able to solve global warming’s forthcoming conundrums, our stupid god-problems, etc.

4.     The U.S., occasionally experiences influxes of illegal workers, seeking employment, but much of our manufacturing and assembly work is out-sourced to less costly locations, (See U.S. ECONOMY). Poorly educated and discouraged male youth is one source of our less than erudite electorate; they consider intellectualism effeminate, unmanly, and drop out of school with meager educations and low-skill opportunities. Solution: stabilize and invigorate middle and secondary schools with male professionals who must certify their qualifications and be licensed to practice, e.g., architects, nurses, etc.; they will challenge our growing numbers of uninspired and discouraged young males who are taxing our schools, courts and prisons.

5.     Our goal: provide all students equal opportunities to reach their level of incompetence; unable to absorb more. A successfully completed high-school education, either an academic or vocational one should be required nationally; military style if necessary; with college available to all qualified graduates; each is to be engaged in work within their level of competence.

 6.     I emphasize how divisive religion has always been. Our discriminating faiths destroyed each other and millions of innocent people in attempts to replace the Jews as the chosen subjects of a spurious “God”. Our wickedest enemies could never have caused us that much harm. If we ignore world thinkers, IGNORANCE will imprison us in religion’s coveted xenophobia, so please understand: “global warming” is destroying our atmosphere. Think about Islam’s violent despotic regimes, which are replicating the first 2000 years of Judaism and Christianity; they are brain-washed with King Josiah’s specious dogma and have bloody hands. EDUCATION is Abrahamic faiths’ Nemesis, but narrow minded IGNORANCE is humanity’s Nemesis, which must be overcome, as it is propelling us toward imminent extermination. RELIGION’S myths are, inadvertently, instilled into our publicly supported EDUCATIONAL system’s limited scope of influence.

7.     “God’s” prestigious professional proponents are theologians who do not question, but zealously study and promulgate religious doctrines and matters of divinity. Bible scholars critically study the bible, seeking more knowledge about its history, its incongruity, duplicity, who wrote each book, etc. Professor Bart D. Ehrman is an authority on early Christianity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Ehrman confesses to having no faith. This is not unusual as most lose their faith because of their biblical knowledge; erudite and cognizant of the bible’s inscrutability.

I appeal to our nation’s people: please THINK, and get beyond our ignorant ancestors’ primitive professional proponents of mystical gods; who were scamming semi-developed intellects. EDUCATION is our salvation; not the condescending specious beliefs; defying EVOLUTION’S scientifically proven natural progression. Abrahamic religions denigrate science and knowledge. IGNORANCE demeans our democratic government and public-education system simply because “born again” voters predominate.

8.     EDUCATION is more important to our nation’s welfare than religion, which emphasizes the absurd idea of eternal salvation, and deemphasizes knowledge. Education, i.e., knowledge, builds confidence and character, but religion only builds false hopes, while failing to add to our trove of worldly knowledge. Middle and High school males are vulnerable to their virility. It sways male brains for most of life, but is particularly deleterious in youth where the biggest dumbest boys become bullies. Middle and high school is no match for testosterone’s influence, but slower boys must be educated. Military type high-schools are not ideal, as they emphasize military action, which we wish to deemphasize, however, male high schools, academic and vocational, with male faculties were successful in many cities last century.

  9.     There is a great deal more that should be said about education and best ways to transfer knowledge, for instance; if one wishes to excel; to be better than the crowd; even the best schools can’t do that. The secret: it takes more than perfect homework. Beginning in the early grades one must exceed what state tests require; otherwise you only know what other top students know, which means one must be open-minded and inquisitive to enjoy learning. It is perverse to fear nerd-hood. Exceptualism is the name of life’s game and a fertile curiosity makes learning entertaining. So get off your bottom, put the remote-control and telephone aside and give yourself time to think. Can you think of anything you don’t already know? Do you have questions; your school work; your future goals; your personal relationships; trouble at work? Television and the internet are great sources of information, but you need something that you can refer to at your pleasure; like a book, maybe from the library, on the subject of your interest. Think about it, broaden your scope; develop the habit of searching for answers; use the dictionary for words you don’t know. Learn something new every day; it will keep your mind occupied and thoughts evermore positive. In composing this treatise, my problem was that I knew a words’ definition, but didn’t know the word. Curiosity implies an eagerness to learn things; a desire to be informed. Inquisitiveness implies a habitual tendency to be curious. Together they are the wellspring of knowledge.

