Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful; without free speech progress is checked, and the nations no longer march forward towards the nobler life which the future holds for man. Better a thousandfold abuse of free speech than denial of free speech. The abuse dies in a day; but the denial stays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

Charles Bradlaugh

Categorized in : Men Truth Freedom

I cannot follow you Christians; for you try to crawl through your life upon your knees, while I stride through mine on my feet.

Charles Bradlaugh

christian feet trying

No religion is suddenly rejected by any people; it is rather gradually outgrown. None sees a religion die; dead religions are like dead languages and obsolete customs: the decay is long and - like the glacier march - is perceptible only to the careful watcher by comparisons extending over long periods.

Charles Bradlaugh

atheism long people

Without free speech no search for Truth is possible; without free speech no discovery of Truth is useful.

Charles Bradlaugh

censorship-in-books freedom-of-speech discovery

The atheist does not say 'there is no God,' but he says 'I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God'; the word 'God' is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. ... The Bible God I deny; the Christian God I disbelieve in; but I am not rash enough to say there is no God as long as you tell me you are unprepared to define God to me.

Charles Bradlaugh

atheist christian mean

I do not deny "God", because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception.

Charles Bradlaugh

atheism would-be ideas

Atheist, without God, I look to humankind for sympathy, for love, for hope, for effort, for aid.

Charles Bradlaugh

effort atheism atheist

The abuse dies in a day; but the denial slays the life of the people and entombs the hope of the race.

Charles Bradlaugh

ignorance race people

There is a court to which I shall appeal: the court of public opinion.

Charles Bradlaugh

public-opinion court atheism

A ground frequently taken by Christian theologians is that the progress and civilization of the world are due to Christianity; and the discussion is complicated by the fact that many eminent servants of humanity have been nominal Christians, of one or other of the sects. My allegation will be that the special services rendered to human progress by these exceptional men have not been in consequence of their adhesion to Christianity, but in spite of it, and that the specific points of advantage to human kind have been in ratio of their direct opposition to precise Biblical enactments.

Charles Bradlaugh

biblical taken christian

Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God offers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in the virtuous act itself immediate good is insured to the doer and the circle surrounding him.

Charles Bradlaugh

circles atheist men

On the Cross the Jesus of the Four Gospels, who was God, cried out My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God cannot forsake himself, Jesus was God himself. Yet God forsook Jesus, and the latter cried out to know why he was forsaken. Any able divine will explain that of course he knew, and that he was not forsaken. The explanation renders it difficult to believe the dying cry, and the passage becomes one of the mysteries of the holy Christian religion, which, unless a man rightly believe, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

Charles Bradlaugh

christian believe jesus

Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God.

Charles Bradlaugh

positive-atheism atheism doe

I know not what you mean by God; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation.

Charles Bradlaugh

affirmation sound mean

Liberty's chief foe is theology.

Charles Bradlaugh

chiefs atheism liberty

I do not deny God, because that word conveys to me no idea, and I cannot deny that which presents to me no distinct affirmation, and of which the would-be affirmer has no conception. I cannot war with a nonentity. If, however, God is affirmed to represent an existence which is distinct from the existence of which I am a mode, and which it is alleged is not the noumenon of which the word I represents only a speciality of phenomena, then I deny God, and affirm that it is impossible God can be.

Charles Bradlaugh

being-positive war ideas

A mere society form of Atheism.

Charles Bradlaugh

positive-atheism atheism form

The word heretic ought to be a term of honour.

Charles Bradlaugh

atheism term doubt

Is poverty of spirit the chief amongst virtues, that Jesus gives it prime place in his teachings? Is it even a virtue at all? Surely not. Manliness of spirit, honesty of spirit, fullness of rightful purpose, these are virtues; poverty of spirit is a crime.

Charles Bradlaugh

honesty teaching jesus

Is it not gain to have diminished the faith that it was the duty of the wretched and the miserable to be content with the lot in life which providence had awarded them?

Charles Bradlaugh

miserable gains atheism

If when I am libelled I take no notice, the world believes the libel. If I sue, I have to pay about one hundred pounds' costs for the privilege, and gain the smallest coin the country knows for recompense.

Charles Bradlaugh

atheism believe country