{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6172/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6172","id":"gutenberg_6172","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6172","summary":null,"tags":["Agnosticism","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality"],"text":"Produced by The Freethought Archives\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nGOD AND MY NEIGHBOUR\n\n\nBy Robert Blatchford\n\n(\"Nunquam\")\n\n\n\n\n                   To My Son\n                   ROBERT CORRI BLATCHFORD\n                   This book is dedicated\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nINFIDEL!\n\nI put the word in capitals, because it is my new name, and I want to get\nused to it.\n\nINFIDEL!\n\nThe name has been bestowed on me by several Christian gentlemen as a\nreproach, but to my ears it has a quaint and not unpleasing sound.\n\nInfidel! \"The notorious infidel editor of the _Clarion_\" is the form\nused by one True Believer. The words recurred to my mind suddenly, while\nI was taking my favourite black pipe for a walk along \"the pleasant\nStrand,\" and I felt a smile glimmer within as I repeated them.\n\nWhich is worse, to be a Demagogue or an Infidel? I am both. For while\nmany professed Christians contrive to serve both God and Mammon, the\ndepravity of my nature seems to forbid my serving either.\n\nIt was a mild day in mid-August, not cold for the time of year. I had\nbeen laid up for a few days, and my back was unpropitious, and I was\ntired. But I felt very happy, for so bad a man, since the sunshine was\nclear and genial, and my pipe went as easily as a dream.\n\nBesides, one's fellow-creatures are so amusing: especially in the\nStrand. I had seen a proud and gorgeously upholstered lady lolling\nlanguidly in a motor car, and looking extremely pleased with\nherself--not without reason; and I had met two successful men of great\npresence, who reminded me somehow of \"Porkin and Snob\"; and I had\nnoticed a droll little bundle of a baby, in a fawn-coloured woollen\nsuit, with a belt slipped almost to her knees, and sweet round eyes as\npurple as pansies, who was hunting a rolling apple amongst \"the\nwild mob's million feet\"; and I had seen a worried-looking matron,\nfrantically waving her umbrella to the driver of an omnibus, endanger\nthe silk hat of Porkin and disturb the complacency of Snob; and I felt\nglad.\n\nIt was at that moment that there popped into my head the full style and\ntitle I had earned. \"Notorious Infidel Editor of the _Clarion_!\" These\nbe brave words, indeed. For a moment they almost flattered me into the\nbelief that I had become a member of the higher criminal classes: a bold\nbad man, like Guy Fawkes, or Kruger, or R. B. Cuninghame Graham.\n\n\"You ought,\" I said to myself, \"to dress the part. You ought to have an\nS.D.P. sombrero, a slow wise Fabian smile, and the mysterious trousers\nof a Soho conspirator.\"\n\nBut at the instant I caught a sight of my counterfeit presentment in a\nshop window, and veiled my haughty crest. _That_ a notorious Infidel!\nBehold a dumpy, comfortable British _paterfamilias_ in a light flannel\nsuit and a faded sun hat. No; it will not do. Not a bit like Mephisto:\nmuch more like the Miller of the Dee.\n\nIndeed, I am not an irreligious man, really; I am rather a religious\nman; and this is not an irreligious, but rather a religious, book.\n\nSuch thoughts should make men humble. After all, may not even John Burns\nbe human; may not Mr. Chamberlain himself have a heart that can feel for\nanother?\n\nGentle reader, that was a wise as well as a charitable man who taught us\nthere is honour among thieves; although, having never been a member of\nParliament himself, he must have spoken from hearsay.\n\n\"For all that, Robert, you're a notorious Infidel.\" I paused--just\nopposite the Tivoli--and gazed moodily up and down the Strand.\n\nAs I have remarked elsewhere, I like the Strand. It is a very human\nplace. But I own that the Strand lacks dignity and beauty, and that\namongst its varied odours the odour of sanctity is scarce perceptible.\n\nThere are no trees in the Strand. The thoroughfare should be wider.\nThe architecture is, for the most part, banal. For a chief street in a\nChristian capital, the Strand is not eloquent of high national ideals.\n\nThere are derelict churches in the Strand, and dingy blatant taverns,\nand strident signs and hoardings; and there are slums hard by.\n\nThere are thieves in the Strand, and prowling vagrants, and gaunt\nhawkers, and touts, and gamblers, and loitering failures, with tragic\neyes and wilted garments; and prostitutes plying for hire.\n\nAnd east and west, and north and south of the Strand, there is London.\nIs there a man amongst all London's millions brave enough to tell the\nnaked truth about the vice and crime, the misery and meanness, the\nhypocrisies and shames of the great, rich, heathen city? Were such a man\nto arise amongst us and voice the awful truth, what would his reception\nbe? How would he fare at the hands of the Press, and the Public--and the\nChurch?\n\nAs London is, so is England. This is a Christian country. What would\nChrist think of Park Lane, and the slums, and the hooligans? What would\nHe think of the Stock Exchange, and the music hall, and the racecourse?\nWhat would he think of our national ideals? What would He think of the\nHouse of Peers, and the Bench of Bishops, and the Yellow Press?\n\nPausing again, over against Exeter Hall, I mentally apostrophise the\nChristian British people. \"Ladies and Gentlemen,\" I say, \"you are\nChristian in name, but I discern little of Christ in your ideals, your\ninstitutions, or your daily lives. You are a mercenary, self-indulgent,\nfrivolous, boastful, blood-guilty mob of heathen. I like you very much,\nbut that is what you are. And it is you--_you_ who call men 'Infidels.'\nYou ridiculous creatures, what do you mean by it?\"\n\nIf to praise Christ in words, and deny Him in deeds, be Christianity,\nthen London is a Christian city, and England is a Christian nation. For\nit is very evident that our common English ideals are anti-Christian,\nand that our commercial, foreign and social affairs are run on\nanti-Christian lines.\n\nRenan says, in his _Life of Jesus_, that \"were Jesus to return amongst\nus He would recognise as His disciples, not those who imagine they can\ncompress Him into a few catechismal phrases, but those who labour to\ncarry on His work.\"\n\nMy Christian friends, I am a Socialist, and as such believe in, and work\nfor, universal freedom, and universal brotherhood, and universal peace.\n\nAnd you are Christians, and I am an \"Infidel.\"\n\nWell, be it even so. I am an \"Infidel,\" and I now ask leave to tell you\nwhy.\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORDS\n\n\nIt is impossible for me to present the whole of my case in the space at\nmy command; I can only give an outline. Neither can I do it as well as\nit ought to be done, but only as well as I am able.\n\nTo make up for my shortcomings, and to fortify my case with fuller\nevidence, I must refer the reader to books written by men better\nequipped for the work than I.\n\nTo do justice to so vast a theme would need a large book where I can\nonly spare a short chapter, and each large book should be written by a\nspecialist.\n\nFor the reader's own satisfaction, then, and for the sake of justice to\nmy cause, I shall venture to suggest a list of books whose contents will\natone for all my failures and omissions. And I am justified, I think, in\nsaying that no reader who has not read the books I recommend, or others\nof like scope and value, can fairly claim to sit on the jury to try this\ncase.\n\nAnd of these books I shall, first of all, heartily recommend the series\nof cheap sixpenny reprints now published by the Rationalist Press\nAssociation, Johnson's Court, London, E.C.\n\n              R.P.A. REPRINTS\n     Huxley's _Lectures and Essays._\n     Tyndall's _Lectures and Essays._\n     Laing's _Human Origins._\n     Laing's _Modern Science and Modern Thought._\n     Clodd's _Pioneers of Evolution._\n     Matthew Arnold's _Literature and Dogma._\n     Haeckel's _Riddle of the Universe._\n     Grant Allen's _Evolution of the Idea of God._\n     Cotter Morrison's _Service of Man._\n     Herbert Spencer's _Education._\n\nSome Apologists have, I am sorry to say, attempted to disparage those\nexcellent books by alluding to them as \"Sixpenny Science\" and \"Cheap\nScience.\" The same method of attack will not be available against most\nof the books in my next list:\n\n     _The Golden Bough_, Frazer.  Macmillan, 36s.\n     _The Legend of Perseus_, Hartland.  D. Nutt, 25s.\n     _Christianity and Mythology_, Robertson.  Watts, 8s.\n     _Pagan Christs_, Robertson.  Watts, 8s.\n     _Supernatural Religion_, Cassels.  Watts, 6s.\n     _The Martyrdom of Man_, Winwood Reade.  Kegan Paul, 6s.\n     _Mutual Aid_, Kropotkin.  Heinemann, 7s. 6d.\n     _The Story of Creation_, Clodd.  Longmans, 3s. 6d.\n     _Buddha and Buddhism_, Lillie.  Clark, 3s. 6d.\n     _Shall We Understand the Bible?_ Williams.  Black, 1s.\n     _What is Religion?_ Tolstoy.  Free Age Press, 6d.\n     _What I Believe_, Tolstoy.  Free Age Press, 6d.\n     _The Life of Christ_, Renan.  Scott, 1s. 6d.\n\nI also recommend Herbert Spencer's _Principles of Sociology_ and Lecky's\n_History of European Morals_. Of pamphlets there are hundreds. Readers\nwill get full information from Watts & Co., 17 Johnson's Court, London,\nE.C.\n\nI can warmly recommend _The Miracles of Christian Belief_ and _The\nClaims of Christianity_, by Charles Watts, and _Christianity and\nProgress_, a penny pamphlet, by G. W. Foote (The Freethought Publishing\nCompany).\n\nI should also like to mention _An Easy Outline of Evolution_, by Dennis\nHird (Watts & Co., 2s. 6d.). This book will be of great help to those\nwho want to scrape acquaintance with the theory of evolution.\n\nFinally, let me ask the general reader to put aside all prejudice, and\ngive both sides a fair hearing. Most of the books I have mentioned above\nare of more actual value to the public of to-day than many standard\nworks which hold world-wide reputations.\n\nNo man should regard the subject of religion as decided for him until\nhe has read _The Golden Bough_. _The Golden Bough_ is one of those books\nthat _unmake_ history.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     PREFACE\n\n     FOREWORDS\n\n     THE SIN OF UNBELIEF\n\n     ONE REASON\n\n     WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE\n\n     THE OLD TESTAMENT--\n\n          Is the Bible the Word of God?\n          The Evolution of the Bible\n          The Universe\n          Jehovah\n          Bible Heroes\n          The Book of Books\n          Our Heavenly Father\n          Prayer and Praise\n\n     THE NEW TESTAMENT--\n\n          The Resurrection\n          Gospel Witnesses\n          The Time Spirit\n          Have the Documents been Tampered with?