In all the ages the Roman Church has owned slaves, bought and sold slaves, authorized and encouraged her children to trade in them. . . . There were the texts; there was no mistaking their meaning; . . . she was doing in all this thing what the Bible had mapped out for her to do. So unassailable was her position that in all the centuries she had no word to say against human slavery.
I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simply want to please my own conscience which is God.
Where did God come from? If we decide this is an unanswerable question why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question.
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.