I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its liabilities. Our fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us incapable of criticizing ideas that are now patently absurd and increasingly maladaptive.
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.
A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Cruel persecutions and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence of religion, namely, its absolute claims.
And in times and places where there was not much persecution, people could become and continue Christians who neither were nor professed to be very devoted persons.
It is, therefore, essential that we guard our own thinking and not be among those who cry out against prejudices applicable to themselves, while busy spawning intolerances for others.
Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.
Persecutions are inevitable as a Christian. We are not greater than our Master, Jesus Christ, in whose Holy Spirit we gain strength to endure.