A curious inquisitive mind is open to new information; and if facts change, it is eager to embrace them. Some minds are satisfied with what they know, and not open to conflicting information, which contributes to undeveloped intellects and dull personalities, e.g., non-curious self-righteous blind-faith believers dare not read this treatise’ iconoclastic information concerning Abrahamic faiths, but agnostics and atheists have open minds; curious, and eager to examine any tangible evidence that becomes available, but I doubt there is a school-board in our nation that would employ an atheist teacher.

10.     Historically, Abrahamic faiths; Judaism, Christianity and Islamism strangled new knowledge in the womb of its inventor; quelling all dissent for 2600 years; failing to add to our world’s trove of knowledge. Their schools and colleges, endowed after the Enlightenment, disseminated a particular sect’s theological doctrines; not to expand knowledge or enable society to see beyond their faiths’ constricted views of scientific progress. America’s founding fathers had experienced religion’s tyranny in Europe; migrating to the American colonies to avoid the hell of Abrahamic religion’s limited freedom and unlimited regressive demands. Our problem is: how to deal with our electorate’s enthusiasm for “God” as our nation’s sovereign; under the aegis of its prestigious professional proponents; ostensibly to negate our nation’s legislators’ responsibilities to reduce our national debt by fairly taxing the wealthiest contributors to their political campaigns.

11.     To gain an idea of what nonbelievers can accomplish, simply search for Wikipedia’s List of Atheists in Science and Technology; total of 93.

MATTER VS SPIRIT

1.     Matter is “whatever occupies space and is perceptible to the senses in some way”. Spirit is “the thinking, motivating, feeling part of man, often as distinguished from the body”. Spiritual is “supernatural or imaginary and is all that’s opposed to matter”.

2.     Primitive humanity feared attacks from both animals and humans; somewhere in our early development we found reasons to believe that the nonphysical was part of our physical world, and vice versa. Our fear of the paranormal developed sensitivities to the presence of animate beings, and our imaginations presumed the possibility of earthly gods. At some point in our primitive or ancient times, we realized: the deities we had identified as being most important, were all perceptible matter; things we could see, feel, or hear. We imagined that gods had imperceptible powers over us which we call fanciful or imaginary such as religion’s spiritual powers.

 3.     My view of the unresolved question of matter vs. spirit, is that our brain, the center of our nervous system, is of matter; receiving the sensory impulses from our senses and transmitting motor impulses to our muscles. What we speak of as our mind, is actually a division of our brain which handles our memory, recollection, our intellect and intelligence; what we think, what we feel or will, etc., the seat of our conscious and unconscious.

4.     Religion is an abstraction, dealing with our condescension, to obey and worship an abstruse mystical deity; something we permit our minds to do, but our brains remind us that the concept is unfathomable and that we are misleading our brain’s logic. Our mind accepts religion’s irrational concepts by giving our imagination the benefit of doubt; ignoring our brain’s logic.

5.     I believe our mind is free of our brain’s logic and free to wander, to wonder, to imagine, to suppose, to wish-for, to consider possibilities, and to either accept or reject them; our will is free and often not encumbered by our brain, a convenience for wishful thinking; our brain’s logic cannot consider details of the non-existent and our mind is unconcerned about the impossible or non-existent. We willingly accept conjecture or the spurious or prejudice, etc. without evidence for our brain to contemplate its probability. I’m aware: religions regard the mind as the “Soul, an entity which is the immortal or spiritual part of a person and having no physical or material reality is credited with the functions of thinking and willing hence determining behavior”; BS! My argument: religion’s forceful influence in our world is misdirected, that the idea of life after death, is impossible, that our mind (or soul) is not separate from our body, and is not spiritual, but is a part of our brain and is of matter. When our brain dies, our mind also dies and our essence is no more. Religion’s fatuous promises clouds reasoning and people accept unintelligent definitions without question.

6.       Neuroscientists assure us: our minds do not exist independent of our body, but are mental; which is not possible after the brain is denied oxygen. Our brain can mislead us; brain imaging shows that regions which become active when we only imagine we see or hear something are identical to those that become active when we actually do see or hear something. I think of the mind as integral to the brain but acts independently. If our mind doesn’t avail itself of our brain’s logic, it’s free to believe anything, even when no favorable evidence exists. Our mind’s freewill permits us to ignore the brain’s assistance in correcting fanciful unrealistic thoughts with more reasonable possibilities. So I’ll repeat the following: Ignorance and wishful thinking embraced religion’s fallacies. Our brains and computers, both require rational, factual input to develop rational factual solutions, but Abrahamic religions’ lack thereof forced it to rely upon conjecture, blind faith, and killing millions of nonbelievers, to obtain its illogical imposition upon the world’s ignorant gullible trustful societies.

