428. G.o.d and Brahma

Can we believe that G.o.d ever said of any: "Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow; let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places; let the extortioner catch all that he hath and let the stranger spoil his labor, let there be none to extend mercy unto him, neither let there be any to favor his fatherless children." If he ever said these words, surely he had never heard this line, this strain of music, from the Hindu: "Sweet is the lute to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children." Jehovah, "from the clouds and darkness of Sinai,"

said to the Jews: "Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me.... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy G.o.d am a jealous G.o.d, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."

Contrast this with the words put by the Hindu in the mouth of Brahma: "I am the same to all mankind. They who honestly serve other G.o.ds, involuntarily worship me. I am he who partaketh of all worship, and I am the reward of all worshipers." Compare these pa.s.sages. The first, a dungeon where crawl the things begot of jealous slime; the other, great as the domed firmament inlaid with suns.

429. Matthew, Mark, and Luke

And I here take occasion to say, that with most of the teachings of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke I most heartily agree. The miraculous parts must, of course, be thrown aside. I admit that the necessity of belief, the atonement, and the scheme of salvation are all set forth in the Gospel of John,--a gospel, in my opinion, not written until long after the others.

430. Christianity Takes no Step in Advance

All the languages of the world have not words of horror enough to paint the agonies of man when the church had power. Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Domitian, and Commodus were not as cruel, false, and base as many of the Christian Popes. Opposite the names of these imperial criminals write John the XII., Leo the VIII., Boniface the VII., Benedict the IX., Innocent the III., and Alexander the VI. Was it under these pontiffs that the "church penetrated the moral darkness like a new sun," and covered the globe with inst.i.tutions of mercy? Rome was far better when Pagan than when Catholic. It was better to allow gladiators and criminals to fight than to burn honest men. The greatest of Romans denounced the cruelties of the arena. Seneca condemned the combats even of wild beasts. He was tender enough to say that "we should have a bond of sympathy for all sentiment beings, knowing that only the depraved and base take pleasure in the sight of blood and suffering." Aurelius compelled the gladiators to fight with blunted swords. Roman lawyers declared that all men are by nature free and equal. Woman, under Pagan rule in Rome, become as free as man. Zeno, long before the birth of Christ, taught that virtue alone establishes a difference between men.

We know that the Civil Law is the foundation of our codes. We know that fragments of Greek and Roman art--a few ma.n.u.scripts saved from Christian destruction, some inventions and discoveries of the Moors--were the seeds of modern civilization. Christianity, for a thousand years, taught memory to forget and reason to believe. Not one step was taken in advance. Over the ma.n.u.scripts of philosophers and poets, priests, with their ignorant tongues thrust out, devoutly scrawled the forgeries of faith.

431. Christianity a Mixture of Good and Evil

Mr. Black attributes to me the following expression: "Christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and hinders civilization." I said no such thing. Strange, that he is only able to answer what I did not say. I endeavored to show that the pa.s.sages in the Old Testament upholding slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious intolerance had filled the world with blood and crime. I admitted that there are many wise and good things in the Old Testament. I also insisted that the doctrine of the atonement--that is to say, of moral bankruptcy--the idea that a certain belief is necessary to salvation, and the frightful dogma of eternal pain, had narrowed the soul, had darkened the mind, and had arrested the progress of human society. Like other religions, Christianity is a mixture of good and evil. The church has made more orphans than it has fed. It has never built asylums enough to hold the insane of its own making. It has shed more blood than light.

432. Jehovah, Epictetus and Cicero

If the Bible is really inspired, Jehovah commanded the Jewish people to buy the children of the strangers that sojourned among them, and ordered that the children thus bought should be an inheritance for the children of the Jews, and that they should be bondmen and bondwomen forever. Yet Epictetus, a man to whom no revelation was ever made, a man whose soul followed only the light of nature, and who had never heard of the Jewish G.o.d, was great enough to say: "Will you not remember that your servants are by nature your brothers, the children of G.o.d? In saying that you have bought them, you look down on the earth and into the pit, on the wretched law of men long since dead,--but you see not the laws of the G.o.ds." We find that Jehovah, speaking to his chosen people, a.s.sured them that their bondmen and bondmaids must be "of the heathen that were round about them." "Of them," said Jehovah, "shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." And yet Cicero, a pagan, Cicero, who had never been enlightened by reading the Old Testament, had the moral grandeur to declare: "They who say that we should love our fellow-citizens, but not foreigners, destroy the universal brotherhood of mankind, with which benevolence and justice would perish forever."

433. The Atonement

In countless ways the Christian world has endeavored, for nearly two thousand years, to explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an an mission that it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Is it not immoral to teach that man can sin, that he can harden his heart and pollute his soul, and that, by repenting and believing something that he does not comprehend, he can avoid the consequences of his crimes? Has the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of a sin? Should men be taught that sin gives happiness here; that they ought to bear the evils of a virtuous life in this world for the sake of joy in the next; that they can repent between the last sin and the last breath; that after repentance every stain of the soul is washed away by the innocent blood of another; that the serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved will not even pity the victims of their own crimes; that the goodness of another can be transferred to them; and that sins forgiven cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against?

434. Sin as a Debt

The Church says that the sinner is in debt to G.o.d, and that the obligation is discharged by the Saviour. The best that can possibly be said of such a transaction is, that the debt is transferred, not paid.

The truth is, that a sinner is in debt to the person he has injured.

If a man injures his neighbor, it is not enough for him to get the forgiveness of G.o.d, but he must have the forgiveness of his neighbor.

If a man puts his hand in the fire and G.o.d forgives him, his hand will smart exactly the same. You must, after all, reap what you sow. No G.o.d can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no devil can give you tares when you sow wheat.

435. The Logic of the Coffin

As to the doctrine of the atonement, Mr. Black has nothing to offer except the barren statement that it is believed by the wisest and the best. A Mohammedan, speaking in Constantinople, will say the same of the Koran. A Brahman, in a Hindu temple, will make the same remark, and so will the American Indian, when he endeavors to enforce something upon the young of his tribe. He will say: "The best, the greatest of our tribe have believed in this." This is the argument of the cemetery, the philosophy of epitaphs, the logic of the coffin. We are the greatest and wisest and most virtuous of mankind? This statement, that it has been believed by the best, is made in connection with an admission that it cannot be fathomed by the wisest. It is not claimed that a thing is necessarily false because it is not understood, but I do claim that it is not necessarily true because it cannot be comprehended. I still insist that "the plan of redemption," as usually preached, is absurd, unjust, and immoral.

436. Judas Iscariot

For nearly two thousand years Judas Iscariot has been execrated by mankind; and yet, if the doctrine of the atonement is true, upon his treachery hung the plan of salvation. Suppose Judas had known of this plan--known that he was selected by Christ for that very purpose, that Christ was depending on him. And suppose that he also knew that only by betraying Christ could he save either himself or others; what ought Judas to have done? Are you willing to rely upon an argument that justifies the treachery of that wretch?

437. The Standard of Right

According to Mr. Black, the man who does not believe in a supreme being acknowledges no standard of right and wrong in this world, and therefore can have no theory of rewards and punishments in the next. Is it possible that only those who believe in the G.o.d who persecuted for opinion's sake have any standard of right and wrong? Were the greatest men of all antiquity without this standard? In the eyes of intelligent men of Greece and Rome, were all deeds, whether good or evil, morally alike? Is it necessary to believe in the existence of an infinite intelligence before you can have any standard of right and wrong? Is it possible that a being cannot be just or virtuous unless he believes in some being infinitely superior to himself? If this doctrine be true, how can G.o.d be just or virtuous? Does He believe in some being superior to himself?

438. What is Conscience?

What is conscience? If man were incapable of suffering, if man could not feel pain, the word "conscience" never would have pa.s.sed his lips. The man who puts himself in the place of another, whose imagination has been cultivated to the point of feeling the agonies suffered by another, is the man of conscience.

439. No Right to Think!

Mr. Black says, "We have neither jurisdiction or capacity to rejudge the justice of G.o.d." In other words, we have no right to think upon this subject, no right to examine the questions most vitally affecting human-kind. We are simply to accept the ignorant statements of barbarian dead. This question cannot be settled by saying that "it would be a mere waste of time and s.p.a.ce to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created by a pre-existent and self-conscious being." The time and s.p.a.ce should have been "wasted," and the proofs should have been enumerated. These "proofs" are what the wisest and greatest are trying to find. Logic is not satisfied with a.s.sertion. It cares nothing for the opinions of the "great," nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all, for the superst.i.tions of the dead. In the world of science--a fact is a legal tender. a.s.sertions and miracles are base and spurious coins. We have the right to rejudge the justice even of a G.o.d.

No one should throw away his reason--the fruit of all experience. It is the intellectual capital of the soul, the only light, the only guide, and without it the brain becomes the palace of an idiot king, attended by a retinue of thieves and hypocrites.

440. The Liberty of the Bible

This is the religious liberty of the Bible. If you had lived in Palestine, and if the wife of your bosom, dearer to you than your own soul, had said: "I like the religion of India better than that of Palestine," it would have been your duty to kill her. "Your eye must not pity her, your hand must be first upon her, and afterwards the hand of all the people." If she had said: "Let us worship the sun--the sun that clothes the earth in garments of green--the sun, the great fireside of the world--the sun that covers the hills and valleys with flowers--that gave me your face, and made it possible for me to look into the eyes of my babe,--let us worship the sun," it was your duty to kill her. You must throw the first stone, and when against her bosom--a bosom filled with love for you--you had thrown the jagged and cruel rock, and had seen the red stream of her life oozing from the dumb lips of death, you could then look up and receive the congratulations of the G.o.d whose commandment you had obeyed. Is it possible that a being of infinite mercy ordered a husband to kill his wife for the crime of having expressed, an opinion on the subject of religion? Has there been found upon the records of the savage world anything more perfectly fiendish than this commandment of Jehovah? This is justified on the ground that "blasphemy was a breach of political allegiance, and idolatry an act of overt treason." We can understand how a human king stands in need of the service of his people. We can understand how the desertion of any of his soldiers weakens his army; but were the king infinite in power, his strength would still remain the same, and under no conceivable circ.u.mstances could the enemy triumph.

441. Slavery in Heaven