The righting of the wrongs imposed on womankind therefore had been started not only without the aid of the churches but in face of their determined opposition.
The sentence ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ has caused more suffering, torture, and death than probably any other sentence ever framed.
Religious philosophy is slave philosophy.
A secular morality teaches that what man thinks, says, and does lives after him and influences for good or ill future generations. This is a higher, nobler, and greater, incentive to righteousness than any life of personal reward or fear of punishment in a future life.
Religion arose as a means of explanation of natural phenomena at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural phenomena had been ascertained. God is always what Spinoza called it, “the asylum of ignorance.” When causes are unknown, God is brought forward; when causes are known, God retires into the background. In an age of ignorance, God is active; in an age of science, he is impotent.