Tell me there is a God in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox creeds, than there are leaves in all the forests in the wide world ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in Hell; that these men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as the most infamous of lies.

If this religion is true, then there is only one Savior, only one narrow path to life. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other religion.

The triumph of justice is the only peace.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.

Blasphemy is an epithet bestowed by superstition upon common sense.

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the rainbow -- Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon the heads of thieves, called kings.