Can we expect the pampered priestocracy to stop, as if convicted of error, unless mind's tribunal force it to that unpleasant, but certain category? How much longer, citizens, shall society be swayed, under the tyranny of ignorant, bigoted mind? Mind has outlived the priests' crocodile gods-the murder of children by them, by fire! It will survive all the pagan idolatry. The most fascinating is power, now, and all its influences over the government of mind. The Egyptian learning, was building pyramids in part. For what? Better had mind been liberated from the curses of their priestocracies. But the preachers go against the unbeliever or disbeliever. It is their duty to prove their gospel, so that an honest mind may believe candidly and honorably, else they are estopped forever in advancing their unendorsed doctrine, much less in inveighing against the last, even skeptics, as they affect. Christians are the last to speak of believers, unless they prove signs. . But then, what is the world to do if all this gospel goes by the board? The question is not at all with the world, which God governs as the Creator's best right and duty, but with the priestocracy, that are all to be estopped with their estopped gospel, unproved and unendorsed. The gospel had been estopped long ago, if the priestocracy had not to go therewith! Who are the priestocracies, that they should deceive, oppress, or crush mind? The mouth-organs of the ancients, the priestocracy could direct public sentiment as it chose nearly; but how is it now? The conservative revolution of the world and mind, has materially changed for the better. The priestocracy absolutely controlled, at one time, the ancient world. The patriarchs of the Jews governed thus their families, and finally, the whole nation. This is the party most unprincipled in all matters that conflicted with their self-interests, that mind is required to bow to and reverence! The officials and functionaries of the priestocracy, got up their Israelitish government, a curse to the whole people. Have mercy on the priestocracies: let them all have mercy on themselves and the world. We have no animosity or ill-will to them, but we act for the principles of patriotism. Some of my best friends are, or were in the church. But we cannot let off the bible of tradition-man easily. The priestocracy bibles of tradition are too small an affair for me: I seek the universal good of mankind-of the world. But for them, public opinion would have become much more enlightened, and had better regulated itself. I wish to be right, and therefore discuss this matter openly and candidly. How disgusting is pulpit sophistry, how ingenious yet worthless. But, O preachers, how vain are your babblings! How miserable your pretences, how false, yet how fair, they seem. You pretend to prove your position-your scriptures-you ought not to open them, the way you proceed. Stop all such, and spend the time more usefully to your race, mankind. The world has seen, without redress, the inutility and degradation of bibles of tradition. It was an anomaly, destitute of proof, that it felt. These bible-men are beyond decent responsibility in rational mind, as they feel justified by the dynasty of superstition and sophistry, to utter all such falsehoods-for mind has been stultified and crushed under their weight. We should never leave it in the province of any functionary of priestocracy, to attempt to supersede mind. Have they ingenuously given to mind its rights ? Better had it been for the world a billion of times that the priestocracy had never existed, with all their accursed machinery of messiahships, &c. Priestocracy cannot conceive at all of religion, as all peculiar systems' men run into peculiar faith-estimation. The benefits of pure thoughts of religion cannot be put by them above all impure dynasties. They are so bigoted and prejudiced, that it is most difficult to get them to reason even on the subject. They must leave the profession, the first position of reason. They have sought to teach world by the old exploded books, and can hear to nothing like reason. The world needs rational books and teachers, not the reverse. What low morals the Jews had under the priestocracy, who were accursed as a body by their own fraternity, as destitute of morals and truth. The priestocracy may affect extraordinary concern for souls, but the world is identified with its good, and will secure it when appreciated. Who would not glory in exposing priestocracy felony? All such will be exposed properly by those not indebted to the loaves and fishes of the church, or unchanged by its morals. All the rabbis, muftis, priestocracies, are to be scouted on the face of the earth. Now let us see whether the world is hypocritical to discard untried the bible of mind, or will discuss rationally its merits. By keeping the rest of the world straight, you are apt to be kept so. The peculiar god of priestocracy is any and everything every day, that that dynasty chooses. At first, he has permitted man to fall. The priests must atone for him. Then the covenant of patriarch priests. Then comes a second covenant. All covenants of priests. And sufficient explanations can be given as are available to the priestocracy. What can you do with the bigots, that have no exaltation of soul or character, whose mind is not open to rational education or conviction? It is a hopeless chance when you see men avoid rational discussion. The pulpit-men do this, pick up isolated points before their audience, as if they presented the facts. Any one that proscribes mind, the beneficiary, from all due investigation, is recreant to justice, honor, truth, virtue, and mind itself; above all, religion. The priestocracy proscribe even all books that reflect light on the science of religion. The people could not even get suitable