\n          Christianity Before Christ\n          Other Evidences\n\n     THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION--\n          What is Christianity?\n\n     DETERMINISM--\n          Can Man Sin against God?\n\n     CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES--\n          Christian Apologies\n          Christianity and Civilisation\n          Christianity and Ethics\n          The Success of Christianity\n          The Prophecies\n          The Universality of Religious Belief\n          Is Christianity the Only Hope?\n          Spiritual Discernment\n          Some Other Apologies\n          Counsels of Despair\n\n     CONCLUSION--\n          The Parting of the Ways\n\n\n\n\nGOD AND MY NEIGHBOUR\n\n\n\n\nTHE SIN OF UNBELIEF\n\n\nHuxley quotes with satirical gusto Dr. Wace's declaration as to the\nword \"Infidel.\" Said Dr. Wace: \"The word infidel, perhaps, carries an\nunpleasant significance. Perhaps it is right that it should. It is, and\nit ought to be, an unpleasant thing for a man to have to say plainly\nthat he does not believe in Jesus Christ.\"\n\nBe it pleasant or unpleasant to be an unbeliever, one thing is quite\nclear: religious people intend the word Infidel to carry \"an unpleasant\nsignificance\" when they apply to it one. It is in their minds a term of\nreproach. Because they think it is _wicked_ to deny what they believe.\n\nTo call a man an Infidel, then, is tacitly to accuse him of a kind of\nmoral turpitude.\n\nBut a little while ago, to be an Infidel was to be socially taboo. But\na little while earlier, to be an Infidel was to be persecuted. But a\nlittle earlier still, to be an Infidel was to be an outlaw, subject to\nthe penalty of death.\n\nNow, it is evident that to visit the penalty of social ostracism or\npublic contumely upon all who reject the popular religion is to erect an\narbitrary barrier against intellectual and spiritual advance, and to put\na protective tariff upon orthodoxy to the disadvantage of science and\nfree thought.\n\nThe root of the idea that it is wicked to reject the popular religion--a\nwickedness of which Christ and Socrates and Buddha are all represented\nto have been guilty--thrives in the belief that the Scriptures are the\nactual words of God, and that to deny the truth of the Scriptures is to\ndeny and to affront God.\n\nBut the difficulty of the unbeliever lies in the fact that he cannot\nbelieve the Scriptures to be the actual words of God.\n\nThe Infidel, therefore, is not denying God's words, nor disobeying God's\ncommands: he is denying the words and disobeying the commands of _men_.\n\nNo man who _knew_ that there was a good and wise God would be so foolish\nas to deny that God. No man would reject the words of God if he knew\nthat God spoke those words.\n\nBut the doctrine of the divine origin of the Scriptures rests upon the\nauthority of the Church; and the difference between the Infidel and\nthe Christian is that the Infidel rejects and the Christian accepts the\nauthority of the Church.\n\nBelief and unbelief are not matters of moral excellence or depravity:\nthey are questions of evidence.\n\nThe Christian believes the Scriptures because they are the words of God.\nBut he believes they are the words of God because some other man has\ntold him so.\n\nLet him probe the matter to the bottom, and he will inevitably find that\nhis authority is human, and not, as he supposes, divine.\n\nFor you, my Christian friend, have never _seen_ God. You have never\nheard God's voice. You have received from God no message in spoken\nor written words. You have no direct divine warrant for the divine\nauthorship of the Scriptures. The authority on which your belief in the\ndivine revelation rests consists entirely of the Scriptures themselves\nand the statements of the Church. But the Church is composed solely of\nhuman beings, and the Scriptures were written and translated and printed\nsolely by human beings.\n\nYou believe that the Ten Commandments were dictated to Moses by God. But\nGod has not told _you_ so. You only believe the statement of the unknown\nauthor of the Pentateuch that God told _him_ so. You do not _know_ who\nMoses was. You do not _know_ who wrote the Pentateuch. You do not _know_\nwho edited and translated the Scriptures.\n\nClearly, then, you accept the Scriptures upon the authority of unknown\nmen, and upon no other demonstrable authority whatever.\n\nClearly, then, to doubt the doctrine of the divine revelation of the\nScriptures is not to doubt the word of God, but to doubt the words of\nmen.\n\nBut the Christian seems to suspect the Infidel of rejecting the\nChristian religion out of sheer wantonness, or from some base or\nsinister motive.\n\nThe fact being that the Infidel can only believe those things which his\nown reason tells him are true. He opposes the popular religion because\nhis reason tells him it is not true, and because his reason tells him\ninsistently that a religion that is not true is not good, but bad. In\nthus obeying the dictates of his own reason, and in thus advocating what\nto him seems good and true, the Infidel is acting honourably, and is as\nwell within his right as any Pope or Prelate.\n\nThat base or mercenary motives should be laid to the charge of the\nInfidel seems to me as absurd as that base or mercenary motives should\nbe laid to the charge of the Socialist. The answer to such libels\nstares us in the face. Socialism and Infidelity are not popular, nor\nprofitable, nor respectable.\n\nIf you wish to lose caste, to miss preferment, to endanger your chances\nof gaining money and repute, turn Infidel and turn Socialist.\n\nBriefly, Infidelity does not pay. It is \"not a pleasant thing to be an\nInfidel.\"\n\nThe Christian thinks it his duty to \"make it an unpleasant thing\" to\ndeny the \"true faith.\" He thinks it his duty to protect God, and to\nrevenge His outraged name upon the Infidel and the Heretic. The Jews\nthought the same. The Mohammedan thinks the same. How many cruel\nand sanguinary wars has that presumptuous belief inspired? How many\npersecutions, outrages, martyrdoms, and massacres have been perpetrated\nby fanatics who have been \"jealous for the Lord?\"\n\nAs I write these lines Christians are murdering Jews in Russia, and\nMohammedans are murdering Christians in Macedonia to the glory of God.\nIs God so weak that He needs foolish men's defence? Is He so feeble that\nHe cannot judge nor avenge?\n\nMy Christian friend, so jealous for the Lord, did you ever regard your\nhatred of \"Heretics\" and \"Infidels\" in the light of history?\n\nThe history of civilisation is the history of successions of brave\n\"Heretics\" and \"Infidels,\" who have denied false dogmas or brought new\ntruths to light.\n\nThe righteous men, the \"True Believers\" of the day, have cursed these\nheroes and reviled them, have tortured, scourged, or murdered them. And\nthe children of the \"True Believers\" have adopted the heresies as true,\nand have glorified the dead Heretics, and then turned round to curse or\nmurder the new Heretic who fain would lead them a little further toward\nthe light.\n\nCopernicus, who first solved the mystery of the Solar System, was\nexcommunicated for heresy. But Christians acknowledge now that the earth\ngoes round the sun, and the name of Copernicus is honoured.\n\nBruno, who first declared the stars to be suns, and \"led forth Arcturus\nand his host,\" was burnt at the stake for heresy.\n\nGalileo, the father of telescopic astronomy, was threatened with death\nfor denying the errors of the Church, was put in prison and tortured as\na heretic. Christians acknowledge now that Galileo spoke the truth, and\nhis name is honoured.\n\nAs it has been demonstrated in those cases, it has been demonstrated\nin thousands of other cases, that the Heretics have been right, and the\nTrue Believers have been wrong.\n\nStep by step the Church has retreated. Time after time the Church\nhas come to accept the truths, for telling which she persecuted, or\nmurdered, her teachers. But still the True Believers hate the Heretic\nand regard it as a righteous act to make it \"unpleasant\" to be an\n\"Infidel.\"\n\nAfter taking a hundred steps away from old dogmas and towards the truth,\nthe True Believer shudders at the request to take one more. After two\nthousand years of foolish and wicked persecution of good men, the True\nBeliever remains faithful to the tradition that it \"ought to be an\nunpleasant thing\" to expose the errors of the Church.\n\nThe Christians used to declare that all the millions of men and women\noutside the Christian Church would \"burn for ever in burning Hell.\" They\ndo not like to be reminded of that folly now.\n\nThey used to declare that every unbaptised baby would go to Hell and\nburn for ever in fire and brimstone. They do not like to be reminded of\nthat folly now.\n\nThey used to believe in witchcraft, and they burned millions--yes,\nmillions--of innocent women as witches. They do not like to hear about\nwitchcraft now.\n\nThey used to believe the legends of Adam and Eve, and the Flood. They\ncall them allegories now.\n\nThey used to believe that the world was made in six days. Now they talk\nmildly about \"geological periods.\"\n\nThey used to denounce Darwinism as impious and absurd. They have since\n\"cheerfully accepted\" the theory of evolution.\n\nThey used to believe that the sun revolved round the earth, and that\nhe who thought otherwise was an Infidel, and would be damned in the\n\"bottomless pit.\" But now--! Now they declare that Christ was God, and\nHis mother a virgin; that three persons are one person; that those who\ntrust in Jesus shall go to Heaven, and those who do not trust in Jesus\nwill be \"lost.\" And if anyone denies these statements, they call him\nInfidel.\n\nAre you not aware, friend Christian, that what was Infidelity is now\northodoxy? It is even so. Heresies for which men used to be burned alive\nare now openly accepted by the Church. There is not a divine living\nwho would not have been burned at the stake three centuries ago for\nexpressing the beliefs he now holds. Yet you call a man Infidel for\nbeing a century in advance of you. History has taught you nothing. It\nhas not occurred to you that as the \"infidelity\" of yesterday has become\nthe enlightened religion of to-day, it is possible that the \"infidelity\"\nof to-day may become the enlightened religion of to-morrow.\n\nCivilisation is built up of the \"heresies\" of men who thought freely and\nspoke bravely. Those men were called \"Infidels\" when they were alive.\nBut now they are called the benefactors of the world.