Is there a God who says that if man does so and so He will damn him? Can there be such a fiend? I am not responsible to man unless I injure him; nor to God unless I injure Him, but one cannot injure God, for "He is infinite."
When I was young I was told that the bible was inspired, written by God, that even the lids of the book were inspired. They say He is a personal God; if so, He has not revealed Himself to me. There may be many gods. As I look around I see that justice does not prevail, that innocence is not always effectual and a perfect shield. If there be a God these things could not be. If God made us all, why did He not make us all equally well. He had the power of an infinite god. Why did God people the earth with so many idiots? I admit that orthodoxy could not exist without them, but why did God make them? If we believe the bible then He should have made us all idiots, for the orthodox Christian says the idiots will not be damned, simply transplanted, while the sensible man, who believeth not, will be sent to eternal damnation? If there is any God that made us, what right had He to make idiots? Is a man with a head like a pin under any obligation to thank God? Is the black man, born in slavery, under any obligation to thank God for his badge of servitude?
What kind of a God is it that will allow men and women to be put in dungeons and chains simply because they loved Him and prayed to Him? And what kind of a God is it that will allow such men and women to be burned at the stake? If God won't love such men and women, then under what circumstances will he love?
Famine stalks over the land and millions die, not only the bad but the good, and there in the heavens above sits an infinite God who can do anything, can change the rocks and the stones, and yet these millions die. I do not say there is no God, but I do ask, what is God doing? Look at the agony, and wretchedness and woe all over the land. Is there goodness, is there mercy in this? I do not say there is not, but I want to know, and I want to know if a man is to be damned for asking the question?
(He eloquently recited the agonies that clustered around the French Bastille, where great men and heroic women suffered and died for loving liberty, and said: If there is a God, I think that one word, Bastille, would bring the blush of shame to His face.)
I find that the men who have received revelation are the worst; and that where the bible goes there go the sword and the fagot. If an infinite God makes a revelation to me He knows how I will understand it. If God wrote the bible he knew that no two people would understand it alike.
When I read the bible I found that God in His infinite wisdom couldn't control the people He had created and that He had to drown them. If I had infinite power and couldn't make a people that I could control and had to drown them, why I'd resign.
Then I read in the bible such cruel things, and I do not believe that God can be cruel. Such cruelty may make one afraid, but cannot inspire love. I can't love a god that will inflict pain and sorrow, and I won't.
The preachers say all unbelievers will go to hell—tidings of great joy. When I confront them they—say I'm taking away their consolation. The old bible does not mention hell or heaven. Now God should have notified Adam and Cain of hell, but He didn't. When He came to drown all those people He didn't tell a single one that He would drown him. He talked all about water—nothing about fire. When He came down on Mount Sinai, and told Moses how to cut out clothes for a priest, He never said one word on the subject. When God gave Moses the ten commandments, engraved on stone, there He said not one word about hell. There was plenty of room on the stone; why did He not add: "If you don't keep these commandments you will be damned." Through all these ages, when God was talking all the time, and when every howling prophet had His ear, not one word did He utter of hell or heaven. For 4,000 years God got along without mentioning those places or even hinting of them. It seems to me that we ought to have been notified by Him.
(Here the orator recalled many stories from the old bible and subjected them to keen irony and ridicule. Reciting the story wherein the she bears came out of the woods and tore to pieces the forty children who mocked the prophet, he asked: If God did that, what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? Why; he said, did not God give a sure cure for leprosy, unless He wanted to have His chosen people to have that frightful disease?)