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vanished into space

“Religion is declining, with no better proof than I am here today. Two hundred years ago, I would have been burned at the stake. What was considered hearsay by our fathers is tolerated now. The hell that frightened us in childhood has vanished into space. Heaven is not in our geographies. Therefore, we see the old faiths loosing their hold on the human mind.”

James Fergus, speech for the Society of Montana Pioneers, 1885 (quoted in The Lewistown News-Argus, 1994).

Fergus is quoted as saying in 1883: “The Christian religion brought about a long period of ignorance still known to us as the dark ages, during which thought was curbed, common education banished, and conscience given over to a rude, vulgar and ignorant priesthood. And whatever good Christianity may have done since, much of the degeneracy of mankind during this period must be laid at its door.” (All quotations cited from the December 1994 issue of The Lewistown News-Argus, on the Fergus County, Mont. History and Genealogy website). 

Promoting Understanding of Religious Suffering

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