\n\nInfidel! The name has been borne, good Christian, by some of the noblest\nof our race. I take it from you with a smile. I am an easiful old pagan,\nand I am not angry with you at all--you funny, little champion of the\nMost High.\n\n\n\n\nONE REASON\n\n\nI have been asked why I have opposed Christianity. I have several\nreasons, which shall appear in due course. At present I offer one.\n\nI oppose Christianity because _it is not true_.\n\nNo honest man will ask for any other reason.\n\nBut it may be asked why I say that Christianity is not true; and that is\na very proper question, which I shall do my best to answer.\n\n\n\n\nWHAT I CAN AND CANNOT BELIEVE\n\n\nI hope it will not be supposed that I have any personal animus against\nChristians or Christian ministers, although I am hostile to the Church.\nMany ministers and many Christian laymen I have known are admirable men.\nSome I know personally are as able and as good as any men I have met;\nbut I speak of the Churches, not of individuals.\n\nI have known Catholic priests and sisters who were worthy and charming,\nand there are many such; but I do not like the Catholic Church. I\nhave known Tories and Liberals who were real good fellows, and clever\nfellows, and there are many such; but I do not like the Liberal and Tory\nparties. I have known clergymen of the Church of England who were real\nlive men, and real English gentlemen, and there are many such; but I do\nnot like the Church.\n\nI was not always an Agnostic, or a Rationalist, or an \"Infidel,\" or\nwhatever Christians may choose to call me.\n\nI was not perverted by an Infidel book. I had not read one when I\nwavered first in my allegiance to the orthodoxies. I was set doubting by\na religious book written to prove the \"Verity of Christ's Resurrection\nfrom the Dead.\" But as a child I was thoughtful, and asked myself\nquestions, as many children do, which the Churches would find it hard to\nanswer to-day.\n\nI have not ceased to believe what I was taught as a child because I have\ngrown wicked. I have ceased to believe it because, after twenty years'\nhard thinking, I _cannot_ believe it.\n\nI cannot believe, then, that the Christian religion is true.\n\nI cannot believe that the Bible is the word of God. For the word of God\nwould be above criticism and beyond disproof, and the Bible is not above\ncriticism nor beyond disproof.\n\nI cannot believe that any religion has been revealed to Man by God.\nBecause a revealed religion would be perfect, but no known religion\nis perfect; and because history and science show us that the known\nreligions have not been revealed, but have been evolved from other\nreligions. There is no important feature of the Christian religion\nwhich can be called original. All the rites, mysteries, and doctrines of\nChristianity have been borrowed from older faiths.\n\nI cannot believe that Jehovah, the God of the Bible, is the Creator of\nthe known universe. The Bible God, Jehovah, is a man-made God, evolved\nfrom the idol of an obscure and savage tribe. The Bible shows us this\nquite plainly.\n\nI cannot believe that the Bible and the Testament are historically true.\nI regard most of the events they record as fables, and most of their\ncharacters as myths.\n\nI cannot believe in the existence of Jesus Christ, nor Buddha, nor\nMoses. I believe that these are ideal characters constructed from still\nmore ancient legends and traditions.\n\nI cannot believe that the Bible version of the relations of man and God\nis correct. For that version, and all other religious versions known\nto me, represents man as sinning against or forsaking God, and God as\npunishing or pardoning man.\n\nBut if God made man, then God is responsible for all man's acts and\nthoughts, and therefore man cannot sin against God.\n\nAnd if man could not sin against God, but could only act as God ordained\nthat he should act, then it is against reason to suppose that God could\nbe angry with man, or could punish man, or see any offence for which to\npardon man.\n\nI cannot believe that man has ever forsaken God. Because history shows\nthat man has from the earliest times been eagerly and pitifully seeking\nGod, and has served and raised and sacrificed to God with a zeal akin to\nmadness. But God has made no sign.\n\nI cannot believe that man was at the first created \"perfect,\" and\nthat he \"fell.\" (How could the perfect fall?) I believe the theory of\nevolution, which shows not a fall but a gradual rise.\n\nI cannot believe that God is a loving \"Heavenly Father,\" taking a tender\ninterest in mankind. Because He has never interfered to prevent the\nhorrible cruelties and injustices of man to man, and because He has\npermitted evil to rule the world. I cannot reconcile the idea of\na tender Heavenly Father with the known horrors of war, slavery,\npestilence, and insanity. I cannot discern the hand of a loving Father\nin the slums, in the earthquake, in the cyclone. I cannot understand the\nindifference of a loving Father to the law of prey, nor to the terrors\nand tortures of leprosy, cancer, cholera, and consumption.\n\nI cannot believe that God is a personal God, who intervenes in human\naffairs. I cannot see in science, nor in experience, nor in history any\nsigns of such a God, nor of such intervention.\n\nI cannot believe that God hears and answers prayer, because the universe\nis governed by laws, and there is no reason to suppose that those laws\nare ever interfered with. Besides, an all-wise God knows what to do\nbetter than man can tell Him, and a just God would act justly without\nrequiring to be reminded of His duty by one of His creatures.\n\nI cannot believe that miracles ever could or ever did happen. Because\nthe universe is governed by laws, and there is no credible instance on\nrecord of those laws being suspended.\n\nI cannot believe that God \"created\" man, as man now is, by word of mouth\nand in a moment. I accept the theory of evolution, which teaches that\nman was slowly evolved by natural process from lower forms of life, and\nthat this evolution took millions of years.\n\nI cannot believe that Jesus Christ was God, nor that He was the Son of\nGod. There is no solid evidence for the miracle of the Incarnation, and\nI see no reason for the Incarnation.\n\nI cannot believe that Christ died to save man from Hell, nor that He\ndied to save man from sin. Because I do not believe God would condemn\nthe human race to eternal torment for being no better than He had made\nthem, and because I do not see that the death of Christ has saved man\nfrom sin.\n\nI cannot believe that God would think it necessary to come on earth as\na man, and die on the Cross. Because if that was to atone for man's\nsin, it was needless, as God could have forgiven man without Himself\nsuffering.\n\nI cannot believe that God would send His son to die on the Cross.\nBecause He could have forgiven man without subjecting His son to pain.\n\nI cannot accept any doctrine of atonement. Because to forgive the guilty\nbecause the innocent had suffered would be unjust and unreasonable, and\nto forgive the guilty because a third person begged for his pardon would\nbe unjust.\n\nI cannot believe that a good God would allow sin to enter the world.\nBecause He would hate sin and would have power to destroy or to forbid\nit.\n\nI cannot believe that a good God would create or tolerate a Devil, nor\nthat he would allow the Devil to tempt man.\n\nI cannot believe the story of the virgin birth of Christ. Because for a\nman to be born of a virgin would be a miracle, and I cannot believe in\nmiracles.\n\nI cannot believe the story of Christ's resurrection from the dead.\nBecause that would be a miracle, and because there is no solid evidence\nthat it occurred.\n\nI cannot believe that faith in the Godhood of Christ is necessary to\nvirtue or to happiness. Because I know that some holding such faith are\nneither happy nor virtuous, and that some are happy and virtuous who do\nnot hold that faith.\n\nThe differences between the religious and the scientific theories, or,\nas I should put it, between superstition and rationalism, are clearly\nmarked and irreconcilable.\n\nThe supernaturalist stands by \"creation\"; the rationalist stands by\n\"evolution.\" It is impossible to reduce these opposite ideas to a common\ndenominator.\n\nThe creation theory alleges that the earth, and the sun, and the moon,\nand man, and the animals were \"created\" by God, instantaneously, by word\nof mouth, out of nothing.\n\nThe evolution theory alleges that they were evolved, slowly, by natural\nprocesses out of previously existing matter.\n\nThe supernaturalist alleges that religion was revealed to man by God,\nand that the form of this revelation is a sacred book.\n\nThe rationalist alleges that religion was evolved by slow degrees and\nby human minds, and that all existing forms of religion and all existing\n\"sacred books,\" instead of being \"revelations,\" are evolutions from\nreligious ideas and forms and legends of prehistoric times. It is\nimpossible to reduce these opposite theories to a common denominator.\n\nThe Christians, the Hindoos, the Parsees, the Buddhists, and the\nMohammedans have each their \"Holy Bible\" or \"sacred book.\" Each religion\nclaims that its own Bible is the direct revelation of God, and is the\nonly true Bible teaching the only true faith. Each religion regards all\nthe other religions as spurious.\n\nThe supernaturalists believe in miracles, and each sect claims that the\nmiracles related in its own inspired sacred book prove the truth of that\nbook and of the faith taught therein.\n\nNo religion accepts the truth of any other religion's miracles. The\nHindoo, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, the Parsee, the Christian each\nbelieves that his miracles are the only real miracles.\n\nThe Protestant denies the miracles of the Roman Catholic.\n\nThe rationalist denies all miracles alike. \"Miracles never happen.\"\n\nThe Christian Bible is full of miracles. The Christian Religion is\nfounded on miracles.\n\nNo rationalist believes in miracles. Therefore no rationalist can accept\nthe Christian Religion.\n\nIf you discard \"Creation\" and accept evolution; if you discard\n\"revelation\" and accept evolution; if you discard miracles and accept\nnatural law, there is nothing left of the Christian Religion but the\nlife and teachings of Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd when one sees that all religions and all ethics, even the oldest\nknown, have, like all language and all science and all philosophy and\nall existing species of animals and plants, been slowly evolved from\nlower and ruder forms; and when one learns that there have been many\nChrists, and that the evidence of the life of Jesus is very slight,\nand that all the acts and words of Jesus had been anticipated by other\nteachers long before the Christian era, then it is borne in upon one's\nmind that the historic basis of Christianity is very frail. And when one\nrealises that the Christian theology, besides being borrowed from\nolder religions, is manifestly opposed to reason and to facts, then one\nreaches a state of mind which entitles the orthodox Christian to call\none an \"Infidel,\" and to make it \"unpleasant\" for one to the glory of\nGod.