 7.     I’ve experienced religion; contemplated its biblical messages; pro & con, for most of my 95 years, and found them woefully wanting of reason, truth and common sense. This treatise succinctly explains my successful search for a truthful reason for the bible’s irrational incoherence; where King Josiah’s god-fearing tribal propaganda is used for the bible’s early books; the Pentateuch. My choice for learning about the machinations of today’s religions is the American Fascist: The Christian War on America by Chris Hedges, and The Christ Conspiracy by Acharya S; worthy authors who “tell it like it is”. Reading them helps one better understand the politically conservative Religious Right Coalition’s calumnious schemes to amend our Constitution from a freedom loving secular democracy into a tyrannically controlled, book-burning autocracy without benefit of our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights.

German philosopher Kant, (1724-1804), said we individuals are sovereign; a rational concept replacing the sovereignty of the politician’s god, “which has always been a license for religious tyranny without accountability”.

MY FAITH & NOTES

Greetings, dear reader, I’m so very proud of you because you have an open mind, are curious and eager to learn; otherwise you would not be reading this. Your comprehension of my exploration of the origins of the Judaic god and holy books proves you are now better informed about this matter than some eighty percent of our world’s people; congratulations!

I have no faith in the Abrahamic faiths Judaism, Christianity or Islamism, whose vengeful intolerant dogma decreed the slaughter of multimillions of apostates, blasphemers, unbelievers and proponents of other gods, while fighting history’s religious wars, including Islam’s terrorism, but increasing numbers of us are learning about religion’s bloody history; dismissing god-ideas; realizing that, figuratively, God is the sum of Earth’s natural forces, processes and scientific principles. The Religious Right Coalition’s stupidity, e.g., its Middle East wars, financial meltdown, etc. must not be our future, as people must awake and realize that Abrahamic religions accentuate the supernatural, and denigrate knowledge, because knowledge will expose organized religion’s conspicuously vulnerable underbelly.

My faith is in REALITY, i.e., NATURE’S immutable forces and scientific principles, including evolution’s erratic progression. World scientists revealed the immutable forces controlling the motions of the cosmos and all life, enabling astronomers, mathematicians and scientists to develop productive concepts; beginning with the lever and the wheel; also steam engines, electricity, trains, automobiles, airplanes, computers, space flight and wireless transmission’s radios, televisions, our ubiquitous telephones and other electronic devices. Man didn’t create the forces; he discovered them in spite of the Church’s opposition to knowledge. These natural forces never demean, redeem nor threaten us with infinite damnation; so nature’s ramifications created life. I don’t worship nature; I respectfully appreciate its bountiful sustenance, wondrous beauty, and abhor its despoliation.  Confucius said “we are all the same except for our experiences”. Possibly a little undiscriminating inclusiveness might smooth and level our troubled road to international agreements, and help rectify our world’s contentious situations, and develop mutually beneficial ways to compromise. It’s taken since the Ice Age to get where we are today. Let’s encourage our reservoir of perspicacious women to collectively demand a voice in all international-policy-making-decisions because we men have failed.

   

 In their attempt to explain the universe; primitive prestigious professional proponents of mystical gods rationalized; a superhuman god created their incomprehensible world with all life. It is analogous to my word processer; unable to comprehend its miraculousness—there must be a god inside the electronic device reading as I work; thoughtfully coaching my grammar, spelling, etc. In Arthur C. Clarke’s book Profiles of the Future, his third law is that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

Despite Abrahamic religions’ perfidious unforgivable history, I wish to thank Religion-Lites for the extensive efforts they have made to provide schools and help for needy members plus hospitals for communal use, but I extend them no credit for their extensive, self-promotional proselytation.

All gods are speculative, but possibly science will discover some semblance of a universal power-center, or maybe our world’s scientific community will develop a more detailed analysis of the “big bang” theory; at that time, open minds of discerning individuals will reconsider all tangible evidence.

Advanced age has made me cognizant of a few important things I hadn’t thought about; especially how much more tolerant and understanding we men become after our testis haven’t functioned for decades, our libido is an ancient memory and our brain is devoid of the extracurricular; surprising us with its great interest in life’s mysteries; how sagacious, discerning and astute women are, and how irresponsible we men have been, thinking that women’s brains were marginalized by the bible’s god. We erred; female’s intellect is intact, but male intelligence is attenuated by their testosterone’s insidious stimulus. We ignored women’s intellect and accentuated their sexuality; conforming to evolution’s natural system, most of us found a compliant mate and promptly reproduced.

