The War On Faith - FF

"As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it
happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and
Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
..........To F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816

"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of
grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross. Consider what calamities
that engine of grief has produced!"
..........To Thomas Jefferson

"What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where
are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the
forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope,
because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the
stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine."
..........To John Taylor

"The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since
the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would
tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence,
the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and
applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable
of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will
swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes."
..........To John Taylor