\n\nThat is the position in which I stand at present, and it is partly to\nvindicate that position, and to protest against those who feel as I feel\nbeing subjected to various kinds of \"unpleasantness,\" that I undertake\nthis Apology.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD TESTAMENT\n\n\n\n\nIS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?\n\n\nThe question of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is one of great\nimportance.\n\nIf the Bible is a divine revelation, if it contains the actual word\nof God, and nothing but the word of God, then it is folly to doubt any\nstatement it contains.\n\nIf the Bible is merely the work of men, if it contains only the words\nof men, then, like all other human work, the Bible is fallible, and must\nsubmit to criticism and examination, as all fallible human work must.\n\nThe Christian Religion stands or falls by the truth of the Bible.\n\nIf the Bible is the word of God the Bible must be true, and the\nChristian Religion must be true.\n\nBut, as I said before, the claim for the divine origin of the Bible has\nnot been made by God, but by men.\n\nWe have therefore no means of testing the Bible's title to divine\nrevelation other than by criticism and examination of the Bible itself.\n\nIf the Bible is the word of God--the all-wise and perfect God--the Bible\nwill be perfect. If the Bible is not perfect it cannot be the word of a\nGod who is perfect.\n\nThe Bible is not perfect. Historically, scientifically, and ethically\nthe Bible is imperfect.\n\nIf the Bible is the word of God it will present to us the perfect God as\nHe is, and every act of His it records will be perfection. But the Bible\ndoes not show us a perfect God, but a very imperfect God, and such of\nHis acts as the Bible records are imperfect.\n\nI say, then, with strong conviction, that I do not believe the Bible to\nbe the word of God; that I do not believe it to be inspired of God; that\nI do not believe it to contain any divine revelation of God to man. Why?\n\nLet us consider the claim that the Bible is the word of God. Let us,\nfirst of all, consider it from the common-sense point of view, as\nordinary men of the world, trying to get at the truth and the reason of\na thing.\n\nWhat would one naturally expect in a revelation by God to man?\n\n  1. We should expect God to reveal truths of which mankind were ignorant.\n\n  2. We should expect God to make no errors of fact in His revelation.\n\n  3. We should expect God to make His revelation so clear and so definite\n     that it could be neither misunderstood nor misrepresented.\n\n  4. We should expect God to ensure that His revelation should reach _all_\n     men; and should reach all men directly and quickly.\n\n  5. We should expect God's revelation of the relations existing between\n     Himself and man to be true.\n\n  6. We should expect the ethical code in God's revelation to be complete,\n     and final, and perfect.  The divine ethics should at least be above\n     human criticism and beyond human amendment.\n\nTo what extent does the Bible revelation fulfil the above natural\nexpectations?\n\n1. Does the Bible reveal any new moral truths?\n\nI cannot speak very positively, but I think there is very little moral\ntruth in the Bible which has not been, or will not be traced back to\nmore ancient times and religions.\n\n2. Does the Bible revelation contain no errors of fact?\n\nI claim that it contains many errors of fact, and the Higher Criticism\nsupports the claim; as we shall see.\n\n3. Is the Bible revelation so clear and explicit that no difference of\nopinion as to its meaning is possible?\n\nNo. It is not. No one living can claim anything of the kind.\n\n4. Has God's revelation, as given in the Bible, reached all men?\n\nNo. After thousands of years it is not yet known to one-half the human\nrace.\n\n5. Is God's revelation of the relations between man and God true?\n\nI claim that it is not true. For the word of God makes it appear that\nman was created by God in His own image, and that man sinned against\nGod. Whereas man, being only what God made him, and having only the\npowers God gave him, _could_ not sin against God any more than a\nsteam-engine can sin against the engineer who designed and built it.\n\n6. Is the ethical code of the Bible complete, and final, and perfect?\n\nNo. The ethical code of the Bible gradually develops and improves. Had\nit been divine it would have been perfect from the first. It is because\nit is human that it develops. As the prophets and the poets of the Jews\ngrew wiser, and gentler, and more enlightened, so the revelation of\nGod grew wiser and gentler with them. Now, God would know from the\nbeginning; but men would have to learn. Therefore the Bible writings\nwould appear to be human, and not divine.\n\nLet us look over these points again, and make the matter still clearer\nand more simple.\n\nIf the children of an earthly father had wandered away and forgotten\nhim, and were, for lack of guidance, living evil lives; and if the\nearthly father wished his children to know that they were his children,\nwished them to know what he had done for them, what they owed to him,\nwhat penalty they might fear, or reward they might ask from him; if he\nwished them to live cleanly and justly, and to love him, and at last\ncome home to him--what would that earthly father do?\n\nHe would send his message to _all_ his children, instead of sending it\nto one, and trusting him to repeat it correctly to the others. He would\ntry to so word his message as that all his children might understand it.\n\nHe would send his children the very best rules of life he knew. He would\ntake great pains to avoid error in matters of fact.\n\nIf, after the message was sent, his children quarrelled and fought about\nits meaning, their earthly father would not sit silent and allow them to\nhate and slay each other because of a misconception, but would send at\nonce and make his meaning plain to all.\n\nAnd if an earthly father would act thus wisely and thus kindly, \"how\nmuch more your Father which is in Heaven?\"\n\nBut the Bible revelation was not given to all the people of the earth.\nIt was given to a handful of Jews. It was not so explicit as to make\ndisagreement impossible. It is thousands of years since the revelation\nof God began, and yet to-day it is not known to hundreds of millions\nof human beings, and amongst those whom it has reached there is endless\nbitter disagreement as to its meaning.\n\nNow, what is the use of a revelation which does not reveal more than is\nknown, which does not reveal truth only, which does not reach half those\nwho need it, which cannot be understood by those it does reach?\n\nBut you will regard me as a prejudiced witness. I shall therefore, in my\neffort to prove the Bible fallible, quote almost wholly from Christian\ncritics.\n\nAnd I take the opportunity to here recommend very strongly _Shall We\nUnderstand the Bible?_ by the Rev. T. Rhondda Williams. Adam and Charles\nBlack; 1s net.\n\nThere are two chief theories as to the inspiration of the Bible. One is\nthe old theory that the Bible is the actual word of God, and nothing but\nthe word of God, directly revealed by God to Moses and the prophets. The\nother is the new theory: that the Bible is the work of many men whom God\nhad inspired to speak or write the truth.\n\nThe old theory is well described by Dr. Washington Gladden in the\nfollowing passage:\n\n     They imagine that the Bible must have originated in a manner\n     purely miraculous; and, though they know very little about its\n     origin, they conceive of it as a book that was written in heaven\n     in the English tongue, divided there into chapters and verses,\n     with headlines and reference marks, printed in small pica,\n     bound in calf, and sent down by angels in its present form.\n\nThe newer idea of the inspiration of the Bible is also well expressed by\nDr. Gladden; thus:\n\n     Revelation, we shall be able to understand, is not the dictation\n     by God of words to men that they may be written down in books:\n     it is rather the disclosure of the truth and love of God to men\n     in the processes of history, in the development of the moral\n     order of the world.  It is the light that lighteth every man,\n     shining in the paths that lead to righteousness and life.  There\n     is a moral leadership of God in history; revelation is the record\n     of that leadership.  It is by no means confined to words; its\n     most impressive disclosures are in the field of action.  \"Thus\n     _did_ the Lord,\" as Dr. Bruce has said, is a more perfect formula\n     of revelation than \"Thus saith the Lord.\"  It is in that great\n     historical movement of which the Bible is the record that we find\n     the revelation of God to men.\n\nThe old theory of Bible inspiration was, as I have said, the theory that\nthe Bible was the actual and pure word of God, and was true in every\ncircumstance and detail.\n\nNow, if an almighty and all-wise God had spoken or written every word\nof the Bible, then that book would, of course, be wholly and unshakably\ntrue in its every statement.\n\nBut if the Bible was written by men, some of them more or less inspired,\nthen it would not, in all probability be wholly perfect.\n\nThe more inspiration its writers had from God, the more perfect it would\nbe. The less inspiration its writers had from God, the less perfect it\nwould be.\n\nWholly perfect, it might be attributed to a perfect being. Partly\nperfect, it might be the work of less perfect beings. Less perfect, it\nwould have to be put down to less perfect beings.\n\nContaining any fault or error, it could not be the actual word of God,\nand the more errors and faults it contained, the less inspiration of God\nwould be granted to its authors.\n\nI will quote again from Dr. Gladden:\n\n     What I desire to show is, that the work of putting the Bible\n     into its present form was not done in heaven, but on earth; that\n     it was not done by angels, but by men; that it was not done all at\n     once, but a little at a time, the work of preparing and perfecting\n     it extending over several centuries, and employing the labours of\n     many men in different lands and long-divided generations.\n\nI now turn to Dr. Aked. On page 25 of his book, _Changing Creeds_, he\nsays:\n\n     Ignorance has claimed the Bible for its own.  Bigotry has made\n     the Bible its battleground.  Its phrases have become the\n     shibboleth of pietistic sectarians.  Its authority has been\n     evoked in support of the foulest crimes committed by the vilest\n     men; and its very existence has been made a pretext for theories\n     which shut out God from His own world.  In our day Bible worship\n     has become, with many very good but very unthoughtful people, a\n     disease.\n\nSo much for the attitude of the various schools of religious thought\ntowards the Bible.\n\nNow, in the opinion of these Christian teachers, is the Bible perfect\nor imperfect? Dr. Aked gives his opinion with characteristic candour and\nenergy:\n\n     For observe the position: men are told that the Bible is the\n     infallible revelation of God to man, and that its statements\n     concerning God and man are to be unhesitatingly accepted as\n     statements made upon the authority of God.  They turn to its\n     pages, and they find historical errors, arithmetical mistakes,\n     scientific blunders (or, rather, blunders most unscientific),\n     inconsistencies, and manifold contradictions; and, what is far\n     worse, they find that the most horrible crimes are committed by\n     men who calmly plead in justification of their terrible misdeeds\n     the imperturbable \"God said.\"  The heart and conscience of man\n     indignantly rebel against the representations of the Most High\n     given in some parts of the Bible.  What happens?  Why, such\n     men declare--are now declaring, and will in constantly\n     increasing numbers, and with constantly increasing force and\n     boldness declare--that they can have nothing to do with a book\n     whose errors a child can discover, and whose revelation of God\n     partakes at times of blasphemy against man.\n\nI need hardly say that I agree with every word of the above. If anyone\nasked me what evidence exists in support of the claims that the Bible is\nthe word of God, or that it was in any real sense of the words \"divinely\ninspired,\" I should answer, without the least hesitation, that there\ndoes not exist a scrap of evidence of any kind in support of such a\nclaim.\n\nLet us give a little consideration to the origin of the Bible. The first\nfive books of the Bible, called the Pentateuch, were said to be written\nby Moses. Moses was not, and could not have been, the author of those\nbooks. There is, indeed, no reliable evidence to prove that Moses ever\nexisted. Whether he was a fictitious hero, or a solar myth, or what he\nwas, no man knows.\n\nNeither does there appear to be any certainty that the biblical books\nattributed to David, to Solomon, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest were\nreally written by those kings or prophets, or even in their age.\n\nAnd after these books, or many of them, had been written, they were\nentirely lost, and are said to have been reproduced by Ezra.\n\nAdd to these facts that the original Hebrew had no vowels, that many of\nthe sacred books were written without vowels, and that the vowels were\nadded long after; and remember that, as Dr. Aked says, the oldest Hebrew\nBible in existence belongs to the tenth century after Christ, and\nit will begin to appear that the claim for biblical infallibility is\nutterly absurd.\n\nBut I must not offer these statements on my own authority. Let us\nreturn to Dr. Gladden. On page 11 of _Who Wrote the Bible?_ I find the\nfollowing:\n\n     The first of these holy books of the Jews was, then, The Law,\n     contained in the first five books of our Bible, known among us\n     as the Pentateuch, and called by the Jews sometimes simply\n     \"The Law,\" and sometimes \"The Law of Moses.\"  This was supposed\n     to be the oldest portion of their Scriptures, and was by them\n     regarded as much more sacred and authoritative than any other\n     portion.  To Moses, they said, God spake face to face; to the\n     other holy men much less distinctly.  Consequently, their appeal\n     is most often to the Law of Moses.\n\nThe sacredness of the five books of \"The Law,\" then, rests upon the\nbelief that they were written by Moses, who had spoken face to face with\nGod.\n\nSo that if Moses did not write those books, their sacredness is a myth.\nNow, on page 42, Dr. Gladden says:\n\n     1. The Pentateuch could never have been written by any one\n        man, inspired or otherwise.\n\n     2. It is a composite work, in which many hands have been\n        engaged.  The production of it extends over many centuries.\n\n     3. It contains writings which are as old as the time of Moses,\n        and some that are much older.  It is impossible to tell how\n        much of it came from the hand of Moses; but there are\n        considerable portions of it which, although they may have\n        been somewhat modified by later editors, are substantially\n        as he left them.\n\nOn page 45 Dr. Gladden, again speaking of the Pentateuch, says:\n\n     But the story of Genesis goes back to a remote antiquity.  The\n     last event related in that book occurred four hundred years\n     before Moses was born; it was as distant from him as the\n     discovery of America by Columbus is from us; and other portions\n     of the narrative, such as the stories of the Flood and the\n     Creation, stretch back into the shadows of the age which\n     precedes history.  Neither Moses nor any one living in his\n     day could have given us these reports from his own knowledge.\n     Whoever wrote this must have obtained his materials in one of\n     three ways:\n\n     1. They might have been given to him by divine revelation\n        from God.\n\n     2. He might have gathered them up from oral tradition, from\n        stories, folklore, transmitted from mouth to mouth, and\n        so preserved from generation to generation.\n\n     3. He might have found them in written documents existing at\n        the time of his writing.\n\nAs many of the laws and incidents in the books of Moses were known to\nthe Chaldeans, the \"direct revelation of God\" theory is not plausible.\nOn this point Dr. Gladden's opinion supports mine. He says, on page 61:\n\n     That such is the fact with respect to the structure of these\n     ancient writings is now beyond question.  And our theory of\n     inspiration must be adjusted to this fact.  Evidently neither\n     the theory of verbal inspiration, nor the theory of plenary\n     inspiration, can be made to fit the facts, which a careful study\n     of the writings themselves brings before us.  These writings are\n     not inspired in the sense which we have commonly given that word.\n     The verbal theory of inspiration was only tenable while they\n     were supposed to be the work of a single author.  To such a\n     composite literature no such theory will apply.  \"To make this\n     claim,\" says Professor Ladd, \"and yet accept the best ascertained\n     results of criticism, would compel us to take such positions\n     as the following: the original authors of each one of the\n     writings which enter into the composite structure were infallibly\n     inspired; every one who made any changes in any one of these\n     fundamental writings was infallibly inspired; every compiler\n     who put together two or more of these writings was infallibly\n     inspired, both as to his selections and omissions, and as to any\n     connecting or explanatory words which he might himself write;\n     every redactor was infallibly inspired to correct and supplement,\n     and omit that which was the product of previous infallible\n     inspirations.  Or, perhaps, it might seem more convenient to attach\n     the claim of a plenary inspiration to the last redactor of all;\n     but then we should probably have selected of all others the one\n     least able to bear the weight of such a claim.  Think of making\n     the claim for a plenary inspiration of the Pentateuch in its\n     present form on the ground of the infallibility of that one of\n     the scribes who gave it its last touches some time subsequent to\n     the death of Ezra.\"\n\nRemember that Dr. Gladden declares, on page 5, that he shall state no\nconclusions as to the history of the sacred writings which will not be\naccepted by conservative critics.\n\nOn page 54 Dr. Gladden quotes the following from Dr. Perowne:\n\n     The first _composition_ of the Pentateuch as a whole could not\n     have taken place till after the Israelites entered Canaan.\n\n     The whole work did not finally assume its present shape till\n     its revision was undertaken by Ezra after the return from the\n     Babylonish captivity.\n\nOn page 25 Dr. Gladden himself speaks as follows:\n\n     The common argument by which Christ is made a witness to the\n     authenticity and infallible authority of the Old Testament\n     runs as follows:\n\n     Christ quotes Moses as the author of this legislation; therefore\n     Moses must have written the whole Pentateuch.  Moses was an\n     inspired prophet; therefore all the teaching of the Pentateuch\n     must be infallible.\n\n     The facts are that Jesus nowhere testifies that Moses wrote the\n     whole of the Pentateuch; and that he nowhere guarantees the\n     infallibility either of Moses or of the book.  On the contrary,\n     he set aside as inadequate or morally defective, certain laws\n     which in this book are ascribed to Moses.\n\nSo much for the authorship and the inspiration of the first five books\nof the Bible.\n\nAs to the authorship of other books of the Bible, Dr. Gladden says of\nJudges and Samuel that we do not know the authors nor the dates.\n\nOf Kings he says: \"The name of the author is concealed from us.\" The\norigin and correctness of the Prophecies and Psalms, he tells us, are\nproblematical.\n\nOf the Books of Esther and Daniel, Dr. Gladden says: \"That they are\nfounded on fact I do not doubt; but it is, perhaps, safer to regard them\nboth rather as historical fictions than as veritable histories.\"\n\nOf Daniel, Dean Farrar wrote:\n\n     The immense majority of scholars of name and acknowledged\n     competence in England and Europe have now been led to form\n     an irresistible conclusion that the Book of Daniel was not\n     written, and could not have been written, in its present form,\n     by the prophet Daniel, B.C. 534, but that it can only have been\n     written, as we now have it, in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes,\n     about B.C. 164, and that the object of the pious and patriotic\n     author as to inspirit his desponding countrymen by splendid\n     specimens of that lofty moral fiction which was always common\n     amongst the Jews after the Exile, and was known as \"The Haggadah.\"\n     So clearly is this proven to most critics, that they willingly\n     suffer the attempted refutations of their views to sink to\n     the ground under the weight of their own inadequacy.\n     (_The Bible and the Child_.)\n\nI return now to Dr. Aked, from whose book I quote the following:\n\n     Dr. Clifford has declared that there is not a man who has\n     given a day's attention to the question who holds the complete\n     freedom of the Bible from inaccuracy.  He has added that \"it\n     is become more and more impossible to affirm the inerrancy\n     of the Bible.\"  Dr. Lyman Abbott says that \"an infallible book\n     is an impossible conception, and to-day no one really believes\n     that our present Bible is such a book.\"\n\nCompare those opinions with the following extract from the first article\nin _The Bible and the Child_:\n\n     The change of view respecting the Bible, which has marked the\n     advancing knowledge and more earnest studies of this generation\n     is only the culmination of the discovery that there were\n     different documents in the Book of Genesis--a discovery first\n     published by the physician, Jean Astruc, in 1753.  There are\n     _three_ widely divergent ways of dealing with these results of\n     profound study, each of which is almost equally dangerous to\n     the faith of the rising generation.\n\n     1. Parents and teachers may go on inculcating dogmas about the\n     Bible and methods of dealing with it which have long become\n     impossible to those who have really tried to follow the manifold\n     discoveries of modern inquiry with perfectly open and unbiased\n     minds.  There are a certain number of persons who, when their\n     minds have become stereotyped in foregone conclusions, are simply\n     _incapable_ of grasping new truths.  They become obstructives,\n     and not infrequently bigoted obstructives.  As convinced as the\n     Pope of their own personal infallibility, their attitude towards\n     those who see that the old views are no longer tenable is an\n     attitude of anger and alarm.  This is the usual temper of the\n     _odium theologicum_.  It would, if it could, grasp the thumbscrew\n     and the rack of mediaeval Inquisitors, and would, in the last\n     resource, hand over all opponents to the scaffold or the stake.\n     Those whose intellects have thus been petrified by custom and\n     advancing years are, of all others, the most hopeless to deal\n     with.  They have made themselves incapable of fair and rational\n     examination of the truths which they impugn.  They think that\n     they can, by mere assertion, overthrow results arrived at by the\n     lifelong inquiries of the ablest students, while they have not\n     given a day's serious or impartial study to them.  They fancy\n     that even the ignorant, if only they be what is called \"orthodox,\"\n     are justified in strong denunciation of men quite as truthful,\n     and often incomparably more able, than themselves.  Off-hand\n     dogmatists of this stamp, who usually abound among professional\n     religionists, think that they can refute any number of scholars,\n     however profound and however pious, if only they shout \"Infidel\"\n     with sufficient loudness.\n\nThose are not the words of an \"Infidel.\" They are the words of the late\nDean Farrar.\n\nTo quote again from Dr. Gladden:\n\n     Evidently neither the theory of verbal inspiration, nor the\n     theory of plenary inspiration, can be made to fit the facts\n     which a careful study of the writings themselves brings before\n     us.  _These writings are not inspired in the sense which we\n     have commonly given to that word._  The verbal theory of\n     inspiration was only tenable while they were supposed to be\n     the work of a single author.  _To such a composite literature\n     no such theory will apply._\n\nThe Bible is not inspired. The fact is that _no_ \"sacred\" book is\ninspired. _All_ \"sacred\" books are the work of human minds. All ideas of\nGod are human ideas. All religions are made by man.\n\nWhen the old-fashioned Christian said the Bible was an inspired book, he\nmeant that God put the words and the facts directly into the mind of\nthe prophet. That meant that God told Moses about the creation, Adam and\nEve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, and the Ten Commandments.\n\nMany modern Christians, amongst whom I place the Rev. Ambrose Pope, of\nBakewell, believe that God gave Moses (and all the other prophets) a\nspecial genius and a special desire to convey religious information to\nother men.\n\nAnd Mr. Pope suggests that man was so ignorant, so childlike, or so\nweak in those days that it was necessary to disguise plain facts in\nmisleading symbols.\n\nBut the man, Moses or another, who wrote the Book of Genesis was a man\nof literary genius. He was no child, no weakling. If God had said to\nhim: \"I made the world out of the fiery nebula, and I made the sea\nto bring forth the staple of life, and I caused all living things to\ndevelop from that seed or staple of life, and I drew man out from the\nbrutes; and the time was six hundred millions of years\"--if God had said\nthat to Moses, do you think Moses would not have understood?\n\nNow, let me show you what the Christian asks us to believe. He asks us\nto believe that the God who was the first cause of creation, and knew\neverything, inspired man, in the childhood of the world, with a fabulous\nand inaccurate theory of the origin of man and the earth, and that since\nthat day the same God has gradually changed or added to the inspiration,\nuntil He inspired Laplace, and Galileo, and Copernicus, and Darwin to\ncontradict the teachings of the previous fifty thousand years. He asks\nus to believe that God muddled men's minds with a mysterious series\nof revelations cloaked in fable and allegory; that He allowed them to\nstumble and to blunder, and to quarrel over these \"revelations\"; that He\nallowed them to persecute, and slay, and torture each other on account\nof divergent readings of his \"revelations\" for ages and ages; and that\nHe is still looking on while a number of bewildered and antagonistic\nreligions fight each other to achieve the survival of the fittest. Is\nthat a reasonable theory? Is it the kind of theory a reasonable man can\naccept? Is it consonant with common sense?\n\nContrast that with our theory. We say that early man, having no\nknowledge of science, and more imagination than reason, would be alarmed\nand puzzled by the phenomena of Nature. He would be afraid of the dark,\nhe would be afraid of the thunder, he would wonder at the moon, at the\nstars, at fire, at the ocean. He would fear what he did not understand,\nand he would bow down and pay homage to what he feared.\n\nThen, by degrees, he would personify the stars, and the sun, and the\nthunder, and the fire. He would make gods of these things. He would make\ngods of the dead. He would make gods of heroes. He would do what all\nsavage races do, what all children do: he would make legends, or fables,\nor fairy tales out of his hopes, his fears, and his guesses.\n\nDoes not that sound reasonable? Does not history teach us that it is\ntrue? Do we not know that religion was so born and nursed?\n\nThere is no such thing known to men as an original religion. All\nreligions are made up of the fables and the imaginations of tribes long\nsince extinct. Religion is an evolution, not a revelation. It has been\ninvented, altered, and built up, and pulled down, and reconstructed time\nafter time. It is a conglomeration and an adaptation, as language is.\nAnd the Christian religion is no more an original religion than English\nis an original tongue. We have Sanscrit, Latin, Greek, French, Saxon,\nNorman words in our language; and we have Aryan, Semitic, Egyptian,\nRoman, Greek, and all manner of ancient foreign fables, myths, and rites\nin our Christian religion.\n\nWe say that Genesis was a poetic presentation of a fabulous story pieced\ntogether from many traditions of many tribes, and recording with great\nliterary power the ideas of a people whose scientific knowledge was very\nincomplete.\n\nNow, I ask you which of these theories is the most reasonable; which\nis the most scientific; which agrees most closely with the facts of\nphilology and history of which we are in possession?\n\nWhy twist the self-evident fact that the Bible story of creation was the\nwork of unscientific men of strong imagination into a far-fetched and\nunsatisfactory puzzle of symbol and allegory? It would be just as easy\nand just as reasonable to take the _Morte d'Arthur_ and try to prove\nthat it contained a veiled revelation of God's relations to man.\n\nAnd let me ask one or two questions as to this matter of the revelation\nof the Holy Bible. Is God all-powerful or is he not? If he is\nall-powerful, why did He make man so imperfect? Could He not have\ncreated him at once a wise and good creature? Even when man was ignorant\nand savage, could not an all-powerful God have devised some means of\nrevealing Himself so as to be understood? If God really wished to reveal\nHimself to man, why did He reveal Himself only to one or two obscure\ntribes, and leave the rest of mankind in darkness?\n\nThose poor savages were full of credulity, full of terror, full of\nwonder, full of the desire to worship. They worshipped the sun and the\nmoon; they worshipped ghosts and demons; they worshipped tyrants, and\npretenders, and heroes, dead and alive. Do you believe that if God\nhad come down on earth, with a cohort of shining angels, and had said,\n\"Behold, I am the only God,\" these savages would not have left all\nbaser gods and worshipped Him? Why, these men, and all the thousands\nof generations of their children, have been looking for God since first\nthey learned to look at sea and sky. They are looking for Him now. They\nhave fought countless bloody wars and have committed countless horrible\natrocities in their zeal for Him. And you ask us to believe that His\ngrand revelation of Himself is bound up in a volume of fables and errors\ncollected thousands of years ago by superstitious priests and prophets\nof Palestine, and Egypt, and Assyria.\n\nWe cannot believe such a statement. No man can believe it who tests it\nby his reason in the same way in which he would test any modern problem.\nIf the leaders of religion brought the same vigour and subtlety of mind\nto bear upon religion which they bring to bear upon any criticism of\nreligion, if they weighed the Bible as they have weighed astronomy and\nevolution, the Christian religion would not last a year.\n\nIf my reader has not studied this matter, let him read the books I have\nrecommended, and then sit down and consider the Bible revelation and\nstory with the same fearless honesty and clear common sense with which\nhe would consider the Bibles of the Mohammedan, or Buddhist, or Hindoo,\nand then ask himself the question: \"Is the Bible a holy and inspired\nbook, and the word of God to man, or is it an incongruous and\ncontradictory collection of tribal traditions and ancient fables,\nwritten by men of genius and imagination?