Thomas A. Edison—the greatest of human benefactors—wrested from nature her most guarded secret—the mystery of the human voice.
He disproved, as it was once believed, that the human voice, like the heart, was the "gift of God." He demonstrated that the human voice was merely the natural mechanism of sound produced by air of the lungs passing over the "cords" of the throat and larynx in the same manner as are sounds produced by the strings of a musical instrument.
As a result of Edison's invention, man himself has already produced artificially every manifestation of the human voice!
If the voice was part of "God's plan," how do we account for its absence in the giraffe? This animal has no larynx and therefore no vocal cords, and as a consequence it cannot talk or make sounds with its throat!
The giraffe is proof of the lack of design in nature and the blindness of the forces of evolutionary life.
To list all the great discoveries in the field of science and medicine during the past century, such as aspirin, insulin, penicillin, and the streptomycin drugs would require the undivided attention of a medical historian and a veritable encyclopedia to record them.
And yet, there are still many diseases that plague man of which he has no knowledge. They eat and ravage his mind and body with excruciating pain and torture, and he is utterly helpless against them. He not only does not know their origin, but has not the slightest inkling of their nature or how to fortify himself against their attacks. He must sit, like a condemned criminal, in agonizing torture, waiting for blessed death.
If man, and the other forms of life upon this earth, are a mere by-product of an "over-all plan" of a "supreme intelligence," then I denounce such a scheme as tyrannical and barbaric.
Why should we be made to suffer such excruciating pains and penalties of life to satisfy that from which we derive no benefit, and where death negates all of our efforts; and which makes the purpose of life, our hopes and desires, our ambitions and aspirations, a cruel mockery?
O prayer, thy name is failure!