Thomas Paine demands corroboration from Matthew. Publisher sentenced to hard labor.

The book ascribed to Matthew says, chap. xxvii, v. 45, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.” Ver. 51, 52, 53, “And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many.” Such is the account which this dashing writer of the book of Matthew gives, but in which he is not supported by the writers of the other books.

. . .

It is an easy thing to tell a lie, but it is difficult to support the lie after it is told.

In Re Adoption of E., or Cracks in an Imaginary Wall

Ever since I posted Legal thought of the Day, No. 2, regarding Connecticut’s early-nineteenth-century  blasphemy and apostasy laws, I’ve become very much interested in the legal history of Atheism in America.  Personally, I have never found the arguments in favor of the existence of the God of the Bible, or any other God for that matter, to be very convincing.  It fascinates me to think that if I had publicly voiced this opinion in colonial America, a group of nations purportedly founded upon the principle of Religious Liberty, I would have lost my civil liberties at best and my life at worst.

Legal Thought of the Day: No. 9

It was proved, unanswerably, on the trial, that Amos Gridley, a witness offered by the defendant, had, deliberately, within three months of the trial, declared his disbelief in a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments; that he had said, man was like a beast, and when he died, there was an end of him.