The declaration that salvation is the reward for belief is inconsistent with mental freedom, and could have been made by no man who thought that evidence sustained the slightest relation to belief.
Every sermon in which men have been told that they could save their souls by believing, has been an injury. Such sermons dull the moral sense and subvert the true conception of virtue and duty.
The true man, when asked to believe, asks for evidence. The true man, who asks another to believe, offers evidence.
But this is not all.
In spite of the threat of eternal pain--of the promise of everlasting joy, unbelievers increased, and the churches took another step.
The churches said to the unbelievers, the heretics: "Although our God will punish you forever in another world--in his prison--the doors of which open only to receive, we, unless you believe, will torment you now."
And then the members of these churches, led by priests, popes, and clergymen, sought out their unbelieving neighbors--chained them in dungeons, stretched them on racks, crushed their bones, cut out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, flayed them alive and consumed their poor bodies in flames.
All this was done because these Christian savages believed in the dogma of eternal pain. Because they believed that heaven was the reward for belief. So believing, they were the enemies of free thought and speech--they cared nothing for conscience, nothing for the veracity of a soul,--nothing for the manhood of a man. In all ages most priests have been heartless and relentless. They have calumniated and tortured. In defeat they have crawled and whined. In victory they have killed. The flower of pity never blossomed in their hearts and in their brain.
Justice never held aloft the scales. Now they are not as cruel. They have lost their power, but they are still trying to accomplish the impossible. They fill their pockets with "fool's gold" and think they are rich. They stuff their minds with mistakes and think they are wise.
They console themselves with legends and myths, have faith in fiction and forgery--give their hearts to ghosts and phantoms and seek the aid of the non-existent.
They put a monster--a master--a tyrant in the sky, and seek to enslave their fellow-men. They teach the cringing virtues of serfs. They abhor the courage of manly men. They hate the man who thinks. They long for revenge.
They warm their hands at the imaginary fires of hell.
I show them that hell does not exist and they denounce me for destroying their consolation.
Horace Greeley, as the story goes, one cold day went into a country store, took a seat by the stove, unbuttoned his coat and spread out his hands.
In a few minutes, a little boy who clerked in the store said: "Mr.
Greeley, there aint no fire in that stove."
"You d----d little rascal," said Greeley, "What did you tell me for, I was getting real warm."
III.
"THE SCIENCE OF THEOLOGY."
ALL the sciences--except Theology--are eager for facts--hungry for the truth. On the brow of a finder of a fact the laurel is placed.
In a theological seminary, if a professor finds a fact inconsistent with the creed, he must keep it secret or deny it, or lose his place. Mental veracity is a crime, cowardice and hypocrisy are virtues.
A fact, inconsistent with the creed, is denounced as a lie, and the man who declares or announces the fact is a blasphemer. Every professor breathes the air of insincerity. Every one is mentally dishonest. Every one is a pious fraud. Theology is the only dishonest science--the only one that is based on belief--on credulity,--the only one that abhors investigation, that despises thought and denounces reason.
All the great theologians in the Catholic Church have denounced reason as the light furnished by the enemy of mankind--as the road that leads to perdition. All the great Protestant theologians, from Luther to the orthodox clergy of our time, have been the enemies of reason. All orthodox churches of all ages have been the enemies of science. They attacked the astronomers as though they were criminals--the geologists as though they were assassins. They regarded physicians as the enemies of God--as men who were trying to defeat the decrees of Providence.
The biologists, the anthropologists, the archaeologists, the readers of ancient inscriptions, the delvers in buried cities, were all hated by the theologians. They were afraid that these men might find something inconsistent with the Bible.
The theologians attacked those who studied other religions. They insisted that Christianity was not a growth--not an evolution--but a revelation. They denied that it was in any way connected with any natural religion.
The facts now show beyond all doubt that all religions came from substantially the same source--but there is not an orthodox Christian theologian who will admit the facts. He must defend his creed--his revelation. He cannot afford to be honest. He was not educated in an honest school. He was not taught to be honest. He was taught to believe and to defend his belief, not only against argument but against facts.
There is not a theologian in the whole world who can produce the slightest, the least particle of evidence tending to show that the Bible is the inspired word of God.
Where is the evidence that the book of Ruth was written by an inspired man? Where is the evidence that God is the author of the Song of Solomon? Where is the evidence that any human being has been inspired?
