Why I am an Atheist – The Blue Grass Blade, 3/17/1903

Republished from the free-thought publication the Blue Grass Blade

Why I am an Atheist – Franklin H. Heald, Los Angeles, Cal.

I have often said, “My mother’s religion is good enough for me, and she is an atheist,” but that is not the only
reason I am an atheist. I can see no place in nature for any power except the expanding and contracting of
matter by heat and cold. There is absolutely no motion or phenomenon of nature made in any other way, and
I make this assertion boldly and confidently, having had $1,000 on deposit for about two years which I offer to
any person showing or proving any motion made in any other way. In our own solar system the immense heat
of the sun radiates or expands solid matter into gas of thousands of times greater bulk than when solid, and
this is forced away or up from the sun as other gas is expanded below, until it finally recrystallizes in the far-
away regions beyond Neptune, where it is supposed to be 4,000 degrees below zero. When this happens it
gradually gathers into a new world which begins to fall back to the sun (in an orbit), falling faster and faster
as it nears the sun, but nearing the sun more and more slowly as its centrifugal force increases; i.e., increasing
its speed along its orbit in the same inverse ratio with which it decreases the diameter of its orbit. When it finally
falls into the sun it returns (in its falling weight and the friction of fusion, or disintegration into gas) the same heat
which it cost the sun to raise its great weight by expansion originally. Knowing, then, that there can be no other
force or motion than the expanding and contracting of matter by heat and cold leaves no place or employment
for a god, and I can find no chance or place for any conscious life outside of the motion of the collidial protoplasm
of a nervous system; therefore no life after death, viz., no spirit, and as God is a spirit, hence no God.

Why I am an Atheist – T.J. Wyscarver, Cincinnati, O.

First — Because there is no place for any other God than nature. Second — Because there is no occasion for
one God any more than for a million, and as much use for a million as for one. Third — Because a God big
enough to make and control the universe would be God enough to make a universe without injustice and misery.
Fourth — Because a God and a universe cannot occupy the same space at the same time without a family jar,
and I dislike family jars. Fifth — Because if there is a God who is able to make a universe and made this one,
in which every mouth is a slaughterhouse, he is, in my estimation, a damn fool.

Why I am an Atheist – Charles G. Brown, Ithaca, N.Y.

I am an atheist because I’m built on such a plan I can’t believe absurdities or make-believe I can;
For an eternal universe is easier in thought
Than one made by a self-made God, and both made out of naught.

I can’t accept theology that’s founded on a devil
That was created by a God who does things on the level.
I can’t believe one God is there, or that three Gods are one,
That one lived all eternity and then begat a son.
I can’t believe pure virgins have babies by ghosts begot;
It ought to be a crime to preach such silly tommyrot.

I am an atheist because I’ve never seen God,
Or heard, or smelt, or tasted one, or seen where one had trod.
Phenomena’s no proof of God, nor flowers, nor birds, nor grain;
No mind can act or thought can spring apart from nerve and brain.

Eternal energy exists; effect must follow cause,
But no eternal, brainless God’s revealed in Nature’s laws.
I am an atheist because I’m not a hypocrite;
Am not looking for influence or trade a little bit.
I’d rather be my honest self and free to think and speak
Than be a President and know I was a moral sneak.

I can’t believe “atoning schemes,” vicarious blood,
That will cut much ice on that “great day,” and I don’t care a cuss.
Who’d wash his vileness in the blood of an “Atoning Lamb”
Will steal the jewels from the crown of every saint he can.

I am an atheist because I read within the Word
That Christ came not sweet peace to bring, but to set up a sword;
Because theology has brought to suffering mankind
More persecution, wars, and strife than all things else combined.

I am an atheist because I can’t make it appear
That gods would mock calamity or laugh at honest fear.
I can’t conceive a God so base as to connive or wink
At witchcraft, slaves, polygamy, which makes the Bible stink.
I can’t conceive a “God of Wrath,” a God of vengeance dire,
Who sits and sniffs the incense sweet of damned souls in hellfire.
(Rev. XIV, 9–11)

I can’t believe this hell idea — I can’t a little jot;
A lake of fire and brimstone would be for kids too blooming hot.

I am an atheist because I like the precept true:
“Do unto others as you’d have all others do to you.”
I try my best to live up to this Christian-heathen rule;
I seek the reason in all things and don’t care who keeps school.

I am an atheist because I say with brazen face,
“I do believe that character is more than saving grace.”
“Morality will damn your soul?” All right, just let it rain;
I’ll take my chance with Socrates, with Bruno and Tom Paine.

I am an atheist because I’d have my heaven here,
And for skyscrapers never wait “to read my title clear.”
But why I am an atheist I can’t begin to tell —
The world could not contain the books, nor heaven, nor rosy hell.

Why I am an Atheist – E. I. Roffee, Hamilton, R.I.

I was pleased with your recent proposition to readers of The Blade to offer for publication their reasons or
the causes which lead to unbelief in that which is called our spiritual welfare. Christian converts, in relating
their “experience,” usually make a mistake in telling the bad things they have done, and when they backslide
their record of evil deeds is public property; while the infidel, in general, with a clear conscience and forearmed
with a moral sense of right, is not called upon to make such a humiliating show, but should, to the contrary,
be ever ready and willing to “declare the causes which impel the separation” — the separation of common
sense and religious superstition. There are so many causes that one hardly knows which to take up and
confine to the limited space; and in place of offering my convictions of maturer years I shall wander back
to boyhood’s happy hours (darkened only by the lurid glare of hell and the wrath to come) and relate an
incident of long ago when I was about ten years of age, in which, through respect to surviving members
of the family, I will use the fictitious name of “Brown.” With this prelude I will proceed to give one of the
many reasons why I am not a Christian.

