Words from Robert Ingersoll - 15

Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there are no two persons alike in the whole world? No two trees, no two leaves, no two anythings that are alike? Infinite diversity is the law. — Religion tries to force all minds into one mould. Knowing that all cannot believe the church endeavors to make all say that they believe. She longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid diversity of independence and freedom.

Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery is mental death and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense every church is a cemetery and every creed is a epitaph.

Plea for Individuality and Arraignment of the Church, 1873