For instance: A man is graduated from an orthodox university. In this university he has studied astronomy, and yet he believes that Joshua stopped the sun. He has studied geology, and yet he asserts the truth of the Mosaic cosmogony. He has studied chemistry, and yet believes that water was turned into wine. He has been taught the ordinary theory of cause and effect, and at the same time he thoroughly believes in the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes. Can such an institution, with any propriety, be called a seat of learning? Can we not say of such a university what Bruno said of Oxford: "Learning is dead and Oxford is its widow."
Year after year the religious colleges are improving--simply because they are becoming more and more secular, less and less theological.
Whether infidelity has founded universities or not, it can truthfully be said that the spirit of investigation, the spirit of free thought, the attitude of mental independence, contended for by those who are called infidels, have made schools useful instead of hurtful.
Can it be shown that any infidel has ever raised his voice against education? Can there be found in the literature of free thought one line against the enlightenment of the human race? Has free thought ever endeavored to hide or distort, a fact? Has it not always appealed to the senses--to demonstration? It has not said, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," but it has said, "He that hath brains to think, let him think."
The object of a school should be to ascertain truth in every direction, to the end that man may know the conditions of happiness--and every school should be absolutely free. No teacher should be bound by anything except a perceived fact. He should not be the slave of a creed, engaged in the business of enslaving others.
So much for schools.
Second--As to public morals.
Christianity teaches that all offences can be forgiven. Every church unconsciously allows people to commit crimes on a credit. I do not mean by this that any church consciously advocates immorality. I most cheerfully admit that thousands and thousands of ministers are endeavoring to do good--that they are pure, self-denying men, trying to make this world better. But there is a frightful defect in their philosophy. They say to the bank cashier: You must not steal, you must not take a dollar--larceny is wrong, it is contrary to all law, human and divine--but if you do steal every cent in the bank, God will as gladly, quickly forgive you in Canada as he will in the United States.
On the other hand, what is called infidelity says: There is no being in the universe who rewards, and there is no being who punishes--every act has its consequences. If the act is good, the consequences are good; if the act is bad, the consequences are bad; and these consequences must be borne by the actor. It says to every human being: You must reap what you sow. There is no reward, there is no punishment, but there are consequences, and these consequences are the invisible and implacable police of nature. They cannot be avoided. They cannot be bribed. No power can awe them, and there is not gold enough in the world to make them pause. Even a God cannot induce them to release for one instant their victim.
This great truth is, in my judgment, the gospel of morality. If all men knew that they must inevitably bear the consequences of their own actions--if they absolutely knew that they could not injure another without injuring themselves, the world, in my judgment, would be far better than it is.
Free thought has attacked the morality of what is called the atonement.
The innocent should not suffer for the guilty, and if the innocent does suffer for the guilty, that cannot by any possibility justify the guilty. The reason a thing is wrong is because it, in some way, causes the innocent to suffer. This being the very essence of wrong, how can the suffering of innocence justify the guilty? If there be a world of joy, he who is worthy to enter that world must be willing to carry his own burdens in this.
So much for morality.
Third--As to sciences and art.
I do not believe that we are indebted to Christianity for any science.
I do not remember that one science is mentioned in the New Testament.
There is not one word, so far as I remember, about education--nothing about any science, nothing about art. The writers of the New Testament seem to have thought that the world was about coming to an end. This world was to be sacrificed absolutely to the next. The affairs of this life were not worth speaking of. All people were exhorted to prepare at once for the other life.
The sciences have advanced in the proportion that they did not interfere with orthodox theology. To the extent that they were supposed to interfere with theology they have been obstructed and denounced.
Astronomy was found to be inconsistent with the Scriptures, and the astronomers were imprisoned and despised. Geology contradicted the Mosaic account, and the geologists were denounced and persecuted. Every step taken in astronomy was taken in spite of the church, and every fact in geology had to fight its way. The same is true as to the science of medicine. The church wished to cure disease by necromancy, by charm and prayer, and with the bones of the saints. The church wished man to rely entirely upon God--that is to say, upon the church--and not upon himself. The physician interfered with the power and prosperity of the priest, and those who appealed to physicians were denounced as lacking faith in God. This state of things existed even in the Old Testament times. A king failed to send for the prophets, but sent for a physician, and then comes this piece of grim humor: "And Asa slept with his fathers."
The great names in science are not those of recognized saints.
Bruno--one of the greatest and bravest of men--greatest of all martyrs--perished at the stake, because he insisted on the existence of other worlds and taught the astronomy of Galileo.
Humboldt--in some respects the wisest man known to the scientific world--denied the existence of the supernatural and "the truths of revealed religion," and yet he revolutionized the thought of his day and left a legacy of intellectual glory to the race.
