[In the years immediately after the voyage] I was led to think much about religion… . I had gradually come by this time to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world … and from its attributing to God the feelings of a vengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred book of the Hindus or the beliefs of any barbarian … that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become; … I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation… . I was very unwilling to give up my belief … but I found it more and more difficult … to invent evidence that would suffice to convince me. Thus, disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress and have never ever since doubted, even for a single second, that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so, the plain language of [the bible] seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my father, brother, and almost all of my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And that is a damnable doctrine.