Deacon Brown was a wealthy farmer whose broad estate adjoined that of my father’s farm. In the church Deacon
Brown was an exemplary Christian and a “strong pillar.” Outside of the sanctuary he was known as a hard-fisted,
clutching, grasping, and avaricious old man whose puritanical intolerance cast a gloom over his own household
and all who came in contact with him, and who, in his Christian zeal, held that life here below must be one of toil
and sorrow in order to fit us for the “heavenly mansion.” His youngest son, Chester, about twelve years my senior,
was a noble young man, inheriting his mother’s generous and kindly disposition. When Chester had reached twenty
-one years of age, after working for board and clothes up to that time, his father promised to deed him a certain
piece of land if he would stay and work for him another year, to which the son consented. In due time the deed
was executed, and Chester, who was engaged to the maiden of his choice — and contrary to his father’s wishes
in such choice — began to draw stone and lumber to build a home on his hard-earned piece of land. One evening,
as Deacon Brown sat at the fireplace, his son entered the kitchen. Looking up, he said, “Chester, who’s been hauling
lumber and stone on my east lot?” His son replied, “Father, that lot now belongs to me, and I am going to build on
it.” “Better get a deed before you begin to build,” chuckled the father. Chester, having confidence in his father, had
placed the deed in his trunk and neglected to have it recorded. Suspecting treachery, he bounded upstairs to his
room and after some delay came down with his trunk packed. Placing his trunk on the floor, Chester strode up to
his father’s side and, placing his hand on the shoulder of the cowering old man, said, “Father, you stole that deed
from me after I had earned it.” With a shrill voice came, “You can’t prove it, Chester; you can’t prove it!” Chester
crossed the room to where his mother sat weeping, and throwing his arm around her, kissed her goodbye and
went forth into the darkness a wanderer. Years came and departed, and regardless of his wife’s tears and entreaties,
Deacon Brown still remained stubborn and remorseless, and still continued to lay up “treasures in heaven” and
practice Luke XIV:26. In due time “good old Brother Brown,” as other deacons called him, was “called to his
reward” — was “gathered to his fathers.”

In company with my mother and father I attended the funeral of Deacon Brown. Space will not permit me to dwell
on the many good things that white-haired Rev. Francis said about “dear old Brother Brown.” I will simply state
that the deceased was held up by the preacher as a criterion for both old and young — as one who stood before
the Christian world without a moral blemish. The eyes of my schoolmates who were present on that occasion,
as well as those of older ones “outside of the fold,” were wide uplifted with surprise at the “beautiful obituary,”
while brother deacons and other church members shed tears and groaned in their deep grief. On our way
home mother remarked, “What a beautiful funeral service!” Father (who, by way of digression, was not very
badly afflicted with orthodoxy) quietly replied, “Yes, yes; I suppose so.” But my boyish spirit was up and in open
rebellion, and following my father’s doubtful acquiescence I said, “Why didn’t the preacher tell the truth about
the old skinflint instead of lying, as everybody knows he did — tell how he sneaked into his son’s room and
stole that deed from his trunk, and how his son left home and has never been heard from since, and how his
mother has cried every day for him?” My mother appealed to Father to “make that boy stop his wicked talk.”
That mother is now in her eighty-third year, and I love and revere every white hair of her time-honored head;
and recently, as I bent and kissed her wrinkled cheek, I smiled at these thoughts. Mother, the boy that you
rebuked so long ago is now a grandfather of eight years’ standing, and yet, with due respect to your Christian
faith, that boy has never stopped his honest “wicked talk.” Our Christian friends ask: “Why do you Infidels single
out these isolated cases as a sample whereby you condemn the whole?” Isolated cases of this nature are so
numerous in the church that, were they detached from the whole, the minority would be hopelessly isolated.

I wrote the foregoing because the incidents related made an impression on my youthful mind that time has not
effaced; and had I the space to relate the experiences and observations of later years, I could fill an entire issue
of The Blade and cause Deacon Brown, if he were alive, to blush for shame or grieve with envy. And I dare say,
should every distinguished writer for The Blade take up work in this line, they could fill whole libraries with
“isolated cases.” But I must hasten to close the painful chapter. The scene of my narrative now shifts to a white
‑haired mother whose face is deeply carved with age and sorrowing for one who never returned, and of whose
whereabouts she has never learned. By her side stands another, whose hair is streaked with gray and whose
face is full of love, sorrow, and strong yearnings for the boy of her early and only love. A stranger presents himself
at the door and is admitted. He is old, ragged, and a veritable tramp. Food is brought, but he pushes it aside
and several times essays to speak. At last he asks: “Did you have a son named Chester?” With a grasp the
mother replies: “Yes, yes—go on!” The stranger proceeds to tell how many years ago, in company with her son
and others, they started overland for California; how her son, poorly equipped for such a journey, yielded to
exposure and hardship, and, dying on the way, was buried in a wild mountain pass; and how, in dying, he gave
his mother’s address and asked him to promise to write and inform her of his death. The tramp then related
that during the years of his absence he had led a drunken and dissolute life; and that in his aimless wanderings,
having reached the vicinity of his old companion’s home, his conscience smote him and drove him to fulfill in
person the promise of long ago. I have passed through scenes of strife and bloodshed during the Civil War;
have met prosperity and adversity on the great battlefield of life; and a gray head bends over these lines. As
yet my early piety has never fully recovered from the shock it thus received in boyhood days, regardless of
the fact that I attended Sunday school until I was nearly eighteen years of age.

