Life wasn't about freeing up human souls. It was about creating obedient slaves in the hierarchical construction of the society - with God at the top, then the king and then the father.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.
Free will carried many a soul to hell, but never a soul to heaven.
The pride of life hath corrupted the judgment of others, and perverted them in the way of religion.
To live alone is the fate of all great souls.
The meaning of life. The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: 'grace.'
That cry of the soul to be lifted out of the bondage of the narrow circle of life, which carries up to God the protest and yearning of suffering man, never finds a more sublime expression than where humanity is oppressed and religion is corrupt.
Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it.
Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it.
Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.
Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.