No God has a right to make a man he intends to drown. Eternal wisdom has
no right to make a poor investment, no right to engage in a speculation
that will not finally pay a dividend. No God has a right to make
a failure, and surely a man who is to be damned forever is not a
conspicuous success. Yet upon love's breast, the Church has placed that
asp; around the child of immortality the Church has coiled the worm that
never dies. For my part I want no heaven, if there is to be a hell. I
would rather be annihilated than be a god and know that one human soul
would have to suffer eternal agony.