I have often wondered where preachers get their authority for lying, and in later years have been directed to
these words: “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His glory; why yet am I also
judged as a sinner?” Romans 3:7. And then I received another shock. Count me out! In fancy I hear again the
Rev. Francis at the grave: “He that believeth in me shall not die, but have everlasting life.” And I try to picture
dear old Deacon Brown, clothed in robes of spotless white, fluttering his snowy pinions and playing on a golden
harp in some conspicuous mansion in the celestial city of the New Jerusalem; but a nauseous lump comes up
in my throat which prevents the function of my swallowing apparatus, as my thoughts go back to the stolen
deed and a lonely, unmarked grave in a far‑distant mountain canyon. Please count me out! People may name
me Infidel, Atheist, Skeptic, Agnostic, or Freethinker; and yet, according to Shakespeare: “What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Why I am an Atheist – A.M. Brunswick, Los Angeles, Cal.

My reason for being an Atheist is that I used reason, with a fearless determination to know the true or false position
of religion, when I first began to investigate the subject. Through the kindness of an Atheist friend, with whom I
became acquainted and to whom I shall always feel grateful for the interest he took in me—to get me to see things
in their natural and proper light—I soon dispelled the clouds of superstition by studying nature and its laws, adhering
closely to the material side and rejecting everything that would not bear the light of reason. Having been raised a
Catholic, the doctrine and belief in hell and purgatory were a torture to my mind—to think of a human being suffering
endless torment. But by the study of the law of gravitation and the changing of matter by combustion, I soon succeeded
in running out of fuel and could see no way of keeping up the supply. Now everything is perfectly natural, and I feel
in perfect harmony with myself and nature, with no fears of an angry God, but knowing that to live in accordance
with, or in violation of, nature’s laws, we are rewarded or punished—mentally or physically—in this life, and not
in an imaginary existence of a hereafter.

Why I am an Agnostic – E. Edwin Eads, M.D., Los Angeles, Cal.

I am an Agnostic because there is no God save Nature. There is no proof to prove that there is a God such
as the Christian Bible describes. It is all presumption, perpetrated and kept alive by priests and preachers
for revenue only. No person that is capable of reason without prejudice can believe the contradictions and
unreasonable statements made in that holy book. That book contains more monumental obscenity than
any other book in print today, and should be excluded from the libraries of all moral people.

Why I am an Agnostic – J. E. Arnold, Nebraska, Ind.

I am an Agnostic because it is a principle that stands for truth and honor; because it is a principle that is
devoid of hypocrisy, deceit, and superstition; because it is a principle that would maintain an open court
of investigation. I am an Agnostic because it is a principle that spurns faith and courts facts, and stands
for every virtue—liberty, fraternity, equality, and humanity—and for the further reason that it is a principle
that stands shoulder to shoulder with the Atheist and the materialist.

Why I am an Atheist – Brooke Bartlett, Crews, Alabama

First—Because it is conceded that a deity must be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; and having these
attributes, He is responsible for the myriads of horrors that have cursed the earth—earthquakes, deluges, cyclones,
famines, pestilences, plagues, wars. Therefore such a being is sickening and revolting to every noble impulse
of my nature. I cannot believe, respect, or have fellowship with such an infinite fiend. Second—In all the ages,
deity has never manifested—assuredly not to me—either in power or goodness. Of the thousands of gods that
have been worshiped by man, every one is a fiend or else lacking in power. But he would not be a god if not all
‑powerful. Therefore, he is not. Third—To believe in a God existing in this age, all‑wise and all‑powerful, would
necessarily debase me and all other men. I cannot acknowledge a God ten thousand times worse than I am.
Therefore, I am an Atheist. Fourth—Were there a God of goodness and justice, even He would call up all the
hypocrites and myriads of agents and representatives and tell them to take down their signs, go to work, quit
fleecing the ignorant and gullible, cease to serve tyrants that deceive, persecute, and rob the poor, and proclaim
love, truth, justice, and goodwill to all men. He has not done so. Therefore, He is not. And I am an Atheist.
Fifth—It does seem that it has been truly said, “All men are doing the best they can,” but it surely cannot
be said that God, if He exists, has been doing the best He can. I can beat Him a thousandfold. So can
you. Therefore, having the three said attributes, He cannot be—and I’ll none of Him. Sixth—It is insulting
to common sense to acknowledge a God that is not even a gentleman, nor equal to a man to whom you
would be willing to receive an introduction—especially where virgins are concerned. My God must be a
gentleman and a scholar. And I remain an Atheist.

Seventh—Ask your God, O hypocrites and weaklings, if He is the author of the Johnstown horror, the Galveston
horror, the liquid hell in the West Indies of but yesterday, not to mention a thousand others. He must and will say
yes. Then I say to Him: Stand aside. Therefore, I am an Atheist. Eighth—All the gods demand that man shall
love them, fear them, worship them—though they need nothing of the kind, and such can add nothing to their
power or happiness. And some are meanly avaricious. Therefore, I am an Atheist. Ninth—But the most damnable
and infamous requisition is this: Believe what my middleman tells you to believe, whether you can or not, or be
eternally damned and burned forever—never to die, but always living in order to be tortured. Did you ever hear
of any man so mean—the very embodiment of the fiercest, undying tyranny and cruelty? I want such a God to
distinctly understand that I would not speak to Him on the highway. Therefore, I am an Atheist. Tenth—I am an
Atheist because the gods are great liars, and because all the gods are very ignorant. Take your Hebrew god. I
can write a better Decalogue and shut my eyes. So can twenty Blue Grass writers. And in his old book of dull
fables there are a hundred thousand mistakes at the minimum—five in the first verse of the first chapter, sixty
in the first chapter going through at a canter, twenty‑one in the last chapter galloping all the way. Besides page
upon page of dirty vulgarity, disgusting obscenity, and diabolical scenes of the most atrocious crimes that the
most distempered imagination can conceive—enough to make the meanest wretch that ever lived, much less
a god, sneak off and hide forever. And there are his greatest favorites—Moses, Joshua, and David—the trio
of infancy, adumbrating the qualities of this contemptible and hateful deity. David, whose last word was “blood.”
Therefore, I am an Infidel and an Atheist; for an Atheist is necessarily an Infidel, but an Infidel is not necessarily
an Atheist.

Eleventh—But the devil—Satan, Diabolus—seems to be a gentleman, a scholar, and a good fellow, and a great
conqueror of gods. He has all the greatest men and women the world has produced, and has the cream of society.
If we must have a deity, let Diabolus be him—a thousand times, yes. I have a great respect for Satan. He never
has any kneeling and praying in his, and would scorn to be the author of the thirty‑first chapter of Numbers.
Therefore, I am an Atheist. Twelfth—In fact, the seven Sabbaths, the twenty‑seven Bibles, the sixteen crucified
saviors, the three thousand languages emanating from Babel, the thousand religions, the fifty thousand gods in
five thousand years—omitting the incomputable mistakes propagated—would make an Atheist of anybody but
an arrant, wool‑dyed, double‑twisted, pusillanimous fool. And a deity would be worse than the poor fool. Therefore,
I am an Infidel—first, last, and all the time—proudly, grandly, nobly; and be damned to the kneeling, groaning,
whining, snarling, supplicating weaklings, sycophants, and hypocrites. The Lord’s Prayer helped me on the road
to infidelity with its faulty English and worse Greek—not to mention the shallow littleness and presumption of the
thing in thus addressing a straw god. Socrates left two prayers incomparably better—better Greek, too—and there
are two Blue Grass Blade women who can beat it and not half try. But the devil’s prayer helped me, too. Now, the
sixteenth verse of the sixteenth chapter of Mark alone would make me an Infidel. It is the most infamous sentence
ever spoken or written by man, devil, or angel so called. It has caused more sorrow, more tears, more broken hearts,
more bloodshed through the centuries than would melt the hearts of ten thousand fiends. And still it lives and moves
and curses. Why, I sometimes feel that I could curse equal to George Washington on the night of August 29, 1776
—and that beat the army in Flanders.

Thirteenth—and last—I am an Atheist because those who believe in a personal Bible god are, as a class, so vastly
inferior—so much meaner, more selfish, more illiberal, egotistic, presumptuous, and overbearing—than the Atheist.
Save me from a god whose example and precepts make men infamous. I have noted that men are better than the
Bibles. I see five different accounts of the last conversation of Jesus with his apostles. I see the Gospel of the Infancy
was voted out—the most marvelous of all the gospels. I see that Luke got into the Testament by a majority of one
vote. The D.D.s made me read the New Testament in Greek at fifteen, though neither Jesus Christ nor any of his
apostles did or could speak a word of Greek—though much of it is of an order of Greek that would make the old
Greek masters blush. I wish you would institute a cursing society. I want to join. Many are whispering, “The people
are not prepared for the truth.” Well, I am loyal to Diabolus. What is the matter with the devil, anyway? This Bible
god is a poor scholar, has a bad memory, and lies like a prince. Give me honor, truth, and justice—you may have
all the rest. And therefore, I am an Atheist. Here is the fully formatted text with corrected spelling, punctuation, line
breaks, and hyphenation, while preserving the original meaning, tone, and structure. I’ve treated it like a careful
historical transcription rather than rewriting or softening the content.

Why I am an Infidel – J.C. BARNES, Hindsboro, Illinois

I am an infidel to the church and much of the Bible. I am an agnostic as to the first cause or irsatergo of phenomena.
I am a freethinker and a believer in all testimony that amounts to evidence to my mind. I try to avoid prejudice. I
believe with Solomon that, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and a shame unto him.” I
want the truth. I want to be right. My reason is my only guide to truth and right. I arrive at my convictions of truth
and right by exercising my reason, by meditation, in extracting truth from my observation and experience. Authority
does not satisfy my longing for truth. Authority may err. I cannot tell how authority arrived at its conclusions, but
I do know that when I reason inductively by observing and meditating on facts, I am satisfied with resultant
conclusions. I have faith. I have faith in the final triumph of truth and right. I have faith in reason—that the
unbiased reason of all men arrives at the same logical conclusion. My observation teaches me that the world
moves; those who trust to reason and truth alone for authority, and discard authority as truth, arrive at the
same conclusions. Religion embraces theology and pertains to the unknown and unknowable; to a hypothetical
God and a hypothetical future and immortal life, and cannot be proven nor reduced to a knowable science. It
is purely speculative, unreasonable, and rests not on proof, but tradition and authority. There is nothing in our
experience nor observation to corroborate religion. The church is the custodian of religion. Its function is to work
upon the emotions and feelings of impressionable subjects by continued hypnotic suggestion without an appeal
to reason, often working the emotions up to an ecstasy of insanity. Religion per se bears no relation to morality.

