As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism — a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man r… - Thomas Paine

As to the christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. [...] It introduces between man and his maker an opaque body which it calls a redeemer; as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has put the whole orb of reason into shade.

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.

On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the rights of declaring it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly, the mode of conducting it after it is declared.

Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured.