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A review by kevin_shepherd
Women Without Superstition: No Gods--No Masters: The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by Annie Laurie Gaylor
5.0
Being pejoratively put down as a “new atheist” is nonsensical. There's nothing new about modern day atheists other than their access to wider audiences via technology and social media. Outspoken atheism has been around for as long as outspoken theology, it’s just that now it’s proving impossible to silence.
Women Without Superstition: No Gods - No Masters is a condensed library of essays, speeches, excerpts and articles, representing ninety women* who are chronologically presented and biographically outlined. These are the “heresies” some clergymen want to censor excerpted from the periodicals and books some politicians want to ban. Spanning two hundred and thirty eight years (1759 to 1997), this is six hundred and eighty pages of enlightenment and inspiration. 5 stars.
*All of these women were/are remarkable but the one that stood out most for me was Sherry Matulis. If you read nothing else printed here, search out How I Earned My Feminist Credentials. This is the speech Matulis delivered to the AHA in Chicago, 1991. It is truth to power in the most literal sense imaginable.
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“The late proceedings of those daring invaders to establish a national religion have opened the eyes of all lovers of liberty . . . they have thrown off the mask and are preaching to the people to elect none but godly men to represent them in the General and State Legislatures; as to godly men, I believe they are very scarce, but what they mean by godly people, is people of their own stamp.” -Anne Newport Royal, 1829
“I certainly had no idea how little faith Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it.” -Harriet Martineau, 1877
“[Rev. Morgan Dix] quaintly asserts that man should be the head of the family, because ‘Adam was first formed, then Eve.’ What does that prove? Either nothing, or that man is inferior to the fishes.” -Lillie Devereux Blake, 1883
“…wherever we find laws of the state bearing with greater hardship upon woman than upon man, we shall ever find them due to the teachings of the church.” -Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1890
“…anyone who would make a lake of fire and brimstone in which to incinerate his children ought to be the first one burned in it.” -Susan H. Wixon, circa 1893
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.” -Susan B. Anthony, 1898
“It is one of the mysteries that woman, who has suffered so intensely from the rule of the church, still worships her destroyer and licks the hand that’s raised to shed her blood.” -Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1902
“Scientific thought has had two hundred years; religious systems all the past before that. Comparison between what the two methods have done for humanity needs no emphasis.” -Dora Russell, 1932
“Religious people often accuse atheists of being arrogant and of placing ourselves in the position of God, but really it is the theist who has all the vanity. He can’t stand to think that he will ever cease to exist.” -Marian Sherman, M.D., 1965
“There wasn’t a page of the bible that didn’t offend me in some way. I had always been told the bible was a book about love, but I couldn’t find enough love in it to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the Bible; God is vengeance. There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap.” -Ruth Hurmence Freen, 1979
“Freedom of religion apparently means: If you’ve got one, you’re free. But, by God, if you don’t have one, you have no rights anywhere along the line.” -Catherine Fahringer, 1991
“If it’s true that there’s nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come, I think it’s equally true that there’s nothing as pervasively harmful as a malefic religious notion whose time won’t go.” -Sherry Matulis, 1991
Women Without Superstition: No Gods - No Masters is a condensed library of essays, speeches, excerpts and articles, representing ninety women* who are chronologically presented and biographically outlined. These are the “heresies” some clergymen want to censor excerpted from the periodicals and books some politicians want to ban. Spanning two hundred and thirty eight years (1759 to 1997), this is six hundred and eighty pages of enlightenment and inspiration. 5 stars.
*All of these women were/are remarkable but the one that stood out most for me was Sherry Matulis. If you read nothing else printed here, search out How I Earned My Feminist Credentials. This is the speech Matulis delivered to the AHA in Chicago, 1991. It is truth to power in the most literal sense imaginable.
________________________________
“The late proceedings of those daring invaders to establish a national religion have opened the eyes of all lovers of liberty . . . they have thrown off the mask and are preaching to the people to elect none but godly men to represent them in the General and State Legislatures; as to godly men, I believe they are very scarce, but what they mean by godly people, is people of their own stamp.” -Anne Newport Royal, 1829
“I certainly had no idea how little faith Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it.” -Harriet Martineau, 1877
“[Rev. Morgan Dix] quaintly asserts that man should be the head of the family, because ‘Adam was first formed, then Eve.’ What does that prove? Either nothing, or that man is inferior to the fishes.” -Lillie Devereux Blake, 1883
“…wherever we find laws of the state bearing with greater hardship upon woman than upon man, we shall ever find them due to the teachings of the church.” -Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1890
“…anyone who would make a lake of fire and brimstone in which to incinerate his children ought to be the first one burned in it.” -Susan H. Wixon, circa 1893
“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.” -Susan B. Anthony, 1898
“It is one of the mysteries that woman, who has suffered so intensely from the rule of the church, still worships her destroyer and licks the hand that’s raised to shed her blood.” -Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1902
“Scientific thought has had two hundred years; religious systems all the past before that. Comparison between what the two methods have done for humanity needs no emphasis.” -Dora Russell, 1932
“Religious people often accuse atheists of being arrogant and of placing ourselves in the position of God, but really it is the theist who has all the vanity. He can’t stand to think that he will ever cease to exist.” -Marian Sherman, M.D., 1965
“There wasn’t a page of the bible that didn’t offend me in some way. I had always been told the bible was a book about love, but I couldn’t find enough love in it to fill a salt shaker. God is not love in the Bible; God is vengeance. There is no other book between whose covers life is so cheap.” -Ruth Hurmence Freen, 1979
“Freedom of religion apparently means: If you’ve got one, you’re free. But, by God, if you don’t have one, you have no rights anywhere along the line.” -Catherine Fahringer, 1991
“If it’s true that there’s nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come, I think it’s equally true that there’s nothing as pervasively harmful as a malefic religious notion whose time won’t go.” -Sherry Matulis, 1991