Morality pertains to our relation to our fellow men and is knowable. It has been reduced to a science. It is not
speculative, but demonstrable. The reason sociology, or moral science, has not received more recognition is
that the church, making a feint of morals but quoting ancient authority for moral truth, holds its votaries in
thraldom and averse to science. For that reason I am most infidel to the church. I am infidel to the Bible, for it
sanctions the greatest crimes in the catalogue of crimes, and its teachings are very demoralizing. It cultivates
savagery, deception, and slavery—especially slavery of reason. It commands and inculcates obedience. No
man should command or obey. I am a freethinker for the reason that all thought must be free. He who thinks
at all is free to think, but some do not dare to think through fear of authority—the church. I, as Ingersoll said,
think for two reasons. One is: I love to think; and the other is, I can’t help it.

Why I am a Rationalist – A.B. Bennett, Norwalk, Connecticut

My first reason why I am a rationalist is because mortal man knows nothing, never has known anything, and can
never know anything of a future existence. Men have assumed the knowledge of God or gods from time immemorial
and have succeeded in sinking the human mind in superstition and ignorance for untold ages. Secondly, what our
fathers and mothers were, so will we be. In other words, we are what our environment makes us. Not until, by long
study of all sides on all questions mundane, did I see the absurdity of the so-called Christian religion. And I came
to a decided and firm understanding that I required no intermedium in the imagination of a crucified Christ. My firm
conviction is that if a man cannot be a man without an imaginary premium, he is not worthy the name of man.
Thirdly, nature’s laws are imperative and immutable, and by disobeying those laws I know that my existence
and those of my kin must suffer untold misery. Through my mistakes or misfortune I am still today under a cloud
of the dying dogmatism of my fathers, but owing to an intellectual spark—a spark that will benefit every man,
woman, and child if they will but come to that fountain of life and drink freely, whose waters are intellectual liberty,
intellectual happiness, and the crowning glory of this great country of ours. Creeds, dead issues, dogma, and
litanies are as nothing compared to this faith that makes for intellectual liberty. Why I am a rationalist, then, is
that little spark of intellect, partially born and partially acquired by reading all sides of all questions and drawing
my own conclusions from the laws of nature—the only laws of man’s being, the only laws necessary to man’s
happiness, prosperity, and enjoyment—the only God-inspired laws man knows anything of, or ever can or did
know. Fourthly, why I am a rationalist is that the so-called Christian religion is purely a fabrication of history from
ancient myth and fable—a relic of barbarism, born of passion, mustered by crime, and matured in infancy. The
greatest fraud of this twentieth century is today being perpetrated upon a free people by a lot of mountebanks
or fakers parading themselves before an incredulous public, all of whom should be arrested, tried, and convicted
for obtaining money under false pretenses by the practice of their duplicity and credulity upon a free people.

Why I am an Atheist – George H. Boyd, Sandusky, Ohio

Because no Supreme Being has ever demonstrated His existence; because every carnivorous animal is a cannibal;
because nature lives by destroying life; because there exists an infamous book called the Holy Bible that is a disgrace
to intelligence and reason, claimed to be His word, which is false in its chronology, false in its astronomy, false in
its geology, false in its geography, and most damnably false in its so-called inspiration. Because Canada thistles
and every useless and injurious vegetation grow without effort, while toil and sweat and continual labor are necessary
to support existence; because the human world is full of ignorance, disease, and suffering, and the material world
is stuffed with poisonous malaria, venomous reptiles, storms, hurricanes, simoons, and daily wrecks of appalling
horror by land and ocean, sea and river. Because every intelligent thought secured by humanity has been earned
by the slow process of mental toil; because no Supreme Being ever gave a thought to assist the mental toil of
research. Like priests, He delights in ignorance, dogmatism, and usurpation of power and revenue, and He is
simply the bastard spawn of those clerical prating liars, existing only in the imagination of bigoted monomania or
hypocritical lust and greed. Because the history of this “moral monstrosity” called God is so abhorrent, revolting,
disgusting, cruel, savage, vindictive, malicious, murderous, bloodthirsty, petulant, jealous, childish, ignorant, and
degrading as to excite nothing but contempt and disgust.

Why I am an Infidel – J.T. Bohon M.D., Kidd’s Store, Kentucky

Especially because I couldn’t be otherwise if I wished. Specifically, for innumerable reasons. Briefly, principally,
and sufficiently because theology is evolved from speculation, superstition, and sophistry; because its cardinal
postulates—inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, immortality, divinity, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—are
undemonstrable and irrational, based on unqualified faith in a farrago of crimes, contradictions, ambiguities,
obscurities, obscenities, and incomprehensibilities which contravene science and common sense. Because
initial utterances ascribed to omniscience, in detail of the order of creation, declare a profound ignorance of
astronomy and the simplest natural laws; because evidences of corrupt emanations are on every page of the
Bible; because there is no option on living or declining to live, and the imposition of never-ceasing tortures
as expiation for less than a moment’s sins—comparing life to eternity—is more monstrous and diabolical
than would be exaction of the universe as restitution for appropriation of a single atom of matter. Because
omnipotence could not have failed of success in a proposed benefaction for His beloved children, who are
created in His image, and could and would have provided a saintly instead of sinful environment. Because
a human father endowed with power would have provided better than has the pretentious divine father.
Because a finite humanitarian is less a monster and more a philanthropist than infinite Jehovah. Because
a loving father would associate with his children, and in event of enforced separation would, in devising a
last will and testament, employ a phraseology of such perspicuity as to preclude all possibility of controversy.
Because an omnipotent father would not arrogate alone for his children, beyond appreciation or comprehension
of a human parent, yet provide a hell for their eternal torture—when a mother would cheerfully endure those
tortures to shield her children.

