* This unfinished article was written as a reply to the Rev.
Lyman Abbott's article entitled, "Flaws in Ingersollism,"
which was printed in the April number of the North American Review for 1890.
IN your Open Letter to me, published in this Review, you attack what you supposed to be my position, and ask several questions to which you demand answers; but in the same letter, you state that you wish no controversy with me. Is it possible that you wrote the letter to prevent a controversy? Do you attack only those with whom you wish to live in peace, and do you ask questions, coupled with a request that they remain unanswered?
In addition to this, you have taken pains to publish in your own paper, that it was no part of your design in the article in the _North American Review_, to point out errors in my statements, and that this design was distinctly disavowed in the opening paragraph of your article. You further say, that your simple object was to answer the question "What is Christianity?" May I be permitted to ask why you addressed the letter to me, and why do you now pretend that, although you did address a letter to me, I was not in your mind, and that you had no intention of pointing out any flaws in my doctrines or theories? Can you afford to occupy this position?
You also stated in your own paper, _The Christian Union_, that the title of your article had been changed by the editor of the _Review_, without your knowledge or consent; leaving it to be inferred that the title given to the article by you was perfectly consistent with your statement, that it was no part of your design in the article in the _North American Review_, to point out errors in my (Ingersoll's) statements; and that your simple object was to answer the question, What is Christianity? And yet, the title which you gave your own article was as follows: "To Robert G. Ingersoll: A Reply."
First. We are told that only twelve crimes were punished by death: idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, fraudulent prophesying, Sabbath-breaking, rebellion against parents, resistance to judicial officers, murder, homicide by negligence, adultery, incestuous marriages, and kidnapping. We are then told that as late as the year 1600 there were 263 crimes capital in England.
Does not the world know that all the crimes or offences punishable by death in England could be divided in the same way? For instance, treason. This covered a multitude of offences, all punishable by death.
Larceny covered another multitude. Perjury--trespass, covered many others. There might still be made a smaller division, and one who had made up his mind to define the Criminal Code of England might have said that there was only one offence punishable by death--wrong-doing.
The facts with regard to the Criminal Code of England are, that up to the reign of George I. there were 167 offences punishable by death.
Between the accession of George I. and termination of the reign of George III., there were added 56 new crimes to which capital punishment was attached. So that when George IV. became king, there were 223 offences capital in England.
John Bright, commenting upon this subject, says:
"During all these years, so far as this question goes, our Government was becoming more cruel and more barbarous, and we do not find, and have not found, that in the great Church of England, with its fifteen or twenty thousand ministers, and with its more than score of Bishops in the House of Lords, there ever was a voice raised, or an organization formed, in favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous cruelties which our law was continually inflicting. Was not Voltaire justified in saying that the English were the only people who murdered by law?"
As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the situation of the people, the number of subjects covered by law, there were far more offences capital in the days of Moses, than in the reign of George IV.
Is it possible that a minister, a theologian of the nineteenth century, imagines that he has substantiated the divine origin of the Old Testament by endeavoring to show that the government of God was not quite as bad as that of England?
Mr. Abbott also informs us that the reason Moses killed so many was, that banishment from the camp during the wandering in the Wilderness was a punishment worse than death. If so, the poor wretches should at least have been given their choice. Few, in my judgment, would have chosen death, because the history shows that a large majority were continually clamoring to be led back to Egypt. It required all the cunning and power of God to keep the fugitives from returning in a body. Many were killed by Jehovah, simply because they wished to leave the camp--because they longed passionately for banishment, and thought with joy of the flesh-pots of Egypt, preferring the slavery of Pharaoh to the liberty of Jehovah. The memory of leeks and onions was enough to set their faces toward the Nile.
Second. I am charged with saying that the Christian missionaries say to the heathen: "You must examine your religion--and not only so, but you must reject it; and unless you do reject it, and in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned." Mr. Abbott denies the truth of this statement.
Let me ask him, If the religion of Jesus Christ is preached clearly and distinctly to a heathen, and the heathen understands it, and rejects it deliberately, unequivocally, and finally, can he be saved?
This question is capable of a direct answer. The reverend gentleman now admits that an acceptance of Christianity is not essential to salvation.
If the acceptance of Christianity is not essential to the salvation of the heathen who has heard Christianity preached--knows what its claims are, and the evidences that support those claims, is the acceptance of Christianity essential to the salvation of an adult intelligent citizen of the United States? Will the reverend gentleman tell us, and without circumlocution, whether the acceptance of Christianity is necessary to the salvation of anybody? If he says that it is, then he admits that I was right in my statement concerning what is said to the heathen. If he says that it is not, then I ask him, What do you do with the following passages of Scripture: "There is none other name given under heaven or among men whereby we must be saved."
"Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and whosoever believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; and whosoever believeth not shall be damned"?
I am delighted to know that millions of Pagans will be found to have entered into eternal life without any knowledge of Christ or his religion.
Another question naturally arises: If a heathen can hear and reject the Gospel, and yet be saved, what will become of the heathen who never heard of the Gospel? Are they all to be saved? If all who never heard are to be saved, is it not dangerous to hear?--Is it not cruel to preach? Why not stop preaching and let the entire world become heathen, so that after this, no soul may be lost?
Third. You say that I desire to deprive mankind of their faith in God, in Christ and in the Bible. I do not, and have not, endeavored to destroy the faith of any man in a good, in a just, in a merciful God, or in a reasonable, natural, human Christ, or in any truth that the Bible may contain. I have endeavored--and with some degree of success--to destroy the faith of man in the Jehovah of the Jews, and in the idea that Christ was in fact the God of this universe. I have also endeavored to show that there are many things in the Bible ignorant and cruel--that the book was produced by barbarians and by savages, and that its influence on the world has been bad.
And I do believe that life and property will be safer, that liberty will be surer, that homes will be sweeter, and life will be more joyous, and death less terrible, if the myth called Jehovah can be destroyed from the human mind.
It seems to me that the heart of the Christian ought to burst into an efflorescence of joy when he becomes satisfied that the Bible is only the work of man; that there is no such place as perdition--that there are no eternal flames--that men's souls are not to suffer everlasting pain--that it is all insanity and ignorance and fear and horror. I should think that every good and tender soul would be delighted to know that there is no Christ who can say to any human being--to any father, mother, or child--"Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." I do believe that he will be far happier when the Psalms of David are sung no more, and that he will be far better when no one could sing the 109th Psalm without shuddering and horror.
These Psalms for the most part breathe the spirit of hatred, of revenge, and of everything fiendish in the human heart. There are some good lines, some lofty aspirations--these should be preserved; and to the extent that they do give voice to the higher and holier emotions, they should be preserved.
So I believe the world will be happier when the life of Christ, as it is written now in the New Testament, is no longer believed.
Some of the Ten Commandments will fall into oblivion, and the world will be far happier when they do. Most of these commandments are universal.
They were not discovered by Jehovah--they were not original with him.
"Thou shalt not kill," is as old as life. And for this reason a large majority of people in all countries have objected to being murdered.
"Thou shalt not steal," is as old as industry. There never has been a human being who was willing to work through the sun and rain and heat of summer, simply for the purpose that some one who had lived in idleness might steal the result of his labor. Consequently, in all countries where it has been necessary to work, larceny has been a crime. "Thou shalt not lie," is as old as speech. Men have desired, as a rule, to know the truth; and truth goes with courage and candor. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," is as old as love. "Honor thy father and thy mother,"
is as old as the family relation.
All these commandments were known among all peoples thousands and thousands of years before Moses was born. The new one, "Thou shalt worship no other Gods but me," is a bad commandment--because that God was not worthy of worship. "Thou shalt make no graven image,"--a bad commandment. It was the death of art. "Thou shalt do no work on the Sabbath-day,"--a bad commandment; the object of that being, that one-seventh of the time should be given to the worship of a monster, making a priesthood necessary, and consequently burdening industry with the idle and useless.
If Professor Clifford felt lonely at the loss of such a companion as Jehovah, it is impossible for me to sympathize with his feelings. No one wishes to destroy the hope of another life--no one wishes to blot out any good that is, or that is hoped for, or the hope of which gives consolation to the world. Neither do I agree with this gentleman when he says, "Let us have the truth, cost what it may." I say: Let us have happiness--well-being. The truth upon these matters is of but little importance compared with the happiness of mankind. Whether there is, or is not, a God, is absolutely unimportant, compared with the well-being of the race. Whether the Bible is, or is not, inspired, is not of as much consequence as human happiness.
Of course, if the Old and New Testaments are true, then human happiness becomes impossible, either in this world, or in the world to come--that is, impossible to all people who really believe that these books are true. It is often necessary to know the truth, in order to prepare ourselves to bear consequences; but in the metaphysical world, truth is of no possible importance except as it affects human happiness.
If there be a God, he certainly will hold us to no stricter responsibility about metaphysical truth than about scientific truth.
It ought to be just as dangerous to make a mistake in Geology as in Theology--in Astronomy as in the question of the Atonement.
