When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the bonds with which persons or deities presume to constrain them, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of simple common sense entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all humans are born equal, that they are endowed by the very fact of their humanity with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among mortals, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That to secure spiritual happiness, relationships are established between mortals and deities,
--That whenever any deity or system of beliefs becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to depart from it, and to choose for themselves a new religion or belief system, laying the foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Logic, indeed, will recognize that religions long established will be resistant to change, even for the most obvious and necessary reasons, even when all experience hath shewn it to include evils of the worst nature. Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by departing from the deity or deities they have long known and abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such deity or deities, and to provide new foci for their love, admiration, and honoring, or to reject all deities as harmful to their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of these signatories and of millions of others who have suffered and died without recourse, and who suffer yet; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to depart from their religion of birth and training. The history of the God sometimes known as haShem, YHWH, Jesus, or at times merely and incorrectly "God," is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over all. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. By the words of His followers, and by what they say is His own word, it can clearly be seen that
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. His very Son, tortured beyond endurance, called out to Him for protection and release and gained none from Him, so we have no expectation that we will fare better.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our brethren and sistren, His followers. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their God and their leaders to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of His absence and the confusion of His followers. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. Many of them, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the undersigned, Representatives of those like-minded and freethinking peoples of the World who have not had the opportunity to sign this Document and of ourselves, at such divers times as we may discover and endorse the said document, appealing to the desire for justice that is inherent in all humans for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of justice, solemnly publish and declare, That we are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of the rule and depredations of that Deity named above; that we are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Him, and that all spiritual connection between us and Him, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent individuals, we have full Power to worship as we choose or not at all, set laws which are not tainted by religion, bring into question all aspects of morality for public debate and individual conviction, establish churches, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent individuals may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on justice and rectitude, we mutually pledge to this end our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.