Thomas Edison — "All bibles are man-made."
All bibles are man-made.
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Details
A controversial and unfiltered statement reflecting his skepticism towards organized religion, from his diary.
Date: Late 19th - early 20th century (approximate)
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Every religious scripture was written, edited, and compiled by human beings rather than delivered directly by a divine source. The statement treats sacred texts as products of human authorship, shaped by the writers' cultures, limitations, and intentions. It does not necessarily deny spirituality, but it rejects the idea that any holy book is literally dictated by a god, insisting readers recognize the human hands behind every verse, translation, and canonical decision.
Relevance to Thomas Edison
Edison was famously skeptical of organized religion and leaned toward deist or agnostic views, trusting observation and experiment over revelation. As the inventor behind the light bulb, phonograph, and over a thousand patents, he prized evidence and mechanical cause-and-effect. He once said nature, not scripture, was his bible. This quote reflects his lab-bench mindset: if a claim cannot be tested or traced to a credible human source, it deserves scrutiny rather than unquestioning faith.
The era
Edison worked from the 1870s into the 1920s, an era when Darwin's evolution, higher biblical criticism, and industrial science were openly challenging literal scripture. Figures like Ingersoll toured America preaching freethought, while fundamentalists pushed back, culminating in the 1925 Scopes Trial. Newspapers eagerly printed celebrity inventors' views on God. Edison's blunt remarks on religion landed inside this charged public debate about whether modern science and traditional Christianity could coexist.
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