The Wisdom of George Sutherland

George Sutherland--a lapsed Mormon and the senator from Utah in 1907--uttered these words with regard to the controversial seating of Mormon apostle Reed Smoot in the Senate. They can, and should, be removed from this context, however, and applied more broadly. They express a truth which in our contentious times could stand to be remembered:

The melancholy fact runs through all history that nothing has been too absurd, nothing too cruel, to be believed and taught and done in the name of religion...You can not reason with a false religious belief any more than you can argue with a case of typhoid fever. It simply runs its course and mental health returns.