"If the belief in god were natural, there would be no need to teach it.
Children would possess it as well as adults, the layman as the priest,
the heathean as much as the missionary. We don't have to teach the
general elements of human nature; -- the five senses, seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, and feeling. They are universal; so would religion be
were it natural, but it is not. On the contrary, it is an interesting
and demonstrable fact, that all children are Atheists, and were religion
not inculcated into their minds they would remain so. Even as it is,
they are great sceptics, until made sensible of the potent weapon by
which religion has ever been propagated, namely, fear - fear of the lash
of public opinion here, and of jealous, vindictive God hereafter. No;
there is no religion in human nature, nor human nature in religion. It
is purely artificial, the result of education, while Atheism is natural,
and, were the human mind not perverted and bewildered by the mysteries
and follies of superstition, would be universal." -Ernestine L. Rose, "A
Defence of Atheism"
This page is black out in rememberance of those who died fighting religous and political oppression. It also is in hope that those practices will end.
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