The making of an Atheist implies a mental stimulation and training which brings into play the primary factors of social progress.

If a single one of these gentlemen is correct, if a believer of any type is right, the essential truth for man, the real drama of life, in comparison with which the secular story of the race, is a puppet-show and the unfolding of the universe is a triviality, is the dialogue of the immortal soul and the eternal God. Yet it seems that there is nothing in the world so hard to discover as this. The theory refutes itself.

The absence of theistic belief...

The Rationalist case needs no straining of evidence and always gains by the severest self-criticism.

If, it was natural to reason, God punishes men with eternal torment, it is surely lawful for men to use doses of it in a good cause.

Not material or economic conditions in the ordinary sense, but perverse religious ideas explain the suspension of civilization in Europe from the 5th to the 12th century, and in the Mohammedan world after the 15th century.

Creeds made in Dark Ages are like drawings made in dark rooms