Why, then, should we say that God is good?
The dungeons against whose dripping walls the brave and generous have sighed their souls away, the scaffolds stained and glorified with noble blood, the hopeless slaves with scarred and bleeding backs, the writhing martyrs clothed in flame, the virtuous stretched on racks, their joints and muscles torn apart, the flayed and bleeding bodies of the just, the extinguished eyes of those who sought for truth, the countless patriots who fought and died in vain, the burdened, beaten, weeping wives, the shriveled faces of neglected babes, the murdered millions of the vanished years, the victims of the winds and waves, of flood and flame, of imprisoned forces in the earth, of lightning's stroke, of lava's molten stream, of famine, plague and lingering pain, the mouths that drip with blood, the fangs that poison, the beaks that wound and tear, the triumphs of the base, the rule and sway of wrong, the crowns that cruelty has worn and the robed hypocrites, with clasped and bloody hands, who thanked their God--a phantom fiend--that liberty had been banished from the world, these souvenirs of the dreadful past, these horrors that still exist, these frightful facts deny that any God exists who has the will and power to guard and bless the human race.
III. THE POWER THAT WORKS FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
MOST people cling to the supernatural. If they give up one God, they imagine another. Having outgrown Jehovah, they talk about the power that works for righteousness.
What is this power?
Man advances, and necessarily advances through experience. A man wishing to go to a certain place comes to where the road divides. He takes the left hand, believing it to be the right road, and travels until he finds that it is the wrong one. He retraces his steps and takes the right hand road and reaches the place desired. The next time he goes to the same place, he does not take the left hand road. He has tried that road, and knows that it is the wrong road. He takes the right road, and thereupon these theologians say, "There is a power that works for righteousness."
A child, charmed by the beauty of the flame, grasps it with its dimpled hand. The hand is burned, and after that the child keeps its hand out of the fire. The power that works for righteousness has taught the child a lesson.
The accumulated experience of the world is a power and force that works for righteousness. This force is not conscious, not intelligent. It has no will, no purpose. It is a result.
So thousands have endeavored to establish the existence of God by the fact that we have what is called the moral sense; that is to say, a conscience.
It is insisted by these theologians, and by many of the so-called philosophers, that this moral sense, this sense of duty, of obligation, was imported, and that conscience is an exotic. Taking the ground that it was not produced here, was not produced by man, they then imagine a God from whom it came.
Man is a social being. We live together in families, tribes and nations.
The members of a family, of a tribe, of a nation, who increase the happiness of the family, of the tribe or of the nation, are considered good members. They are praised, admired and respected. They are regarded as good; that is to say, as moral.
The members who add to the misery of the family, the tribe or the nation, are considered bad members.
They are blamed, despised, punished. They are regarded as immoral.
The family, the tribe, the nation, creates a standard of conduct, of morality. There is nothing supernatural in this.
The greatest of human beings has said, "Conscience is born of love."
The sense of obligation, of duty, was naturally produced.
Among savages, the immediate consequences of actions are taken into consideration. As people advance, the remote consequences are perceived.
The standard of conduct becomes higher. The imagination is cultivated.
A man puts himself in the place of another. The sense of duty becomes stronger, more imperative. Man judges himself.
He loves, and love is the commencement, the foundation of the highest virtues. He injures one that he loves. Then comes regret, repentance, sorrow, conscience. In all this there is nothing supernatural.
Man has deceived himself. Nature is a mirror in which man sees his own image, and all supernatural religions rest on the pretence that the image, which appears to be behind this mirror, has been caught.
All the metaphysicians of the spiritual type, from Plato to Swedenborg, have manufactured their facts, and all founders of religion have done the same.
Suppose that an infinite God exists, what can we do for him? Being infinite, he is conditionless; being conditionless, he cannot be benefited or injured. He cannot want. He has.
Think of the egotism of a man who believes that an infinite being wants his praise!
IV.
WHAT has our religion done? Of course, it is admitted by Christians that all other religions are false, and consequently we need examine only our own.
Has Christianity done good? Has it made men nobler, more merciful, nearer honest? When the church had control, were men made better and happier?
What has been the effect of Christianity in Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland?
What has religion done for Hungary or Austria? What was the effect of Christianity in Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, in England, in America? Let us be honest. Could these countries have been worse without religion? Could they have been worse had they had any other religion than Christianity?
Would Torquemada have been worse had he been a follower of Zoroaster?
Would Calvin have been more bloodthirsty if he had believed in the religion of the South Sea Islanders? Would the Dutch have been more idiotic if they had denied the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and worshiped the blessed trinity of sausage, beer and cheese? Would John Knox have been any worse had he deserted Christ and become a follower of Confucius?
Take our own dear, merciful Puritan Fathers? What did Christianity do for them? They hated pleasure. On the door of life they hung the crape of death. They muffled all the bells of gladness. They made cradles by putting rockers on coffins. In the Puritan year there were twelve Decembers. They tried to do away with infancy and youth, with prattle of babes and the song of the morning.
The religion of the Puritan was an unadulterated curse. The Puritan believed the Bible to be the word of God, and this belief has always made those who held it cruel and wretched. Would the Puritan have been worse if he had adopted the religion of the North American Indians?
Let me refer to just one fact showing the influence of a belief in the Bible on human beings.
"On the day of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth she was presented with a Geneva Bible by an old man representing Time, with Truth standing by his side as a child. The Queen received the Bible, kissed it, and pledged herself to diligently read therein. In the dedication of this blessed Bible the Queen was piously exhorted to put all Papists to the sword."
In this incident we see the real spirit of Protestant lovers of the Bible. In other words, it was just as fiendish, just as infamous as the Catholic spirit.
Has the Bible made the people of Georgia kind and merciful? Would the lynchers be more ferocious if they worshiped gods of wood and stone?
VII. HOW CAN MANKIND BE REFORMED WITHOUT RELIGION?
RELIGION has been tried, and in all countries, in all times, has failed.
Religion has never made man merciful.
Remember the Inquisition.
What effect did religion have on slavery?
What effect upon Libby, Saulsbury and Andersonville?
Religion has always been the enemy of science, of investigation and thought.
Religion has never made man free.
It has never made man moral, temperate, industrious and honest.
Are Christians more temperate, nearer virtuous, nearer honest than savages?
Among savages do we not find that their vices and cruelties are the fruits of their superstitions?
To those who believe in the Uniformity of Nature, religion is impossible.