books to read up to the light of the age. Bigots take the greatest trouble to make the world hate and despise them. Their name will go down to posterity with its deepest execration and contempt. If it were not a world of priestocracies and bigots, we should be perfectly astonished that there was the least foundation for a messiah. Who ever thought of such things but priests and preachers? Is a priest anything else than a priest? Can you make anything out of them but priestly bigots ? They affect to claim all under their bibles, that explanation can make to suit, because the people mention the wants. There are some minds too rational for the frauds of the priestocracy to be imposed on them. What, pulpit-men, will you gospelize falsehoods, and legalize all the injuries resulting therefrom? Are you possessed of rational minds going to let the priestocracy forever overwhelm your life-rights, and laugh at you? Are you permitting advantages to church? Where is the religion in all this? Is this fair and honorable? It may be christian. Are you afraid to look the priestocracy or death in the face? Shall a foolish or designing pulpit man allay your superstitious fears-like an ostrich, stick your eyes in the bush? Carry out legitimate deductions. But some of the dupes of the world prefer that false position, for fear it would upset priestocracy, the very essential objection. If you attempt to answer, it must not be partially, but all, and that decides against you at once. The priestocracy under the old regime, however exploded, are actually shamed by creation's works of a Creator proved. This position will stop the fraud, violence, and usurpation of the nations of the world. None but the priestocracy could have ever made a peculiar god, and bent all their followers to their peculiar views. The world should be particularly indebted for all exposures of its frauds and impositions; but can one-fourth of the whole world appreciate truth? How then can it reflect the true faith? It must be the faith of the prevailing dynasty. The world must have a head, if it be a demagogue, a radical bigot! It is astonishing to see with what tenacity bigots will cleave to superstition and its bibles, after all have been most conclusively exploded. Does a superstitious bigot ever reason? He would rather be a devil worshipper, and have his old exploded trash of a bible, than see the brilliant word of God in the mighty orbs of the universe. You cannot beat such out of his head, because he has been told so, that a senseless book or bible of tradition is the word of God, when it is positively the word of men, who have got the nearest to be devils incarnate. God has only left his word where priestocracy cannot disfigure, alloy, counterfeit, or pollute it. They would do so soon enough, if they could. Yes, but the casuist may pretend that my opinion is worth no more than the opinion of the rest of the world. I speak of fixed facts, not opinions. What is the supreme universal standard to a free mind, but that of rational faith, granted by the Almighty himself, the only head standard. Parties and partisans that are committed, are not disposed to yield readily. The first thing the pulpit people have to do, is to prove their position by the authenticity of their bibles; if they do not, they and their bibles ought and will fall together, in justice to truth, the emanation of Deity. All such bibles must be subordinate to religion. Preaching is a contingency, and as long as peculiar faith lasts may never secure the respectable majority of the world. Sectarians seek to get the cream of the land in all ages and countries, and the advocates of sectarianism affect to be the most meritorious, through social offices, the best in the land. Why is rational discussion of all this subject, even to reading of both sides, proscribed the world by the clergy? Is the credulous world to be its servant forever? Whose fault is it that the world is kept in abeyance to this ignoble subject? It is not my fault, as I have besought the pulpit people to prove the authenticity of the scriptures, or be eternally silent thereon. Let the people demand this, or demand an exposure of all impostors. I could not obtain justice; it is the miserable and abominable servitude of the human mind, held in the deepest vassalage to superstition. Why do preachers back out from the proof of the authenticity of the scriptures? Would they do so if they could do better? Yet how much sophistry and falsehood are eternally offered the world instead! Will the stupid mass stop their infamous falsehoods and jugglery? Are you your own worst enemies? The world is full of intrigue, and this department is saturated with it. All that we can do in this world, is not to arrogate a supremacy in morals or religion, for our own humble selves, but to denounce all peculiar systems and their advocates, that have the elements of corrupting the world. The world will do better, if all such elements are abstracted, and pure, honest mind is left to its intrinsic capacity of seeing its light. Are preachers any better than the ancient augurs and soothsayers, the Druids? In what respect; let them prove that particular? O but if I affirm anything against the position, I declare God a liar! Was there ever such logic? Who but priests and their vassals, could torture logic to such false pretences! It is only proof of priests being the deepest liars and felons. The God of the universe, has nothing at all to do with such cattle. All that can be claimed at most, is a peculiar god, that the world does not know. What tricky people all the priestocracy are. They fight for existence, and catch at all manner of expedients. Peculiar faith is the counterfeit coin of the priestocracy, yet these worthies can descant about or against the heathen. What peculiar privileges have