Where is the evidence that Christ was and is God? Where is the evidence that the places called heaven and hell exist? Where is the evidence that a miracle was ever wrought?
There is none.
Theology is entirely independent of evidence.
Where is the evidence that angels and ghosts--that devils and gods exist? Have these beings been seen or touched? Does one of our senses certify to their existence?
The theologians depend on assertions. They have no evidence. They claim that their inspired book is superior to reason and independent of evidence.
They talk about probability--analogy--inferences--but they present no evidence. They say that they know that Christ lived, in the same way that they know that Caesar lived. They might add that they know Moses talked with Jehovah on Sinai the same way they know that Brigham Young talked with God in Utah. The evidence in both cases is the same,--none in either.
How do they prove that Christ rose from the dead? They find the account in a book. Who wrote the book? They do not know. What evidence is this?
None, unless all things found in books are true.
It is impossible to establish one miracle except by another--and that would have to be established by another still, and so on without end.
Human testimony is not sufficient to establish a miracle. Each human being, to be really convinced, must witness the miracle for himself.
They say that Christianity was established, proven to be true, by miracles wrought nearly two thousand years ago. Not one of these miracles can be established except by impudent and ignorant assertion--except by poisoning and deforming the minds of the ignorant and the young. To succeed, the theologians invade the cradle, the nursery. In the brain of innocence they plant the seeds of superstition.
They pollute the minds and imaginations of children. They frighten the happy with threats of pain--they soothe the wretched with gilded lies.
This perpetual insincerity stamps itself on the face--affects every feature. We all know the theological countenance,--cold, unsympathetic, cruel, lighted with a pious smirk,--no line of laughter--no dimpled mirth--no touch of humor--nothing human.
This face is a rebuke, a reprimand to natural joy. It says to the happy: "Beware of the dog"--"Prepare for death." This face, like the fabled Gorgon, turns cheerfulness to stone. It is a protest against pleasure--a warning and a threat.
You see every soul is a sculptor that fashions the features, and in this way reveals itself.
Every thought leaves its impress.
The student of this science of theology must be taught in youth,--in his mother's arms. These lies must be sown and planted in his brain the first of all. He must be taught to believe, to accept without question.
He must be told that it is wicked to doubt, that it is sinful to inquire--that Faith is a virtue and unbelief a crime.
In this way his mind is poisoned, paralyzed. On all other subjects he has liberty--and in all other directions he is urged to study and think.
From his mother's arms he goes to the Sunday school. His poor little mind is filled with miracles and wonders. He is told about a God who made the world and who rewards and punishes. He is told that this God is the author of the Bible--that Christ is his son. He is told about original sin and the atonement, and he believes what he hears. No reasons are given--no facts--no evidence is presented--nothing but assertion. If he asks questions, he is silenced by more solemn assertions and warned against the devices of the evil one. Every Sunday school is a kind of inquisition where they torture and deform the minds of children--where they force their souls into Catholic or Protestant moulds--and do all they can to destroy the originality, the individuality, and the veracity of the soul. In the theological seminary the destruction is complete.
When the minister leaves the seminary, he is not seeking the truth.
He has it. He has a revelation from God, and he has a creed in exact accordance with that revelation. His business is to stand by that revelation and to defend that creed. Arguments against the revelation and the creed he will not read, he will not hear. All facts that are against his religion he will deny. It is impossible for him to be candid. The tremendous "verities" of eternal joy, of everlasting pain are in his creed, and they result from believing the false and denying the true.
Investigation is an infinite danger, unbelief is an infinite offence and deserves and will receive infinite punishment. In the shadow of this tremendous "fact" his courage dies, his manhood is lost, and in his fear he cries out that he believes, whether he does or not.
He says and teaches that credulity is safe and thought dangerous. Yet he pretends to be a teacher--a leader, one selected by God to educate his fellow-men.
These orthodox ministers have been the slanderers of the really great men of our century. They denounced Lyell, the great geologist, for giving facts to the world. They hated and belittled Humboldt, one of the greatest and most intellectual of the race. They ridiculed and derided Darwin, the greatest naturalist, the keenest observer, the best judge of the value of a fact, the most wonderful discoverer of truth that the world has produced.
In every orthodox pulpit stood a traducer of the greatest of scientists--of one who filled the world with intellectual light.
The church has been the enemy of every science, of every real thinker, and for many centuries has used her power to prevent intellectual progress.