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And yet thousands of people credulously cling to creeds which embody the notions of barbarous or uncivilized ages.

Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the Bible is a revelation of the will and wisdom of an omniscient God; that it is a perfect and sufficient rule of faith and practise. What, in the name of humanity, causes people to make such statements today? It is like trying to light the house with a saucer of tallow in which a rag is immersed, instead of using gas or electricity.

Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy xiv: 21, we read, "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God." In Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them."

Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy, or even the moral unity of a volume written by many hands at widely different times? Are such people so ignorant that they have not read the Book they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots and do not know the plainest right and wrong? Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful reason for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they the dupes of their own credulity, clinging without thought to the beliefs in which they have been reared? They are evidently not using commonsense in an honest way.


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