Because an affectionate parent would never demand of an innocent child atonement for a guilty one. Because
a loving father would have manifested his love by assuming agonies which He imposed upon His Son. Because
an impartial father would not discriminate among his children, but would endow all equally and promote fraternal
relations by community of language, thought, and taste—harmony and supreme happiness being the order of
every detail, an end so easily decreed by omnipotence. Because the reputed paternity of the Redeemer is not
simply problematic, but unnatural and impossible. Because many of Christ’s utterances and commands are
contradictory, as bad grammar can make, and often impractical. Because in the concluding recital of the signs
and wonders to precede or foretell His second coming, he declared that that generation should certainly live
to see fulfillment of all—and necessarily some of them be on hand to greet him. Because in his declaration that
only the Father knows the hour of his second advent, Christ contradicts co-equality of the individual members
of that complex chimera—the Trinity. Because Josephus, Philo, and Tacitus would have made copious records
of those miraculous phenomena which, according to only Matthew, men associated with the crucifixion, if so.
Because of the forty gospels, the writers of the four which were arbitrarily and miraculously determined authentic
should certainly have agreed on the inscription over the cross. Because evolution, revision, and remunerations
of theology in memory of the middle-aged pronounce the imperfections of the pretended source. Because the
proposed expurgation to fit the Holy Scriptures for polite society is horrible and blasphemous in its defiance of
the curses promised those who add to or take from.

Because God’s children are divided into hundreds of factions wrangling over foolish dogmas with tigerish ferocity,
which has provoked more brutal atrocities than all other dissensions; and in their denominational propagandism
there is often greater rejoicing over one proselyte than ninety-nine sinners brought to repentance. Because
physiology, and especially embryology, conclusively disproves orthodox psychology. Because denominational
domination of civil governments would assure a speedy re-establishment of the Holy Inquisition, with additional
and improved implements of torture. Because to subscribe to orthodoxy is to “write me down” a Dogberry or
a Pecksniff. Et cetera ad infinitum.

Why I am an Atheist – J.N. Brown, Broston, Kentucky

I read the New Testament through when I was in my twelfth year. I was greatly grieved and shocked at the way the
chief priests and scribes treated Christ, and asked my mother why Christ did not strike His enemies dead—paralyze
them. She told me that Christ had to be crucified; that nobody could be saved unless Christ shed His blood for the
sins of the whole world. Well, right there I took up the notion that there was something unjust and cruel about the
whole business, and that God was not a just God if He would crucify His own innocent Son to save a wicked world.
I am an old man now, and I see no just cause why my judgment at twelve years should be set aside. I have always
tried to be truthful and honest, and I can now say with a clear conscience that I have never known God to do anything
whatever—not even to answer a prayer. I am aware of a power above me, but I am perfectly satisfied that this power
is not a person with brain and thought that a man may talk to and make understand. The power that causes this earth
to turn on its axis once in twenty-four hours and to go around the sun in a little over 365 days is not an individual with
brain and thought. I find that faith or belief is not an involuntary thing, but is entirely dependent on evidence; hence
to believe or be damned would not be in accordance with an all-wise being. If there were a personal God, according to
the Scriptures, He certainly could have everything exactly the way He wanted it. Otherwise He would not be supreme.
I would like to say something about the foolishness of the six days of creation and the talk the gods had about the
Tower of Babel, but I’ll stop right here.

Why I am an Infidel – Frank Burns, Washington D.C.

I am invited to say, in a half-column article in The Blade, why I am an Infidel. Well, I will commence by saying that
I was born and reared in a very intense Presbyterian community in the dear Southland, a neighborhood in which a
rooster was cussed for crowing too loud on Sunday, and the negro cook was given instructions to kill the rascal for
dinner on Monday. I was told that the Bible was the veritable word of God, and if I ever doubted it I would be dumped
into a hell of a place. I commenced to read the Word at the age of seven years, and was well along by my eighth
birthday. I then commenced varying my reading with Plutarch’s Lives and Josephus, and by the time I was ten
I had made considerable advancement for a poor country boy. I seem to have been born a geologist, for at the
age of eight years I was asking my father and mother questions that were hard to answer. One of the first was
something that troubled me very much. There were all kinds of rocks and stones and minerals in our country, and
they were of all sizes and shapes: some were rough and others were smooth; some very large and others very
small; some were very beautiful to me and others not so much so. Now, what troubled me was to know why God
took so much pains, in the limited time of six days, to make all the little stones. This was a puzzle, and the answer
to my question never was satisfactory to me, however much it may have satisfied others. One Sunday I found a
bed of beautiful water-worn pebbles on top of a high hill, at least 300 feet above the bed of the river, which had
countless numbers of the same kind. Eight-year-old boy like, I asked my father about it, and he said, “Oh, my son,
the flood washed them up there.” I accepted father’s statement like a good boy, but with a small sprinkling of “salt
on its tail,” and went on reading about the “flood” and a great many strange things in the Bible, never doubting. I
did not want to go to the old “Boogerman,” as His Excellency was called in those days when speaking to little boys.

