grand beliefs out of the human mind. Then what?

If I had my choice, I would do it gladly, with tearful gratitude,
rather than keep the old beliefs of the last two thousand years.

The late Henry Ward Beecher, in a review article published not long
before his death, said frankly this which I am saying now, and which I
had said a good many times before Mr. Beecher's article was written,
that no belief at all is infinitely, unspeakably better than those
horrible beliefs which have dominated and darkened the world.

I would rather believe in no God than in a bad God, such as he has been
painted. And, if I had my choice of the future, what would it be? I
have, I trust, just over there, father, mother, two brothers,
numberless dear ones; and I hope to see them with a hope dearer than
any other which I cherish. But, if I were standing on the threshold of
heaven itself, and these loved ones were beckoning me to come in, and I
had the choice between an eternity of felicity in their presence and
eternal sleep, I would take the sleep rather than take this endless joy
at the cost of the unceasing and unrelieved torment of the meanest soul
that ever lived. And I would have no great respect for any man who
would not. I would not care to purchase my joy at the price of endless
pangs, the ascending smoke of torment, the wail going up to the sweet
heavens forever and ever and ever.

So, even if it were a choice between no belief at all and the old
beliefs, the darkness would be light to me; and I would embrace it with
joy rather than take the selfish felicity of those men who estimate it
as a part of their future occupation to be leaning over the battlements
of heaven and witnessing the torture of the damned. This, though