Christianity is opposed to freedom, and consequently freedom is opposed to Christianity. A Christian cannot be a freethinker, and a freethinker cannot be a Christian. When a man is required to believe certain doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to keep the mind from inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is the death of faith.
The church condemns freethought, because freethought cannot be bound by its chain of dogma. There is no place in the Christian church for the exercise of liberty. If the mind finds a new truth that contradicts the old dogma, the truth must be strangled that the dogma may hold its power over the thoughts and deeds of men.
To be a Christian is to surrender to the priest or minister in the name of Christ. It is to be a monkey on the end of an ecclesiastical string to get pennies for his master. It is to crawl at the feet of superstition.
To be a freethinker is to search for truth without fear. Where there is love of freedom there is no reverence for authority. There is no faith in God as sacred as love of man.
There may be lots of Providence in the world, but no man seems to know just where it can be found.
The Brotherhood And Freedom Of Man
From the fall of Rome a new era marks the history of man; a new soul was born out of human experience. The idea which had been prophesied by the philosophers of India, Egypt and Greece now appeared in life, and what had been hoped for seemed about to be realized. Born in an age of slaughter and inhumanity the thought of the brotherhood of man fell upon the world like a star out of the night's sky. Though the power of this idea was not fully comprehended by the people upon whom it blazed forth, still the promise it contained was able to kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of the few, who bequeathed it to the world as the destiny of mankind. Human life was inspired with a new purpose under the power of this grand and noble sentiment. Although it was not understood and the subject of much misapprehension, the thought of uniting man in one great endeavor grew and endowed nations with a feeling that never before had moved their hearts. Its advent gave the world a new ambition and the mind was enlisted in the great cause of love and fellowship of man.