these men-prophets or priests, to assume to be the world's counsellors, &c., when they have no mission proved? In this there must be no degraded charlatanry, not to see what the mind needs; but the cause of the priestocracy is not that of God. The story of Cain killing Abel, was to fix the idea that the offerings were acceptable to their peculiar god. And all this cause of murder, is the false pretence of the priestocracy. All this bible is theirs, not the people's nor religion's, concocted and executed by them, brought out for their benefit, and all after the order of Melchisedec. This is part of their funds. The priestocracy are a libel of religion, well calculated to deceive the world and pervert mind, unless guarded by rational education. Let not the pulpit people say what sophistry and self interest prompt, but what highminded truth declares, else be silent conscientiously. Better had some never been born, than pervert the world and society so. Settle this question, at once, and for ever. Infidelity is a robbery, that is the category. How stupid for the priestocracy, to advance books to usurp mind, and yet ask mind to take for granted their false pretences. The prophets, as a great part of this body, wrote for themselves, and availed themselves of the prevailing order of things, to maintain power and the impositions. They are as a mere candle, whilst the sun shines before it in its broadest glare. Priests, or all that presume to appropriate for granted the statements of bible pretences, are pirates on the world. All gospels are the results of priestocracy. If they were honest, they would stop their own sins, the most heinous of all. Such go to the pulpit to sophisticate public morals--rather should they go to the plough, a more honorable business, if they cannot find the eligible modes of teaching rightly the human mind. Nothing equals the sophistry of the priestocracy, but their effrontery and pretences. What else but the deepest corruption of the world, could we expect of them? Were it not for the sophisticated bigots of the pulpits, the balance might proceed better. In them is a miserable degeneracy of false teaching, to teach the mass! How odious! Teach the mind, and then the errors about the heart would die. All due impressions are to be made in the mind. Is sophistry to do it? The very conduct of priestocracy proves it offensive before mind's rights, in dissuading from rational investigation by absurd theories. What can exceed this felonious deceit in society; such sinister influences? Let not the world be swindled all around, by these unprincipled men; if we give all the pulpit people the most liberal latitude, even more than they ask, and take them as they mean in the pulpit, most literally, not metaphorically, nor explaining away any thing. The faith of the priestocracy begets its sophistry enough. Let us do one good. in life, that is, cause the explosion of this profession. Those of you that are affiliated, can hardly, as self-interested, decide this paramount question, as honest truth demands. The plan of Moses did not make the Jews intellectual and independent, but a nation in abeyance to an imperious priestocracy and their masses vassal. What confidence can we have in any such, who have thus prostituted mind? Priestocracy is the adjutant-general or chief in absolutism, unworthy of trust, as an usurper or monopolizer forever of popular rights, and is always Jesuitical. How long will the priestocracy seek to ignobly maintain their ground by sophistry, instead of honorably maintaining the pure cause of religion? We can not be converts to any but God, and anticipate with the most satisfactory complacency, the time of our final change. Who would for all the wealth of the world, be deprived of their position in regard to the rational faith, in adoration of the only perfect God? The pulpit people are incompetent and faithless to the trust of mind, to act in good faith, to speak the truth. Is it not almost a waste of time and mind, to expect true thought and liberty, for those plodding priests and politicians to appreciate ? The stupid accrediting the minister's sophistry, that God could not be found out without their bible, is a consummate piece of assurance in these pretenders, all akin with their other idle and vain pretences; when the God of the universe is not there. They do not state all the propositions, and their people are stupidly credulous, and call it faith with perfect stupid vassalage of mind. The priests hide their secrets in their sanctuaries. What else do they keep there? How base is it in them, to exclude mind; how degrading not to revere reason? The greatest fulmination of the priestocracy is eternal damuation and punishment. What makes the loud calls of the preachers? Money. How corrupt some of the reviewers, who are creatures to much of the iniquities of peculiar faith. O credulous multitude, do not be afraid to say, that science is philosophy's, is mind's, and mind God's. Priestocracy has helped to lighten the chains of absolutism. How have these worthies acted? The way to get out of their difficulty, has been to make the deceived hold on, till the deceivers are out of the way. Most actors are the people, but the wire-workers are the priestocrats. Instead of reforming man, they deform their god, by their peculiar pretences. It has not entered into the mind of man to conceive the iniquities of the priestocracies. The world must not expect the priestocracy to change first; it has to do that. The priestocracy have corrupted man most awfully. They have made him hypocritical by tinkering with him, and produced an antagonism, if not an undying enmity, of man man, almost to God. Is it reasonable that mind, educated rationally, would not adopt its Creator, whom to know is to revere beyond all others? It is unreasonable that