Although I have no consideration for conventional man’s imaginary gods, I am highly concerned for the multitudes of my fellow human beings; from whom all goodness flows, who appear secure in their religious ignorance, but their intentions, are good; it simply divides them into different kinds of bigots who insist upon worshipping Abrahamic religion’s three intolerant gods. Conventional males, even after marriage, prefer male companionship. They don’t love men, but seek their approval; evincing man’s innate instinct to lead fellowmen. Unconventional men are thinkers; uninterested in leading, who only tolerate other males, but excel as attentive loving husbands and able fathers. I suspect approximately 80% of humans are non-thinking believers and that only about 20% are nonbelieving thinkers.

I began writing this treatise with a ball point pen in September, 2008, a month after my 91^st birthday. Sometime later my grandson, Bradley Hess provided this word-processer and guided me. I will complete my 95^th year and have my 95^th birthday in August of 2012, and begin my 96^th year. I live alone in Plano, a part of greater-Dallas, Texas. I am in hospice with visiting nurses, etc.  The first year, after my wife Marie expired, was devoted to producing my 36,000 word Recollections & Reminiscence. I do not have a television or radio, but I have a Kindle, and order magazines, books, etc. from Amazon; adjusting font size to resolve a major vision impairment. In February of 2012 I was connected to the internet, and the world’s vast trove of information became available, which has helped me explain my views of the three Abrahamic faiths.

 As a free-thinking nonagenarian, living alone in H. L. Mencken’s “bible belt”, I know it’s unwise to expound upon my neighbors’ foibles, but such is life; many are convinced all nonbelievers are unreliable devil’s workers; and should go to Hell—immediately. Maybe some religious idiot will ring my doorbell and announce: “God sent me”; and terminate me, but all of my doctors and caregivers are considerate kind and generous individuals who I respect, cherish and will always remember, including my dear chaplain.

Wisdom isn’t limited to experienced adults; a grandson, Samuel T. 3^rd, at age five asked his parents if religion wasn’t make-believe.

 A four year old granddaughter, Sidonie, was stumping me with numerous riddles, so I asked her: which came first, the chicken or the egg. A moment later she inquired if I knew the story about Noah’s ark. I allowed as how I did and she said, “You know how all the animals had to march on the ark two by two; well an egg can’t march”. To further questions she replied: “Everybody knows an egg can’t march”.

As a matter of fact the Abrahamic religions are “adult-make-believe”; based entirely upon mythology: contrived by ignorant vindictive rapacious men; the prestigious professional proponents of mystical gods, who scammed people into submitting to the subjugation of their religious and political leaders, and thereby avoid total confiscation, persecution, torture or death; all as described earlier in this treatise. Ever since the Enlightment that same enterprising profession continues to preach inscrutable dogma, but their careers depend upon the extent of their community’s ignorance of the Abrahamic religion’s perfidious ancient history. “Think of the thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the ignorance of mankind! Think of those who grow rich on credulity and who fatten on faith”! Do the prestigious professional proponents of mystical gods, tacitly understand that they only pretend to believe their perfidious inscrutable creeds, or like their congregations, they just stupidly accept them.

Free at last; ROBERT G. INGERSOLL’S VOW personifies my own reaction:

“When I became convinced that the Universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world—not even in infinite space. I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live to my own ideal—free for myself and those I loved—free to use all my faculties, all my senses—free to spread imagination’s wings—free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope—free to judge and determine for myself—free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past—free from popes and priests—free from all the “called” and “set apart”—free from the fear of eternal pain—free from the winged monsters of the night—free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought—no air or space where fancy could not spread its painted wings—no chains for my limbs—no lashes for my back—no fires for my flesh—no master’s frown or threat—no following another’s steps—no need to bow, cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds”.

“And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heros, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain—for the freedom of labor and thought—to those who died in dungeons bound with chains—to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs—to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn—to those by fire consumed—to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of man. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still”. Robert G. Ingersoll,(1833-99)

Mr. Ingersoll was an American lawyer and a lecturer on agnosticism.

Search Google: Robert. G. Ingersoll; his iconoclastic works are available on line.

