The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
                                                                             —Mark Twain.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.
                                                                             —Mark Twain.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
                                                                             —Mark Twain.

 
A hundred odd years ago, as the 19th century wound down and everybody was getting ready for another hundred years of Progress and Prosperity, a now-forgotten itinerant artist by the name of Watson Heston tried to call everyone’s attention to certain shards of hypocrisy and superstition in the dominant religion of the United States.

In two books, The Old Testament Comically Illustrated (1890), andThe New Testament Comically Illustrated (1898), Heston provided a running, freethinker’s commentary on the Bible interspersed, for the semi-literate, with several hundred drawings to amplify his remarks.

Heston was working in an also-forgotten tradition of American freethinkers (Robert Ingersoll being the best-known exponent). His visions have now vanished into the remoter shelves of libraries, but the books are available (cheap) on CD (see below).

Herewith a sample. Look, and weep for American gullibility, lament the false piety of pulpits and politicians, and shudder as the masses lurch again toward theocracy.

Go to First Picture >>

1. Watson Heston: Adam's First Breath.
2. Watson Heston: Lot and His Daughters.
3. Watson Heston: Moses in the Bulrushes.
4. Watson Heston: Moses at Mount Sinai.
5. Watson Heston: The Ten Commandments.
6. Watson Heston: Paul on Women.
7. Watson Heston: Jesus and Money.
8. Watson Heston: An Errant Teaching.
9. Watson Heston: Jesus the Merciful.
10. Watson Heston: Jesus and His Mother.
11. Watson Heston: The Yoke and the Burden.
12. Watson Heston: Revelations and Raiment.
13. Watson Heston: Revelations and Visions.

A CD (Freethought and the Bible, $24.95) containing both volumes of Heston's writings and drawings can be had at:

http://www.bank-of-wisdom.com

For a bracing read and reminder of the lost legacy of Amercian freethinker, take a look at:

Freethinkers

by Susan Jacoby