it should adopt any other. When we suspect ourselves as being too severe against the priestocracy, let us ask ourselves if ever these monsters in human shape ever relented in their encroachments, most foul, on human rights? If they ever sacrificed human beings to appease their angry god of superstition, bigotry, and bloody sacrifice? At the start the wicked priestocracy of the world vilified, sacrificed mind; got it out of the way for their mental midwifery. Mind was of no account, of no force with them. It had been put into leading-strings, and was misled, blinded to its own power, right and duty. Never was there such mental vassalage as propagated by the serfs of priestocracy. The belief of gods, or a peculiar god, was inoffensive enough, apparently, but it had to take the priestecracy and all its interests along with it. Wherever priestocracy are, false capital abounds. What was the custom of all the other priests, soothsayers, and all of that tribe? To lie, and make capital out of it. The sooner this senseless and stupid humbuggery is got rid of, the better; however refined its superstition, still it is a perjured superstition. All this was to blind by the collusion of the priesthood, whose authority was upheld by the bibles of tradition. Who desires priests? None but the victimized. Theirs is dangerous, ruinous error. Do you side with the priestocracy, or reason? It is the vocation of preachers to uphold their profession. It ought primarily to be to uphold truth and honesty-religion. Instead of blessing mind by the richest treasures of mind, they are cursing it by the deepest devices of priestocracy. The priests, preachers, and their vassals, prate about infidelity, and you would think that mind and reason, guides and pilots of God for man, had conspired against them, the priests, rather than that they had done it, a world's age against the world. Let the priestocracy alone for conservative revolution. They are adverse to the noblest dignity of mind, conspiring in fraud, and debased in iniquity; are not trustworthy for mind and reason, as they are traitors to their noblest interests. Instead of freeing, they begin with enslaving it to the worst of superstition and sophistry, enough to ruin a soul, unless the God of the universe had defended it, as great in its conservation as in its creation. Their piratical fanaticism in the crusades is part of their world-history. The priests have ruined every country they have mastered, as Mexico, Egypt, Hindostan, and Spain. Their efforts during the crusades were to enslave the world, but their piractical hordes were overwhelmed. The conservative principles of God vindicated themselves. Theirs is the conspiracy against mind and reason, that they so ignominiously hate, as standing in their way. They misrepresent Deity, mind and reason. For these noble gifts of God to earth, they give us monomania and their hell in their heaven, expelling therefrom their angels for their devils! The bigot is joined to his idols, and you will not do anything with him, till his temporal interest moves the animal. You cannot find his soul in his mind. It is his body you must suspect. We do not oppose truthful and honest people, but all others. At this day, with all the light of science, and the world in part wide awake on the devices of priestocracy, we cannot get the truth from Rome, where miracles are now claimed, so prone are millions, from the dark ages of antiquity to the present times, to all the forms of self-delusion. What a power and influence the dynasty of the priestocracy have wielded. This dynasty tells more lies about faith, than all the world does about the balance of the subjects of the world; it is the greatest of all earthly tyrannies. It will not let the human mind reason. The following has been advanced as the income of the Spanish clergy, by an English paper: The annual expenditure of the nation is £7,000,000. £10,900,000 110,000 1,950,000 1,000,000 £14,560,000 annual revenue. The world has surrendered itself to this ignoble excrescence. Priests have tried human credulity, to see how far they might tinker with the human mind; they are the insidious offshoots of absolutism, a dead weight to the world. The after-thoughts of the priestocracy are diametrically opposed to the forethoughts of God; the first led to all bibles of tradition, the last to the creation of the universe. What kindness can the priestocracy, the curse of bigotry, show to the world? Why retain them? Bigotry holds fast to fanaticism. We do not. Human nature is human nature still, and priestocracy is the same in all ages and all positions of oracles, whether thus saith Apollo, Jupiter, or Jehovah. It is all one on the most intelligent and truthful analysis, as it was the language of peculiar priestocracies. If the priestocracy be not just and truthful to man, how can they be righteous before God? Let the ungodly priestocracy alone. The profession of the priestocracy has been the best drilled of all for thousands of years it is the oldest, as it must have commenced with the observation of the elements, leading to its mighty difficulties in superstition. Let us strip the mantle off these hypocrites. And will the priestocracy still persist in bolstering up an exploded, all-perjured book? Where can they find their locality of a bottomless pit? Not in this earth, whence this very idea originated, as from volcanoes, most superstitiously, of course most ignorantly. The density of the earth proves its solidity. Why should you, priestocracy, place yourselves in antagonism to God and rationality? The pope can get the civil government yet a little longer. But his faith-government is rotten. You should be silent, if your dignity will permit. Are you, the world-clique, determined to see nothing? The pulpit-men assume everlastingly, and do not prove. |