But one day I got to the place where Joshua led his people over the Jordan dryshod and blew down the walls of
Jericho with ram’s horns. (Goodness, I thought those were tough horns!) And I read how they killed about all the
people in the city except a country strumpet and her family, and took all the spoil for the Lord. A few days afterward
the army went up and attacked a place called Ai and got the “socks” knocked off them. They went back to Jericho
and sat down and wept, and Joshua called on the Lord for an explanation, reminding the Gentleman of all His
promises, etc. And the Lord told Joshua that somebody had committed an unpardonable sin. So Joshua called
all the people of Israel before him and told them what God said, and then cast lots to find the guilty person. The
“lot” fell upon a tribe to which a gentleman by the name of Achan belonged; then the “lots” fell on Achan’s father’s
family, and then on Achan himself. And Joshua said, “My son, what have you done?” And the little man stood up
and said that he had “taken a wedge of gold and a little silver and an outlandish garment,” and he went and dug
them up and gave them to Joshua. I supposed, as a boy, that Achan did not think that God had much use for that
little trifle and would not miss it. But the sequel was what got away with all my preconceived ideas of justice and
right. They took Achan out and stoned him to death (good enough for Achan; he belonged to the tribe of Judas),
but they went further: they killed his wife and children. What the little innocent children had to do with it was never
made plain to me. Alas, they are all dead now, and I will never know. But this was not all. They stoned to death
the old man Achan and his wife and all the family and connections, including Achan’s mother-in-law and his cousins
and his aunts, and all the cattle and sheep and goats and asses. The Good Book does not say anything about
whether they killed Achan’s dogs, I believe, but I suppose they made a “clean sweep.”

Well, all this seemed to a little boy, as I read it, to have been done by the immediate direction of God, and my boyish
sense of justice kicked against it—and my old man’s sense of justice is still kicking. I was made an Infidel then and
there to some considerable extent, and it has grown on me ever since. The more I have read of the Semite conception
of God, the more I object to Him. A God that would let His only child be crucified to save such a lot of people as I
have known in the last seventy years does not appeal to me as a good God, or as a merciful one, or as a just one.
And if I have to go to hell as the result of careful reading and a long life of scientific investigation, then I am ready,
and the sooner I meet my fate the better for me. It will not be long now till I am called. I am sincerely a religious man.
I believe with all my heart and mind (I have no more soul than a dog) the “Religion of Do.” The New Testament tells
me in one place, as well as I can now recollect, that a gentleman called the Christ went about doing good. I pull off
my hat to Him and am ready to worship Him when the preachers convince me that He was God. The time is not long
now till I will be called on to face all the gods laid down in the books. I cannot face all the gods of all the imaginations
of men who have lived in the world since the Glacial Age, but I am about as ready now as I ever will be to meet
Jupiter and Jove and Yahveh and Osiris and Astarte and Venus and Juno and Baal and Dagon. And being a lawyer
in this world, I shall assert my rights if given a chance, and shall call my witnesses (if there is justice in the high
courts of heaven). And my witnesses are the little children on 13th Street, S.W., Washington, and the three or
four hundred boys and girls that go to school at Blount College and Agricultural Station down in Central Alabama.
And if they say that old “Grandpa Burns” is a very bad man in their opinion and ought to be punished for a thousand
million years in hell, and if, after they give evidence, I am sentenced to the flames the church has invented for
such as I am, then shall I take the advice of Job’s wife and curse all the gods of human invention, in hell or on
earth, or in the heavens above.

I will, as the flames circle around me and the burning sulphur fills my nostrils and chokes my throat and blinds my
eyes, curse—I will curse “human gods” from Alpha to Omega, from Dan to Beersheba, and from “hell to breakfast.”
But, if the “Eternal Pain” does not destroy my mind and consciousness (a “consummation most devoutly to be
wished”). I will bless the great and good Creative Power that made matter and endowed it with life—the Power
that painted the rainbow and the butterfly’s wing and the hummingbird’s throat. If there is a God that made the
sixty-four elements of matter, I am ready to worship Him, and I think that I do, in a feeble way. I am all the time
trying to study the law that governs matter, but the Semitic conception of God—Yehovah, Jehovah, Yahweh—
bah! Yah! Zah! I wouldn’t give one good drink of old Kentucky rye coffee for all the gods of all the ages since
man shed his tail.

Why I Am An Atheist – The Blue Grass Blade, 6/14/1903

Why I Am an Atheist
Anna Fritz, 14 years old

I am an atheist because I cannot conceive of that being called a god. I cannot see that an almighty God, who is
supposed to have made this world and all therein, can be selfish enough to allow “his children” to struggle in this
world as they do; the injustice of which drives them to all sorts of crimes. I cannot conceive of a God creating men,
allowing them to be driven to such extremes, and then committing them to Satan, to be tortured after death, as they
had endured torture before it. As to the hereafter, I should like to have something better here, as I have no faith
in it. I believe that things cannot be created or destroyed. I believe that matter (therefore man), instead of being
destroyed, evolves into something else, and that matter is uncreatable and indestructible. Lastly, observing everyday
life, I cannot say that people are made better by religion. Their belief in a God puts them in constant fear of Him (if
they truly believe), and this makes them cringing cowards. People commit all kinds of sins and then think that by
offering prayers to their God they are forgiven. I cannot believe in such a pest as that one preying on the people
today, the pest of religion. Because I cannot conceive of a being with as cold a heart as that “God,” I crave the
honor of classing myself with all common-sense people, and therefore of calling myself an atheist.

