The First Effect Of Emancipation From The

Love And Knowledge, So Far As They Were Possible, Led Upward Toward The Heavens. But Always Pity Brought Me Back To Earth. Echoes Of Cries Of Pain Reverberate In My Heart. Children In Famine, Victims Tortured By Oppressors, Helpless Old People A Burden To Their Sons, And The Whole World Of Loneliness, Poverty, And Pain Make A Mockery Of What Human Life Should Be. I Long To Alleviate This Evil, But I Cannot, And I Too Suffer.

It Is Amusing To Hear The Modern Christian Telling You How Mild And Rationalistic Christianity Really Is And Ignoring The Fact That All Its Mildness And Rationalism Is Due To The Teaching Of Men Who In Their Own Day Were Persecuted By All Orthodox Christians.

What Makes A Free Thinker Is Not His Beliefs, But The Way In Which He Holds Them. If He Holds Them Because His Elders Told Him They Were True When He Was Young, Or If He Holds Them Because If He Did Not He Would Be Unhappy, His Thought Is Not Free; But If He Holds Them Because, After Careful Thought, He Finds A Balance In Their Favor, Then His Thought Is Free, However Odd His Conclusions May Seem.

I Remain Convinced That Obstinate Addiction To Ordinary Language In Our Private Thoughts Is One Of The Main Obstacles To Progress In Philosophy.

Religion: A Set Of Beliefs Held As Dogmas, Dominating The Conduct Of Life, Going Beyond Or Contrary To Evidence, And Inculcated By Methods Which Are Emotional Or Authoritarian, Not Intellectual.