 

DRINK MY WINE

SEEK TRUTH IN ALL THINGS

QUESTION EVERYTHING

BEGRUDGE NO ONE

CHECK ALL FACTS

AVOID TRIVIA

ACCEPT LIFE

BE DISCREET

DO NO HARM

BE DIPLOMATIC

AVOID THE UNREAL

REMAIN BONA FIDE

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

LOVE REASONABLENESS

OBSERVE THE GOLDEN RULE

FORM INDEPENDENT OPINIONS

DON’T BLINDLY FOLLOW OTHERS

BE HELPFUL; AVOID CONTRARINESS

LIVE WITH SENSE OF JOYOUS WONDER

RESPECT OTHERS; DO NOT CENSOR THEM

ALLOW INNATE REASON TO BE YOUR GUIDE

IGNORE THE INCONSIDERATION OF OTHERS

POLITENESS IS LIFE’S ESSENTIAL LUBRICANT

ALWAYS STRIVE TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW

CULTURAL HARMONY ASSURES WORLD PEACE

RELAXATION CONCEIVES POSITIVE THOUGHTS

BE SKEPTICAL OF IDEAS LACKING TANGIBILITY

TREAT ALL LIFE WITH RESPECT AND HONESTY.

  THE LITTLE SPERM THAT WAS YOU SURVIVED.

 VALUE THE FUTURE ON A TIMESCALE LONGER THAN YOUR OWN,

 AS LIFE’S AN ADVENTURE, STRESSING PERSEVERANCE, TENACITY,

 RESILIENCY AND ENDURANCE, WITH AN OPEN INQUIRING MIND SEEKING, KNOWLEDGE & LIBERTY; FREE OF RELIGION’S BIGOTRY.

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED, WITH LITTLE CHILDREN, ARE WONDEROUS

GIFTS. I WISH YOU LONG LIVES, WONDROUS LOVE, MUCH HAPPINESS AND CONTENTMENT WITH INTERESTING, CREATIVE, UNRESTRICTED PROFESSIONAL CAREERS AND SUSTAINED ILLIMITABLE PROSPERITY.

Samuel Terrill Redwine Sr.

CHRISTIAN ANTI-JUDAISM

Regions controlled by the papacy have persistently tyrannized the Jews. Pope Innocent III, in early thirteenth century demanded they mark themselves as Jews with a particular type of headgear and in the seventeenth century, Pope Paul IV insisted that Jews be ostracized in special ghettos and wear yellow identification badges. They had not been allowed to own land, hold public office or work at most forms of trade. Church law forbade Christians to loan money at interest; Jews became licensed money lenders with interest rates defined by the Vatican.

During the European Middle Ages, (476 -1450), Jews were persecuted unmercifully; the problem originated with Christianity’s accusation that Jews had killed Jesus. “The Crusaders made it part of their mission to torment and kill Jews on their way to the Holy land”. The papacy’s repression of Jews persisted into nineteenth century Rome and during Pope Leo XIII’s reign more extreme forms of anti-Judaism erupted among Vatican clerics who alleged Jewish perfidy, obstinacy, etc.; reinforcing the Catholic view, “that the Jews were responsible for their own misfortune—a view that was to encourage Catholic Church officials in the 1930s to look the other way as Nazi anti-Semitism raged in Germany”, the most powerful Catholic community.

In 1933, Eugenio Pacelli, Vatican’s Assistant Secretary of State, negotiated an agreement between Adolph Hitler and Pope Pius XI allowing the Vatican to select Germany’s bishops, clergy, teachers, etc. with Germany paying the bill. Hitler acquiesced only after the pope conceded that Hitler should have complete political control. Pacelli persuaded Germany’s Bishops to disband Catholic’s powerful Center Political Party, assuring Nazism’s successful rise to power unopposed by Catholicism. The agreement “created an area of trust that was particularly significant in the developing struggle against international Jewry”. Eugenio Pacelli was elected Pope Pius XII in 1939 on the eve of the Second World War.

The above information and quotations were gleaned from John Cromwell’s book, Hitler’s Pope. All Christians would benefit by reading Mr. Cromwell’s book. He says: “I applied for access to crucial material in Rome, assuring those who had charge of the archives that I was on the side of my subject. By the middle of 1997, nearing the end of my research, I found myself in a state I can only describe as moral shock. The material I had gathered, taking the more extensive view of Pacelli’s life, amounted not to exoneration but to a wider indictment”.

Cromwell’s book relates the Vatican’s version of future pope, Eugenio Pacelli’s constant involvement with Hitler’s final resolution for Germany’s Jewish population; the midtwentyth century Holocaust, where Christians were instrumental in killing six million innocent Jews, all due to envisioned ancient hatreds, fostered by a belief that Jews crucified Jesus. When these six million Jews are added to the innumerable nonbelievers persecuted and killed throughout Christianity’s history, it refutes any claim they have to represent a sacred religion. Ignorance is inexcusable.