Why I Am an Agnostic – B. Lee

Is there a God? To the earnest searcher after truth who has left the beaten track of centuries, left its ruts and quagmires,
and boldly ventures into the byways that lead he knows not where, to such a one there is the delight that falls to the
adventurer and explorer of entering into new and unfamiliar regions. The fairer and ever-brightening vistas of life that
spread before the thinking, progressive mind are in sharp contrast to the blackened landscape of superstition that he
has left behind. He travels far, perhaps, and finds many nuggets of truth—nuggets well tested in the crucible of reason
and experience and found genuine. And though enriched by possessions far above gold, possessions that endow with
love of nature and goodwill to men, he is still far from that haven of rest—content. The unknown still beckons on. He
wants more truth. The germ of progress that found lodgment in the brain has grown and become an “expansionist” of
potent, restless energy, pushing on and on, reaching out after new worlds to conquer. It has braved the jungles of
superstition and triumphed over creeds. It has slain fear, it has seized and appropriated proof, and silenced doubt.
The conquest thus far has been great, but the universe is wide. A seemingly shoreless ocean of possibilities lies before.
What? And where? All questions merge into one—Is there a God? Some there are who seem to find a satisfactory
answer in the partly revealed, partly read book of nature: no, there is no God, being the conclusion, I believe, of the
majority of Liberals; a conclusion carrying with it no doubt a sense of satisfaction and completeness, forming a resting
place, as it were, for the searching wanderer. But is he not resting on shifting sands? The tendency of the human mind
to belief is strong. The hereditary influence of a thousand ages is not easily outgrown. It is a matter of common observation
that people who abandon a belief, whether in religion or politics or anything else, are prone to go to the farthest extreme,
not stopping until the opposite is reached. May not this tendency to the opposite partly explain the swing from orthodoxy
to atheism? A change from one belief to another directly opposite, the impetus of motion carrying one beyond the
viewpoint of strict rationalism and again onto the grounds of credulity and belief.

With the atheist it is the belief that nature, as the five senses recognize it, is the all in all—that no God exists. With
that belief he stops; with that conviction he ignores the proposition that we have learned but the alphabet of the
universe. But granting that we know more, and that we have read many volumes of the library of nature and obtained
knowledge of many of her operations, and have beliefs about others, yet, as myriads of beliefs have been swept
away by the remorseless hand of science, is it not more rational to hold the problems of the universe still in question,
granting the uncertainty that generally clings to partial evidence? “Man, know thyself,” is good, but we cannot claim
to be thoroughly acquainted with the ego. Can we claim to be acquainted with all the forces that brought him into
being? But thanks to science we are learning. She is constantly giving us new discoveries and hints of things yet
undreamed. I, for one, do not forget that we are laboring under difficulties and limitations (yes, lamentations too).
We are limited in our knowledge and understanding of many things, even under close observation. In our inherited
tendency to belief, and it might be added, conceit, shall we presume to have unveiled infinite causation? Briefly,
I am an agnostic because “the more a man learns the more he sees there is to learn.” Utterly unable, even in
boyhood, to accept the Bible God, that hideous monstrosity called Jehovah, I asked: might there not be some
other kind of God? One that decency could tolerate and reason sanction, some force or intelligence or power
that it may be cannot be recognized by the senses, perhaps even lying beyond the recognition of reason and
understanding in its present stage of unfoldment. I am an agnostic because nature made me one, the conditions
of time and place being favorable to development thus far, with the outlook one of hope that nature may yet yield
the great secret, and in the shoreless vast of time and space I may yet say “I know.” The eternal principle of
evolution may solve the problem and give the answer.

Comment

The circumstances have been, and still are, such that I have had no opportunity to take any part in the very interesting
discussion of atheism that, for some time, has been conducted in The Blade. But the above is so beautifully and
conservatively said—though ordinarily I do not like conservatism—that I must trench a little on my time for reading
for clerical errors in my lately finished new book in order to give it my hearty sanction. I am an atheist. The word
agnostic is not strong enough for me, and, in one sense, I think Huxley made a mistake in inventing that word and
that Ingersoll made a mistake in using it to express his own intellectual status as to the existence of a God.
In one sense of the word we are all agnostics, and agnostics about everything, because really nobody knows
—absolutely knows—anything about anything. None of us knows that the world is round, and neither Huxley
nor Ingersoll knew that there were no such things as witches. The Bible says plainly that there are witches, and
American judges and juries decided from the evidence adduced that there were witches and executed, as being
witches, what seemed only to be old women, as they were plainly directed by the Bible to do. And yet the world,
Christian just as much as infidel, has concluded there are no such things as witches. And yet there is not a man
in the world that can know that there are no witches even at this day. For all practical purposes, however, we
proceed on the supposition that there are no witches, and just exactly in the same way, while nobody can
absolutely know that there is no such existence as the Bible God, as intelligent creatures we ought to proceed
upon the supposition there is none, just as we proceed upon the supposition that there are no witches. None of
us absolutely knows that the world is round, and the Bible teaches that it is flat, and yet any man would be very silly
at this day who would base any sort of business transaction on any hypothesis other than that the world is round.

So that, if in discussing the question of the existence of a God we mean by the word the kind of a God described in
our Jewish-Christian Bible, it seems to me plainly the part of intelligence and integrity to say that there is no God. To
oppose Christianity is not merely a matter of interesting debate and intellectual prowess; it is a duty that we owe to
humanity and an inalienable right for our self-defense. I have been for years experimenting in plans of meeting Christian
argument, real or so-called, and I have lately, in my travels, had large experience in that line. I have found it most
expedient just to say to the Christian apologist that “there is no God,” and then when he asks, as he always will,
“Who made the universe?” tell him that it never was made but has existed from all eternity and will exist to all eternity,
and this throws him on the defensive, where he legitimately and logically belongs. And there is no ad captandum
vulgus about that, for that is what science seems to indicate. But then there are other great minds like Paine, Franklin,
Jefferson, and Lincoln, who, while they did not, or do not, believe in a God like that one of the Bible, did, or do, believe
in a God of nature, and devoutly believe it. And there are bright men like Brother Lee here who think there may be
such a God as the God of nature. Strictly speaking, there is no more a God of nature than there is a God of the
Bible. There are laws and principles of nature, but it is a misnomer to personify them and call them God; they are
nothing but laws and principles of nature that account for all the phenomena of nature without any God of nature
any more than a God of the Bible.