June 4

Thanks to the corruption of Christianity, our life has become worse than that of the pagans.

1

The human being must needs be a slave. His only choice is whose: if it is his passions, then it will necessarily be people also; if it is his spiritual source, then only God.

It flatters everyone to have a higher master.

2

At the present day, cruelty is more a consequence of the subtle encouragement of your selfishness by the religious doctrine that all which we now suppose to be evil will be brought to a good end; doctrine practically issuing, not in less earnest efforts that the immediate unpleasantness may be averted from ourselves, but in our remaining satisfied in the contemplation of its ultimate objects, when it is inflicted on others.

— John Ruskin

3

“For you always have the poor with you.” No other words of the scriptures have been reinterpreted with such devilish aims as these. If, despite all our successes, we still have poor people among us who through no fault of their own cannot rise to healthy and normal living conditions, then we are to blame for it and we should be ashamed of it. Anyone who takes a look around him will see that falsehood is the only thing that takes away the natural comforts from the laborers and deprives them of the fruits of their labor, that falsehood is the only thing that prevents us all from becoming wealthy.

— Henry George

4

The majority of world’s crimes and evil occur as a result of people’s mistrust of reason: “Believe or be damned.” This is the chief cause of evil. By thoughtlessly accepting the things he should have analyzed with his reason, a human being ultimately loses his capacity to reason and actually falls under a curse himself and leads his neighbors into sin. People’s salvation lies solely in learning how to reason for themselves so they can properly direct their thoughts.

— Emerson

5

The system under which all the nations of the world operate is founded on the crudest deception, on the deepest ignorance, or on a combination of the two; thus, it does not matter what changes you make to the foundations upon which this system stands, it cannot produce the good for the people; on the contrary—its practical consequences will necessarily always be evil.

— Robert Owen

6

The greater the respect surrounding an object, custom or law, the more carefully we must investigate its right to be respected.

Nothing other than an exposure of religious lies and a free establishment of religious truth by every individual for themselves can begin fixing the existing evil of life.