I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions nearly every vice and crime. Here is the long list of wrongs which it authorizes and defends:

1. Lying and Deception. 2. Cheating. 3. Theft and Robbery. 4. Murder. 5. Wars of Conquest. 6. Human Sacrifices. 7. Cannibalism. 8. Witchcraft. 9. Slavery. 10. Polygamy. 11. Adultery and Prostitution. 12. Obscenity. 13. Intemperance. 14. Vagrancy. 15. Ignorance. 16. Injustice to Woman. 17. Unkindness to Children. 18. Cruelty to Animals. 19. Tyranny. 20. Intolerance and Persecution.

The Bible is, for the most part, the crude literature of a people who lived 2,000 years, and more, ago. Certain principles of right and wrong they recognized, but the finer principles of morality were unknown to them. They were an ignorant people. An ignorant people is generally a religious people, and a religious people nearly always an immoral people. They believed that they were God’s chosen people—God’s peculiar favorites—and that because of this they had the right to rob and cheat, to murder and enslave the rest of mankind. From these two causes, chiefly, ignorance and religion, i. e., superstition, emanated the immoral deeds and opinions which found expression in the writings of their priests and prophets.

The passages in the Bible which deal with vice and crime may be divided into three classes:

1. There are passages which condemn vice and crime. These I indorse.

2. There are many passages in which the crimes and vices of the people are narrated merely as historical facts without either sanctioning or condemning them. The book merits no censure because of these.

3. There are numerous passages which sanction vice and crime. These, and these alone, in the chapters which follow, I shall adduce to prove the charges that I make against the Bible as a moral guide.