 I’ll also call attention to the Vatican’s midtwentyth century agreements with Italy’s Mussolini and Spain’s Franco; two other totalitarian dictators.

The following information and quotations are from the Holocaust Encyclopedia

“Since the night of ‘Broken Glass’ pogrom (Nov.9-10, 1938), the German government had sought to accelerate the pace of forced Jewish emigration—also hoping to exploit the unwillingness of other nations to admit large numbers of Jewish refugees to justify the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish goals. On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic liner, St. Louis, sailed from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba with 937 refugees, most all were Jews fleeing from the Third Reich”. In addition, “two smaller ships, the French, Flandre, and the British, Orduna with a total of 176 Jewish refugees, sailed to Cuba in May 1939”; neither was allowed to dock in Cuba. The Flandre returned to France. “The Orduna proceeded to a series of Latin American ports; its 72 passengers finally disembarked in the U.S. controlled Canal Zone in Panama.  The United States eventually admitted most of them”.

“The majority of the (St. Louis’) Jewish passengers had applied for U.S. visas, and had planned to stay in Cuba only until they could enter the United States.—When the St Louis arrived in Havana harbor on May 27, the Cuban government admitted 28 passengers: 22 of them were Jewish and had valid U.S. visas; (of) the remaining six, four Spanish citizens and two Cuban nationals had valid entry documents. One further passenger, after attempting to commit suicide, was evacuated to a hospital in Havana The remaining 908 passengers (one passenger had died of natural causes in route)---743 had been waiting to receive U.S. visas. The Cuban government refused to admit them or allow them to disembark from the ship”. On June 2, the ship was ordered out of Cuban waters after the U.S.-based Jewish Joint Distribution Committee refused to post a $453,500 bond; “sailing so close to Florida that they could see the lights of Miami, some passengers on the St Louis cabled President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for refuge. Roosevelt never responded. A State Department telegram sent to a passenger stated that the passengers must ‘await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible into the United States. In 1939, the annual combined German-Austrian immigration quota was 27,370 and was quickly filled. In fact, there was a waiting list of at least several years.”

“Following the U.S. government’s refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. The passengers did not return to Germany. However, Jewish organizations, (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee), negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers”: Great Britain took 288; the Netherlands admitted 181; Belgium took in 214 and 224 found at least temporary refuge in France. One of Great Britain’s passengers was killed during an air raid in 1940. “Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. (And) 532 were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278, survived the Holocaust; 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France”. Faith’s divisiveness prevents undistinguishing inclusiveness.

EVOLUTION

The following is gleaned from Wikipedia’s Evolutionary History of Life.

Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, but present day organisms indicate the presence of a common ancestor, from which all known species have diverged through the process of evolution.

Life began along with oxygenic photosynthesis 3.5 billion years ago, which eventually led to the oxygenation of the atmosphere, beginning around 2.4 billion years ago. The earliest evidence of complex organisms dates from 1.8 billion years ago; their diversification accelerated when they started using oxygen in their metabolism. Later, around 1.7 billion years ago, multicellular organisms began to appear, with differentiated cells performing specialized functions.

Evidence suggests that algal scum formed on the land as early as 1.2 billion years ago, and that the earliest land plants date to around 450 million years ago.

Invertebrate animals appeared between 630-542 million years ago, while vertebrates originated about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion. In the middle to late Permian period, 299-251 million years ago, synapsids dominated other terrestrial animals The Permian-Triassic extinction event 251 million years ago almost wiped out all complex life.

During the recovery from this catastrophe archosaurs became the most abundant land vertebrates, displacing threrapsids in the mid-Triassic. One anchosaur group, the dinosaurs, dominated the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The ancestors of mammals survived only as small insectivores. After the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago killed off the non-avian dinosaurs, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity. Such mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.

Fossil evidence indicates that flowering plants appeared and rapidly diversified in the Early Cretaceous; 130-90 million years ago, probably helped by coevolution with pollinating insects. Flowering plants and marine phytoplankton are still the dominate producers of organic matter. Social insects appeared around the same time as flowering plants. Although they occupy only small parts of the insect family-tree, they now form over half the total mass of insects. Humans evolved from a linage of upright-walking apes whose earliest fossils date from over 6 million years ago. Although early members of this linage had chimpanzee-sized brains, there are signs of a steady increase in brain size after about 3 million years ago.