\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE\n\n\nWe now reach the second stage in our examination, which is the claim\nthat no religion known to man can be truly said to be original. All\nreligions, the Christian religion included, are adaptations or variants\nof older religions. Religions are not _revealed_: they are _evolved_.\n\nIf a religion were revealed by God, that religion would be perfect in\nwhole and in part, and would be as perfect at the first moment of its\nrevelation as after ten thousand years of practice. There has never been\na religion which fulfils those conditions.\n\nAccording to Bible chronology, Adam was created some six thousand years\nago. Science teaches that man existed during the glacial epoch, which\nwas at least fifty thousand years before the Christian era.\n\nHere I recommend the study of Laing's _Human Origins_, Parson's _Our\nSun God_, Sayce's _Ancient Empires of the East_, and Frazer's _Golden\nBough_.\n\nIn his visitation charge at Blackburn, in July, 1889, the Bishop of\nManchester spoke as follows:\n\n     Now, if these dates are accepted, to what age of the world shall\n     we assign that Accadian civilisation and literature which so long\n     preceded Sargo I. and the statutes of Sirgullah?  I can best\n     answer you in the words of the great Assyriologist, F. Hommel:\n     \"If,\" he says, \"the Semites were already settled in Northern\n     Babylonia (Accad) in the beginning of the fourth thousand B.C.\n     in possession of the fully developed Shumiro-Accadian culture\n     adopted by them--a culture, moreover, which appears to have\n     sprouted like a cutting from Shumir, then the latter must be far,\n     far older still, and have existed in its _completed_ form in the\n     fifth thousand B.C., an age to which I unhesitatingly ascribe the\n     South Babylonian incantations.\"... Who does not see that such\n     facts as these compel us to remodel our whole idea of the past?\n\nA culture which was _complete_ one thousand years before Adam must have\nneeded many thousands of years to develop. It would be a modest guess\nthat Accadian culture implied a growth of at least ten thousand years.\n\nOf course, it may be said that the above biblical error is only an error\nof time, and has no bearing on the alleged evolution of the Bible. Well,\nan error of a million, or of ten thousand, years is a serious thing in\na divine revelation; but, as we shall see, it _has_ a bearing on\nevolution. Because it appears that in that ancient Accadian civilisation\nlie the seeds of many Bible laws and legends.\n\nHere I quote from _Our Sun God_, by Mr. J. D. Parsons:\n\n     To commence with, it is well known to those acquainted with\n     the remains of the Assyrian and Babylonian civilisations that\n     the stories of the creation, the temptation, the fall, the deluge,\n     and the confusion of tongues were the common property of the\n     Babylonians centuries before the date of the alleged Exodus\n     under Moses... Even the word Sabbath is Babylonian.  And the\n     observance of the seventh day as a Sabbath, or day of rest, by\n     the Accadians thousands of years before Moses, or Israel, or\n     even Abraham, or Adam himself could have been born or created,\n     is admitted by, among others, the Bishop of Manchester.  For in\n     an address to his clergy, already mentioned, he let fall these\n     pregnant words:\n\n     \"Who does not see that such facts as these compel us to remodel\n     our whole idea of the past, and that in particular to affirm that\n     the Sabbatical institution originated in the time of Moses, three\n     thousand five hundred years after it is probable that it existed\n     in Chaldea, is an impossibility, no matter how many Fathers of the\n     Church have asserted it.  Facts cannot be dismissed like theories.\"\n\nThe Sabbath, then, is one link in the evolution of the Bible. Like the\nlegends of the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, it was adopted by the\nJews from the Babylonians during or after the Captivity.\n\nOf the Flood, Professor Sayce, in his _Ancient Empires_ of the East,\nspeaks as follows:\n\n     With the Deluge the mythical history of Babylonia takes a new\n     departure.  From this event to the Persian conquest was a period\n     of 36,000 years, or an astronomical cycle called _saros_.\n     Xisuthros, with his family and friends, alone survived the\n     waters which drowned the rest of mankind on account of their\n     sins.  He had been ordered by the gods to build a ship, to pitch\n     it within and without, and to stock it with animals of every\n     species.  Xisuthros sent out first a dove, then a swallow, and\n     lastly a raven, to discover whether the earth was dry; the dove\n     and the swallow returned to the ship, and it was only when the\n     raven flew away that the rescued hero ventured to leave his ark.\n     He found that he had been stranded on the peak of the mountain\n     of Nizir, \"the mountain of the world,\" whereon the Accadians\n     believed the heavens to rest--where, too, they placed the\n     habitations of their gods, and the cradle of their own race.\n     Since Nizir lay amongst the mountains of Pir Mam, a little south\n     of Rowandiz, its mountain must be identified with Rowandiz itself.\n     On its peak Xisuthros offered sacrifices, piling up cups of wine\n     by sevens; and the rainbow, \"the glory of Anu,\" appeared in\n     the heaven, in covenant that the world should never again be\n     destroyed by flood.  Immediately afterwards Xisuthros and his\n     wife, like the Biblical Enoch, were translated to the regions of\n     the blest beyond Datilla, the river of Death, and his people made\n     their way westward to Sippara.  Here they disinterred the books\n     buried by their late ruler before the Deluge took place, and\n     re-established themselves in their old country under the government\n     first of Erekhoos, and then of his son Khoniasbolos.  Meanwhile,\n     other colonists had arrived in the plain of Sumer, and here,\n     under the leadership of the giant Etana, called Titan by the\n     Greek writers, they built a city of brick, and essayed to erect a\n     tower by means of which they might scale the sky, and so win\n     for themselves the immortality granted to Xisuthros... But\n     the tower was overthrown in the night by the winds, and Bel\n     frustrated their purpose by confounding their language and\n     scattering them on the mound.\n\nThese legends of the Flood and the Tower of Babel were obviously\nborrowed by the Jews during their Babylonian captivity.\n\nProfessor Sayce, in his _Ancient Empires of the East_, speaking of the\nAccadian king, Sargon I., says:\n\n     Legends naturally gathered round the name of the Babylonian\n     Solomon.  Not only was he entitled \"the deviser of law,\n     the deviser of prosperity,\" but it was told of him how his\n     father had died while he was still unborn, how his mother had\n     fled to the mountains, and there left him, like a second Moses,\n     to the care of the river in an ark of reeds and bitumen; and how\n     he was saved by Accir, \"the water-drawer,\" who brought him\n     up as his own son, until the time came when, under the protection\n     of Istar, his rank was discovered, and he took his seat on\n     the throne of his forefathers.\n\nFrom Babylon the Jews borrowed the legends of Eden, of the Fall, the\nFlood, the Tower of Babel; from Babylon they borrowed the Sabbath, and\nvery likely the Commandments; and is it not possible that the legendary\nMoses and the legendary Sargon may be variants of a still more ancient\nmythical figure?\n\nCompare Sayce with the following \"Notes on the Moses Myth,\" from\n_Christianity and Mythology_, by J. M. Robertson:\n\n\nNOTES ON THE MOSES MYTH.\n\n     I have been challenged for saying that the story of Moses and\n     the floating basket is a variant of the myth of Horos and the\n     floating island (_Herod_ ii. 156).  But this seems sufficiently\n     proved by the fact that in the reign of Rameses II., according\n     to the monuments, there was a place in Middle Egypt which\n     bore the name I-en-Moshe, \"_the island of Moses_.\"  That is the\n     primary meaning.  Brugsch, who proclaims the fact (_Egypt\n     Under the Pharaohs_, ii. 117), suggests that it can also mean \"the\n     river bank of Moses.\"  It is very obvious, however, that the\n     Egyptians would not have named a place by a real incident in\n     the life of a successful enemy, as Moses is represented in Exodus.\n     Name and story are alike mythological and pre-Hebraic, though\n     possibly Semitic.  The Assyrian myth of Sargon, which is,\n     indeed, very close to the Hebrew, may be the oldest form of all;\n     but the very fact that the Hebrews located their story in Egypt\n     shows that they knew it to have a home there in some fashion.\n     The name Moses, whether it mean \"the water-child\" (so Deutsch)\n     or \"the hero\" (Sayce, _Hib. Lect._ p. 46), was in all likelihood\n     an epithet of Horos.  The basket, in the latter form, was\n     doubtless an adaptation from the ritual of the basket-born\n     God-Child, as was the birth story of Jesus.  In Diodorus Siculus\n     (i. 25) the myth runs that Isis found Horos _dead_ \"on the water,\"\n     and brought him to life again; but even in that form the clue\n     to the Moses birth-myth is obvious.  And there are yet other\n     Egyptian connections for the Moses saga, since the Egyptians\n     had a myth of Thoth (their Logos) having slain Argus (as did\n     Hermes), and having had to fly for it to Egypt, where he gave\n     laws and learning to the Egyptians.  Yet, curiously enough, this\n     myth probably means that the Sun God, who has in the other\n     story escaped the \"massacre of the innocents\" (the morning\n     stars), now plays the slayer on his own account, since the slaying\n     of many-eyed Argus probably means the extinction of the stars\n     by the morning sun (cp. Emeric-David, _Introduction_, end).\n     Another \"Hermes\" was the son of Nilus, and his name was sacred\n     (Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._ iii. 22, Cp. 16).  The story of the\n     floating child, finally, becomes part of the lore of Greece.\n     In the myth of Apollo, the Babe-God and his sister Artemis are\n     secured in float-islands.\n\nIt is impossible to form a just estimate of the Bible without some\nknowledge of ancient history and comparative mythology. It would be\nimpossible for me to go deeply into these matters in this small book,\nbut I will quote a few significant passages just to show the value of\nsuch historical evidence. Here to begin with, are some passages from Mr.