Blue-grass blade., 1908-05-24
Fear Debases Mankind and Insures Obedience
To Authority.
(By Claiming Severance.)

(By Claiming Severance.)
Genuine religion which is belief and worship
applied to phantom god, is the rankest kind
of superstition, and it is kept alive and per-
petuated because of its power to subjugate
and control the masses through fear; the most
potent influence ever applied to ignorant
minds. Fear debases and insures obedience
to authority, making men the slaves of
priestcraft and tyrannical governments.
All governments favor religion; and the
reason is found in the fact that minds satu-
rated with it, are more easily controlled and
have greater respect for authority" than
those minds which reject it. Religious people
are rot radical thinkers, for believing in God,
and holding fast to the idea that the affairs
of this world are under his control, spirit
of resignation animates them and prevents
any serious disturbance of society, no matter
how rotten and corrupt things become. When
religious people get restless and discontented
because of oppression and injustice they are
quieted by being told. that Gods ways are
not our ways" and there is purpose in
their Affections which, while not now under
stood will be made perfectly clear in the
world to come. They also led to believe
that "whom God loveth he chasteneth," and
that the greater ones sufferings here, from
any cause, the more certain will be their
bliss and felicity in the life without end.
Such people not apt to do much think
ing. or kicking about governments and the
way those in authority conduct themselves;
for regarding this life as temporary affair
and something liable to be ended Unexpectedly
any day, they concern themselves more about
the next world than this one
Because Paul told them in his day to be
obedient to authority, the chumps still think
they must be, and so when radical reforms
are started the unbeliever and the Freethinker
is the man that does the business. Religion is
a soporfc to the mind and sure preventa-
tive of rational thinking 1t is therefore the
worst thing that can afflct mortal man, for
that which prevents rational thought and
keeps the mind dormant, insures a host OF
evils that could be avoded and fills his life
with groundless fears that generate misery
without limit. A mans thinker was made to
use and those who do not exercise 1T without
restraint or fear, are losing the most salts
factory blessing and privilege Nature has
given to man. The power and the pleasure
contained in mental action in the exercise of
the mind in perfect freedom on all questions
and subjects, gives to mankind the highest
kind of happiness; and this faculty, to think
and to reason, which elevates him above
br,ites can and WILL if not restrained by re-
ligion and superstition raise the race to
heights never yet attained. But while
ligion continues to muddle the brains of any
portion of the race. that portion will be kept
back and down. The most religious nation on
the globe is probably Russia, and she is the
most backward and undeveloped. There it is
a crime to teach the peasants how to read and
write, for if her vast hordes of human beings
in a low stage of development are to be kept
under the iron heel of depotsm. they now
are, religion and ignorance must make it pos.
sible The progress of all nations has been
dependent on getting away from religion and