Also see Wikipedia’s Earliest History of Earth.

PARTY REVERSAL

President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, Proclaimed his Emancipation, of Black slaves in September 1863. President Lyndon B. Johnson convinced the U.S. Senate to approve the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965; his Democratic party abandoned him. The decision reversed the positions of our two political parties. Segregationists were religious as “God approves of slavery”, and had resisted racial integration and fought this eventuality since the Civil War, having always voted the Democratic ticket. Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party sponsored integration, and when Blacks became eligible to vote and hold public offices, segregationist changed political party affiliations from Democrat to Republican. It was not limited to the South; ever since the Civil War, segregationists had migrated into the Midwest and far west; their movement into the Republican Party sufficiently controls its platform. So the party that elected Abraham Lincoln and freed the slaves is now the Religious Right’s Segregationist party which opposes integration.

The Democratic Party, now rid of the segregationist, who voted against the Civil Rights Act, is now controlled by moderate former Republicans who voted for the Act, but now fight Republican segregationists who voted against the Act, who now blame their old Democratic Party for opposing the Act, although they actually approved the Act. The reversal of political platforms in addition to Religious Right Coalition’s intrusion into politics during the past fifty years has seriously divided our electorate. Voting and legislating have deteriorated into confused contests controlled unilaterally; without bipartisanship, creating excruciating awkward political situations.

Our nation’s constitution is world’s initial endeavor to meld religion with the ideas of independence, freedom and equality. Its success was not fully achieved until after our midnineteenth century Civil War and midtwentyth century’s Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. But it is beginning to unravel; Christian televangelists via their hot-line to God have convinced millions of ignorant misguided, segregationist viewers that Christian leadership is necessary in our state and our federal governments. The Religious Right Coalition’s campaign of obduracy in our Congress and Senate, plus its use of religion to stir up discontent, in the multitudes, smells a lot like sedition.

MIDDLE EAST FIASCO

A news article many months ago explained: to that date, the total cost of the U.S’. Afghanistan-Iraq invasion exceeded one trillion dollars, which is 1000 billion dollars and a billion is equal to the number of seconds of time in 31.668 years, so a trillion equals the number of seconds in 31,668 years, an unimaginable treasure which could have provided 10 million students with a college education at 100,000 dollars each. In addition to our wasted wealth, 4000+, young Americans were killed and 20,000+, permanently crippled. So far, that’s what political and religious revenge has cost us. Had we not succumbed to the taunt of Islam’s extremists on 9/11 how costly might it have been? President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq to bring order to the Middle East, with its oil and religious terrorism; it’s reminiscent of the failure of the 12^th -13^th centuries’ Crusades. Ours has been much more destructive and with a greater loss of lives, treasure, etc. Apparently we have a tiger by the tail and are afraid to turn it loose. Islamic radicals wanted this war and hope to continue it indefinitely. Their goal: worldwide sharai law, as they believe “Allah”  requires the war to rid the world of infidels. Their game: bankrupt the secular nations with terrorism. Their method: goading secular nations into self-destruction by responding to their terrorism, which is proving successful and they are not apt to abandon the ploy. Our President’s eagerness to respond to their 9/11 bait has brought the Islamic regimes’ desired results. In addition to our cost in lives and treasure for religious revenge, it has broken the back of our Army’s ground forces, reduced any prestige we may have enjoyed in world affairs, stiffened the resolve of the terrorists and aggravated our god problem. Kevin Phillips, in his book, American Theocracy says: “In the months after 9-11 Washington could have shaped a multilateral response able to maintain much of the goodwill volunteered to the United States in the wake of the shocking attacks, instead the administration’s response was fundamentalist, unilateralist, and Manichean, trumpeting—briefly even termed a ‘crusade’—pitting good against evil. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, another poorly planned agenda, provided an environment that enabled overseas terrorism and radicalism to renew itself around a more acceptable anti-American cause. If terrorism remains center stage in a Middle Eastern war of attrition, that battle could last long enough—flaring into guerrilla wars and even civil wars—to wear the United States down militarily and economically. Osama bin Laden has hinted at exactly these hopes”

UNITED STATES

We are fortunate; our founding fathers, a prudent rational group of deists, free of religion’s irrationality, managed to reorganize England’s thirteen American Colonies into the independent United States of America, with a constitution dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal; embracing the idea of an open society, welcoming immigrants of all races and religions while avoiding the tragic traps of a deadly state religion.

