Three Imposters

Christians and Deists have sometimes coincided in their opinion that Jesus was a good character. This opinion, so far as it was acceded to by some of the first unbelievers, was either the result of ignorance, or an effect of fear. The Christian exalted this same Jesus into the character of a God, and, by their doctrines, made him equal to the Creator; such a circumstance struck terror into the human mind, and the idea of associating crimes with the divinity prevented independent inquiry.

 The New Testament, so far as proof of this kind goes, furnishes us with facts and circumstances which make strongly against the moral character of Jesus. Beside the general duplicity which characterizes his answers to the multitude, he is guilty also of sending his disciples secretly to take and carry away a colt which did not belong either to him or his disciples. The doing of such an act in modern times would be denominated theft, even by pious Christians themselves. He is guilty of sowing the seeds of domestic and national warfare, and declaring that no man could be his disciple without hating his father and his mother; and also that he came not to send peace but a sword. If any man at the present day were to enter society with actions and avowed intentions of this kind, he would be considered as an enemy to moral virtue, and deserving of that punishment which domestic justice and public tranquillity required. It is in vain to applaud the conduct and opinions of Jesus, when the same conduct and opinions applied to another being would be considered as criminal, and hostile to the best interests of human existence.

 ...Moses, Mahomet, and Jesus, can lay as little claim to moral merit, or to the character of the benefactors of mankind, as any three men that ever lived upon the face of the earth. They were all of them impostors; two of them notorious murderers in practice, and the other a murderer in principle; and their existence united has, perhaps, cost the human race more blood, and produced more substantial misery, than all the other fanatics of the world.

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