A handbook of Freethought

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling. (1 Sam. 15 : 2, 3.)

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.... Then returned they unto Jerusalem, from the mount called...

"And when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise," etc. We see that it was wisdom that was pro...

So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning, for he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses. (Job 42 : 12.)

"In no country in the world had women less liberty than in the Holy Land, and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than Jehovah of the Jews. The positi...

It is good for a man not to touch a woman.... For I [Paul] would that all men were even as I myself.... It is good for them if they abide even as I. (1 Cor. 7 : 1, 7, 8.)

I have aimed in preparing this work to put into compact and orderly form a large amount of irrefragable evidence against the superstitions of the church. I have often felt the n...

The writers of the third and fourth gospels know nothing of any command to go into Galilee; but on the contrary, Luke relates the command of Jesus to his disciples to remain whe...

"But should this miracle be ascribed to any new system of religion, men in all ages have been so much imposed on by ridiculous stories of that kind that this very circumstance w...

"But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come." (Mat....

"Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Ghost. The...

"And inasmuch as Solomon was the wisest of all men (or God made a mistake when he so said), and the temple was for the said God, I am justified in concluding that this God regar...

But supposing them a gift from God as damages sustained by Job at the hand of Satan through the instigation of God, yet they could not assuage his grief for the loved ones ruthl...

Christianity is conservative, and, like the bourbon, never gets a new idea or forgets an old one, and it is in its very nature, therefore, non-progressive. The advancement of hu...

Matter is not that empty capacity which philosophers and theologians have pictured it, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb. Nature...

We trace these names to our Saxon ancestors. By them the seven days of the week were called Son-daeg, Moon-daeg, Tuis-daeg, Woden's-daeg, Thurres-daeg or Thor's-day, Friga's-dae...

We may look at this subject in whatever way we choose we shall find that in no way whatever can we form any idea of a First Cause, an infinite and absolute Creator. Let us see....

Matthew gives two versions of this incident, "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall be no sign but the sign of the prophet Jonas." (16 : 4.) "...

Joseph Priestly: It being a rigid canon of the Newtonian logic not to multiply causes without necessity, we should adhere to a single substance until it be shown, which cannot b...

The northern churches were almost all in sympathy with the "divine institution." Their ministers did not dare to condemn the system lest they should be deposed for their aboliti...

"I am, my lord, not making loose assertions here; I am all along stating from acts of Parliament, and the above form a small sample of the whole; and this your lordship must kno...

They [the house of commons] also enacted laws for the strict observance of Sunday which the Puritans affected to call the Sabbath, and which, they sanctified by most melancholy...

"How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there never was such a st...

"We find them saying things which they did not themselves believe. They are mutually witnesses against each other, that they are not to be believed absolutely on their bare word."

4. That man is a "fallen 7. That instead of worshiping God, creature," and unable to improve we should direct all our efforts to by his own unassisted efforts. improve ourselves...

"Secondly. We may observe in human nature a principle which, if strictly examined, will be found to diminish extremely the assurance which we might, from human testimony, have i...

"This dual character obviously leads to many difficulties in defining the evidential function and force of miracles, and we may best appreciate the dilemma which is involved by...

And where is the design in the thousands of facts which science has brought to light, showing that there are organs and parts that serve no purpose at all, but on the contrary,...

How many mortals have been frightened out of their senses by the false alarm of fire in the next world. Preachers have pictured to mothers their children who died without the sa...

A friend of mine went once to buy a pup. The price was five dollars; but as there were three pups in the basket my friend said he would give five dollars for one if he could hav...

"I protest against being accused of dogmatism, I studiously endeavor to be fair and make no pretensions to scholarship and learning. But I emphatically protest against the dogma...