Adventuresome ambitious people come to the United States; immigration has benefitted us immeasurably. Our universities attract foreign students who, in turn, provide the world’s scientists, educators, business people, etc. Too many of our males never finish high-school and many graduates are incapable of college work, adding to unemployment problems and filling prisons, encouraging us to welcome foreign students and intellectuals to become U.S. citizens. One fourth of National Academy of Sciences’ members are foreign born. Presently we are handicapped, due to our religious wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus a religious, anti-intellectual electorate that is misinformed by conservative radio talk shows. James Madison, our fourth president, warned us, in the Federalist Papers, that religion’s control of government would destroy our democracy.

In a recent issue of ATLANTIC, James Fallows observes:“ The United States has in the past decade committed $1 trillion to the cause of entirely remaking a society. We know that such an investment could happen here—but we also know that it won’t. That is the American tragedy of the early 21^st century: a vital and self-renewing culture that attracts the world’s talent and a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke. The most charitable statement of the problem is that the American government is a victim of its own success. It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries—long enough to become mismatched to the real circumstances of the nation. Gradually but persistently, special interest groups nibble at our nation’s total wealth via tax breaks, special appropriations, etc. No single nibble is that dramatic or burdensome, but over time they threaten to convert any stable democracy into a big inefficient, favor ridden state”.

Our United States of America has a democratically elected, representative type of government with a constitution, a president and a bicameral legislature; Congressional membership is proportional to our population. Each state has 2 Senate votes. “More than half of all Americans live in the 10 most populous states—which account for only 20 of the Senate’s 100 votes. California, our most populous state has 69 times as many people as Wyoming, our least populous; yet each has only 2 votes in the Senate. Since it takes 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster on controversial legislation, 41 votes is, in effect, a blocking minority”. This denies the benefits of majority rule.

“Without a propensity for tolerating and managing differences, rival groups can easily reduce democracy to a ruthless struggle for power that ultimately wears down liberal institutions”.

U.S. ECONOMY

This was adapted from Kevin Phillips’ American Theocracy: The Perils and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money In the 21^st Century.

United States’ manufacturing economy created America’s middle class by employing some 17 million out of 68 million available workers. Since 1980 manufacturing has been out-sourced and our national leaders have kept interest rates low, encouraging us to borrow and spend. “Consumerism” and its complex of services; namely: Financial, Insurance and Real Estate, (known as FIRE) has displaced manufacturing as our major economy. Although the U.S. financial services economy provides a substantial income for the wealthiest segment of our society, in 2004 it only employed about 8 million out of the 131 million available workers. In 2000, the FIRE sector of our economy increased to 20% of gross domestic product, exceeding manufacturing. FIRE’s combined assets in 2004 were $45.3 trillion, their earnings were 44% of all U.S. profits and an American filed for bankruptcy every 15 seconds. By year’s end consumer debt represented 85.7% of GDP; overall, the U.S. economy added $2.7 trillion in debt. The above transformation is the result of thirty years of federal regulatory dismantling that unleashed credit vendors to take advantage of humanity’s greed and gullibility. Consumer spending accounts for around 70% of our gross domestic product and borrowing to consume is at the heart of U.S’. current account deterioration The top one percent of Americans in 2000 had as much disposable (after tax) income as the bottom 35 percent. Our unemployment rate is accelerating and our self-evident income disparity is another historically proven problem that presently threatens our middle class, in addition to the loss of manufacturing jobs. This will lead to some kind of rebellion by the growing numbers of young people entering the job market in addition to the long-time unemployed, of whom many are filing for bankruptcy but may also lose their heavily mortgaged homes.

FIRE contributed $1.3 billion (1990-2000) to national elections: As debt became more important, lenders became more important, more powerful; and more influential over the policies chosen to regulate and control the financial services complex. It continues to feed on our downward spiral of religiosity and wars. From 1980 to 2005, while the our nation’s economy was undergoing financialization, Germany, Switzerland and Japan, each had stronger growth rates than the U.S., due to their ability to manufacture and export very high quality merchandise. European history is replete with self-sufficient nations whose leaders became ambitious; challenging other nations while accumulating debt; accentuating religiosity and ignoring an accelerating inability to design and manufacture products our world needs; investing in military adventurism instead of creating wealth. Our banking industry is a consequence of prosperity’s new wealth which is created by agriculture, mining, manufacturing, etc. Banking can’t create new wealth, but only profits from packaging, managing, trading and investing it.

This treatise has a 12,621 word Second Segment.

It also has and a 20,980 word Third Segment.

Please check on them.