The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is nothing in those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the religious persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the fox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs and cattle. There is nothing about "cultivating towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind," nothing about liberty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness; nothing against anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and forgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences of the possessions and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the Commandments amount to very little.
Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology, and science.
It relates childish stories of impossible miracles as facts.
It presents a low idea of God.
It gives an erroneous account of the relations between God and man.
It fosters international hatred.
It fosters religious pride and fanaticism.
Its penal code is horrible.
Its texts have been used for nearly two thousand years in defence of war, slavery, religious persecution, and the slaughter of "witches" and of "sorcerers."
In a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have perpetrated massacre and outrage with the blood-bolstered phrases of the Bible on their lips.