Darwin--greatest of scientists--so great that our time will probably be known as "Darwin's Century"--had not the slightest confidence in any possible phase of the so-called supernatural. This great man left the creed of Christendom without a foundation. He brought as witnesses against the inspiration of the Scriptures such a multitude of facts, such an overwhelming amount of testimony, that it seems impossible to me that any unprejudiced man can, after hearing the testimony, remain a believer in evangelical religion. He accomplished more than all the schools, colleges, and universities that Christianity has founded. He revolutionized the philosophy of the civilized world.
The writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly opposed by the church. There is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of the world that cannot be found on the "Index Expurgatorius." Kant and Fichte and Spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox-world.
Voltaire did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him with a fury amounting to insanity--called him an atheist, although he believed not only in God, but in special providence. He was opposed to the church--that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he was despised.
And what shall I say of D'Holbach, of Hume, of Buckle, of Draper, of Haeckel, of Buchner, of Tyndall and Huxley, of Auguste Comte, and hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with light and the heart of man with love and kindness?
It may be well enough, in regard to art, to say that Christianity is indebted to Greece and Rome for its highest conceptions, and it may be well to add that for many centuries Christianity did the best it could to destroy the priceless marbles of Greece and Rome. A few were buried, and in that way were saved from Christian fury.
The same is true of the literature of the classic world. A few fragments were rescued, and these became the seeds of modern literature. A few statues were preserved, and they are to-day models for all the world.
Of course it will be admitted that there is much art in Christian lands, because, in spite of the creeds, Christians, so-called, have turned their attention to this world. They have beautified their homes, they have endeavored to clothe themselves in purple and fine linen. They have been forced from banquets or from luxury by the difficulty of camels going through the eyes of needles or the impossibility of carrying water to the rich man. They have cultivated this world, and the arts have lived. Did they obey the precepts that they find in their sacred writings there would be no art, they would "take no thought for the morrow," they would "consider the lilies of the field."
Fourth--As to the liberation of slaves.
It was exceedingly unfortunate for the Rev. Mr. Peters that he spoke of slavery. The Bible upholds human slavery--white slavery. The Bible was quoted by all slaveholders and slave-traders. The man who went to Africa to steal women and children took the Bible with him. He planted himself firmly on the Word of God. As Whittier says of Whitefield:
"He bade the slave ship speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost."
So when the poor wretches were sold to the planters, the planters defended their action by reading the Bible. When a poor woman was sold, her children torn from her breast, the auction block on which she stood was the Bible; the auctioneer who sold her quoted the Scriptures; the man who bought her repeated the quotations, and the ministers from the pulpit said to the weeping woman, as her child was carried away: "Servants, be obedient unto your masters."
Freethinkers in all ages have been opposed to slavery. Thomas Paine did more for human liberty than any other man who ever stood upon the western world. The first article he ever wrote in this country was one against the institution of slavery. Freethinkers have also been in favor of free bodies. Freethinkers have always said "free hands," and the infidels, the wide world over, have been friends of freedom.
Fifth--As to the reclamation of inebriates.
Much has been said, and for many years, on the subject of temperance--much has been uttered by priests and laymen--and yet there seems to be a subtle relation between rum and religion. Scotland is extremely orthodox, yet it is not extremely temperate. England is nothing if not religious, and London is, par excellence, the Christian city of the world, and yet it is the most intemperate. The Mohammedans--followers of a false prophet--do not drink.
Sixth--As to the humanity of infidelity.
Can it be said that people have cared for the wounded and dying only because they were orthodox?
Is it not true that religion, in its efforts to propagate the creed of forgiveness by the sword, has caused the death of more than one hundred and fifty millions of human beings? Is it not true that where the church has cared for one orphan it has created hundreds? Can Christianity afford to speak of war?
The Christian nations of the world to-day are armed against each other. In Europe, all that can be gathered by taxation--all that can be borrowed by pledging the prosperity of the future--the labor of those yet unborn--is used for the purpose of keeping Christians in the field, to the end that they may destroy other Christians, or at least prevent other Christians from destroying them. Europe is covered with churches and fortifications, with temples and with forts--hundreds of thousands of priests, millions of soldiers, countless Bibles and countless bayonets--and that whole country is oppressed and impoverished for the purpose of carrying on war. The people have become deformed by labor, and yet Christianity boasts of peace.
Seventh--"And what death has infidelity ever cheered?"
Is it possible for the orthodox Christian to cheer the dying when the dying is told that there is a world of eternal pain, and that he, unless he has been forgiven, is to be an eternal convict? Will it cheer him to know that, even if he is to be saved, countless millions are to be lost?
Is it possible for the Christian religion to put a smile upon the face of death?
On the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: What happens to you will happen to all. If there be another world of joy, it is for all. If there is another life, every human being will have the eternal opportunity of doing right--the eternal opportunity to live, to reform, to enjoy. There is no monster in the sky. There is no Moloch who delights in the agony of his children. These frightful things are savage dreams.
Infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity.
Infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of Hope over every grave.
Let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion. Let us not wander away.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Jan'y 9, 1891.
INGERSOLL CONTINUES THE BATTLE.
V.