I am not endeavoring to overthrow any faith in God, but the faith in a bad God. And in order to accomplish this, I have endeavored to show that the question of whether an Infinite God exists, or not, is beyond the power of the human mind. Anything is better than to believe in the God of the Bible.
Fourth. Mr. Abbott, like the rest, appeals to names instead of to arguments. He appeals to Socrates, and yet he does not agree with Socrates. He appeals to Goethe, and yet Goethe was far from a Christian.
He appeals to Isaac Newton and to Mr. Gladstone--and after mentioning these names, says, that on his side is this faith of the wisest, the best, the noblest of mankind.
Was Socrates after all greater than Epicurus--had he a subtler mind--was he any nobler in his life? Was Isaac Newton so much greater than Humboldt--than Charles Darwin, who has revolutionized the thought of the civilized world? Did he do the one-hundredth part of the good for mankind that was done by Voltaire--was he as great a metaphysician as Spinoza?
But why should we appeal to names?
In a contest between Protestantism and Catholicism are you willing to abide by the tests of names? In a contest between Christianity and Paganism, in the first century, would you have considered the question settled by names? Had Christianity then produced the equals of the great Greeks and Romans? The new can always be overwhelmed with names that were in favor of the old. Sir Isaac Newton, in his day, could have been overwhelmed by the names of the great who had preceded him. Christ was overwhelmed by this same method--Moses and the Prophets were appealed to as against this Peasant of Palestine. This is the argument of the cemetery--this is leaving the open field, and crawling behind gravestones.
Newton was understood to be, all his life, a believer in the Trinity; but he dared not say what his real thought was. After his death there was found among his papers an argument that he published against the divinity of Christ. This had been published in Holland, because he was afraid to have it published in England. How do we really know what the great men of whom you speak believed, or believe?
I do not agree with you when you say that Gladstone is the greatest statesman. He will not, in my judgment, for one moment compare with Thomas Jefferson--with Alexander Hamilton--or, to come down to later times, with Gambetta; and he is immeasurably below such a man as Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was not a believer. Gambetta was an atheist.
And yet, these names prove nothing. Instead of citing a name, and saying that this great man--Sir Isaac Newton, for instance--believed in our doctrine, it is far better to give the reasons that Sir Isaac Newton had for his belief.
Nearly all organizations are filled with snobbishness. Each church has a list of great names, and the members feel in duty bound to stand by their great men.
Why is idolatry the worst of sins? Is it not far better to worship a God of stone than a God who threatens to punish in eternal flames the most of his children? If you simply mean by idolatry a false conception of God, you must admit that no finite mind can have a true conception of God--and you must admit that no two men can have the same false conception of God, and that, as a consequence, no two men can worship identically the same Deity. Consequently they are all idolaters.
I do not think idolatry the worst of sins. Cruelty is the worst of sins. It is far better to worship a false God, than to injure your neighbor--far better to bow before a monstrosity of stone, than to enslave your fellow-men.
Fifth. I am glad that you admit that a bad God is worse than no God.
If so, the atheist is far better than the believer in Jehovah, and far better than the believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ--because I am perfectly satisfied that none but a bad God would threaten to say to any human soul, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." So that, before any Christian can be better than an atheist, he must reform his God.
The agnostic does not simply say, "I do not know." He goes another step, and he says, with great emphasis, that you do not know. He insists that you are trading on the ignorance of others, and on the fear of others.
He is not satisfied with saying that you do not know,--he demonstrates that you do not know, and he drives you from the field of fact--he drives you from the realm of reason--he drives you from the light, into the darkness of conjecture--into the world of dreams and shadows, and he compels you to say, at last, that your faith has no foundation in fact.
You say that religion tells us that "life is a battle with temptation--the result is eternal life to the victors."
But what of the victims? Did your God create these victims, knowing that they would be victims? Did he deliberately change the clay into the man--into a being with wants, surrounded by difficulties and temptations--and did he deliberately surround this being with temptations that he knew he could not withstand, with obstacles that he knew he could not overcome, and whom he knew at last would fall a victim upon the field of death? Is there no hope for this victim? No remedy for this mistake of your God? Is he to remain a victim forever? Is it not better to have no God than such a God? Could the condition of this victim be rendered worse by the death of God?
Sixth. Of course I agree with you when you say that character is worth more than condition--that life is worth more than place. But I do not agree with you when you say that being--that simple existence--is better than happiness. If a man is not happy, it is far better not to be. I utterly dissent from your philosophy of life. From my standpoint, I do not understand you when you talk about self-denial. I can imagine a being of such character, that certain things he would do for the one he loved, would by others be regarded as acts of self-denial, but they could not be so regarded by him. In these acts of so-called selfdenial, he would find his highest joy.