\nGrant Allen's _Evolution of the Idea of God_.\n\n\nTHE ORIGIN OF GODS.\n\n     Mr. Herbert Spencer has traced so admirably, in his _Principles\n     of Sociology_, the progress of development from the Ghost to\n     the God that I do not propose in this chapter to attempt much\n     more than a brief recapitulation of his main propositions, which,\n     however, I shall supplement with fresh examples, and adapt at\n     the same time to the conception of three successive stages in\n     human ideas about the Life of the Dead, as set forth in the\n     preceding argument.\n\n     In the earlier stage of all--the stage where the actual bodies\n     of the dead are preserved--gods, as such, are for the most part\n     unknown: it is the corpses of friends and ancestors that are\n     worshipped and reverenced.  For example, Ellis says of the\n     corpse of a Tahitian chief, that it was placed in a sitting\n     posture under a protecting shed; \"a small altar was erected\n     before it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers were\n     daily presented by the relatives or the priest appointed to\n     attend the body.\"  (This point about the priest is of essential\n     importance.)  The Central Americans, again, as Mr. Spencer notes,\n     performed similar rites before bodies dried by artificial\n     heat.  The New Guinea people, as D'Albertis found, worship\n     the dried mummies of their fathers and husbands.  A little\n     higher in the scale we get the developed mummy-worship of\n     Egypt and Peru, which survives even after the evolution of\n     greater gods, from powerful kings or chieftains.  Wherever\n     the actual bodies of the dead are preserved, there also worship\n     and offerings are paid to them.\n\n     Often, however, as already noted, it is not the whole body,\n     but the head alone, that is specially kept and worshipped.\n     Thus Mr. H. O. Forbes says of the people of Buru: \"The dead\n     are buried in the forest on some secluded spot, marked by a\n     _merang_, or grave pole, over which at certain intervals the\n     relatives place tobacco, cigarettes, and various offerings.\n     When the body is decomposed the son or nearest relative\n     disinters the head, wraps a new cloth about it, and places\n     it in the Matakau at the back of his house, or in a little\n     hut erected for it near the grave.  It is the representative\n     of his forefathers, whose behests he holds in the greatest\n     respect.\"\n\n     Two points are worthy of notice in this interesting account,\n     as giving us an anticipatory hint of two further accessories\n     whose evolution we must trace hereafter: first, the grave-stake,\n     which is probably the origin of the wooden idol; and second,\n     the little hut erected over the head by the side of the grave,\n     which is undoubtedly one of the origins of the temple, or\n     praying-house.  Observe, also, the ceremonial wrapping of the\n     skull in cloth and its oracular functions.\n\n     Throughout the earlier and ruder phases of human evolution\n     this primitive conception of ancestors or dead relatives as the\n     chief known object of worship survives undiluted; and ancestor-\n     worship remains to this day the principal religion of the Chinese\n     and of several other peoples.  Gods, as such, are practically\n     unknown in China.  Ancestor-worship, also, survives in many\n     other races as one of the main cults, even after other elements\n     of later religion have been superimposed upon it.  In Greece\n     and Rome it remained to the last an important part of domestic\n     ritual.  But in most cases a gradual differentiation is set up\n     in time between various classes of ghosts or dead persons, some\n     ghosts being considered of more importance and power than others;\n     and out of these last it is that gods as a rule are finally\n     developed.  A god, in fact, is in the beginning, at least, an\n     exceptionally powerful and friendly ghost--a ghost able to help,\n     and from whose help great things may reasonably be expected.\n\n     Again, the rise of chieftainship and kingship has much to do\n     with the growth of a higher conception of godhead; a dead king\n     of any great power or authority is sure to be thought of in time\n     as a god of considerable importance.  We shall trace out this\n     idea more fully hereafter in the religion of Egypt; for the\n     present it must suffice to say that the supposed power of the\n     gods in each pantheon has regularly increased in proportion to\n     the increased power of kings or emperors.\n\n     When we pass from the first plane of corpse preservation and\n     mummification to the second plane, where burial is habitual,\n     it might seem, at a hasty glance, as though continued worship\n     of the dead, and their elevation into gods, would no longer be\n     possible.  For we saw that burial is prompted by a deadly fear\n     lest the corpse or ghost should return to plague the living.\n     Nevertheless, natural affection for parents or friends, and the\n     desire to insure their goodwill and aid, make these seemingly\n     contrary ideas reconcilable.  As a matter of fact, we find that\n     even when men bury or burn their dead, they continue to worship\n     them; while, as we shall show in the sequel, even the great\n     stones which they roll on top of the grave to prevent the dead\n     from rising again become, in time, altars on which sacrifices\n     are offered to the spirit.\n\nMuch of the Bible is evidently legendary. Here we have a jumble of\nancient myths, allegories, and mysteries drawn from many sources and\nremote ages, and adapted, altered, and edited so many times that in many\ninstances their original or inner meaning has become obscure. And it is\nfolly to accept the tangled legends and blurred or distorted symbols as\nthe literal history of a literal tribe, and the literal account of the\norigin of man, and the genesis of religion.\n\nThe real roots of religion lie far deeper: deeper, perhaps, than\nsun-worship, ghost-worship, and fear of demons. In _The Real Origin of\nReligion_ occurs the following:\n\n     Quite recently theories have been advocated attempting to\n     prove that the minds of early men were chiefly concerned with\n     the increase of vegetation, and that their fancy played so much\n     round the mysteries of plant growth that they made them their\n     holiest arcana.  Hence it appears that the savages were far more\n     modest and refined than our civilised contemporaries, for almost\n     all our works of imagination, both in literature and art, make\n     human love their theme in all its aspects, whether healthy or\n     pathological; whereas the savage, it seems, thought only of his\n     crops.  Nothing can be more astonishing than this discovery,\n     if it be true, but there are many facts which might lead us to\n     believe that the romance of love inspired early art and religion\n     as well as modern thought.\n\nAnd again:\n\n     Religion is a gorgeous efflorescence of human love.  The tender\n     passion has left its footsteps on the sands of time in magnificent\n     monuments and libraries of theology.\n\nThis may seem startling to many orthodox readers, but it is no new\ntheory, and is doubtless quite true, for all gods have been made by\nman, and all theologies have been evolved by man, and the odour and the\ncolour of his human passions cling to them always, even after they are\ndiscarded. Under all man's dreams of eternal gods and eternal heavens\nlies man's passion for the eternal feminine. But on these subjects\n\"Moses\" spoke in parables, and I shall not speak at all.\n\nMr. Robertson, in _Christianity and Mythology_, says of the Bible:\n\n     It is a medley of early metaphysics and early fable--early,\n     that is, relatively to known Hebrew history.  It ties together\n     two creation stories and two flood stories; it duplicates\n     several sets of mythic personages--as Cain and Abel, Tubal-Cain\n     and Jabal; it grafts the curse of Cham on the curse of Cain,\n     making that finally the curse of Canaan; it tells the same\n     offensive story twice of one patriarch and again of another;\n     it gives an early \"metaphysical\" theory of the origin of death,\n     life, and evil; it adapts the Egyptian story of the \"Two Brothers,\"\n     or the myth of Adonis, as the history of Joseph; it makes use\n     of various God-names, pretending that they always stood for\n     the same deity; it repeats traditions concerning mythic\n     founders of races--if all this be not \"a medley of early fable,\"\n     what is it?\n\nI quote next from _The Bible and the Child_, in which Dean Farrar says:\n\n     Some of the books of Scripture are separated from others by the\n     interspace of a thousand years.  They represent the fragmentary\n     survival of Hebrew literature.  They stand on very different\n     levels of value, and even of morality.  Read for centuries in\n     an otiose, perfunctory, slavish, and superstitious manner, they\n     have often been so egregiously misunderstood that many entire\n     systems of interpretation--which were believed in for generations,\n     and which fill many folios, now consigned to a happy oblivion--\n     are clearly proved to have been utterly baseless.  Colossal\n     usurpations of deadly import to the human race have been built,\n     like inverted pyramids, on the narrow apex of a single\n     misinterpreted text.\n\nCompare those utterances of the freethinker and the divine, and then\nread the following words of Dean Farrar:\n\n     The manner in which the Higher Criticism has slowly and surely\n     made its victorious progress, in spite of the most determined\n     and exacerbated opposition, is a strong argument in its favour.\n     It is exactly analogous to the way in which the truths of\n     astronomy and of geology have triumphed over universal\n     opposition.  They were once anathematised as \"infidel\"; they\n     are now accepted as axiomatic.  I cannot name a single student\n     or professor of any eminence in Great Britain who does not\n     accept, with more or less modification, the main conclusions\n     of the German school of critics.\n\nThis being the case, I ask, as a mere layman, what right has the Bible\nto usurp the title of \"the word of God\"? What evidence can be sharked up\nto show that it is any more a holy or an inspired book than any book of\nThomas Carlyle's, or John Ruskin's, or William Morris'? What evidence\nis forthcoming that the Bible is true?\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNIVERSE ACCORDING TO ANCIENT RELIGION AND MODERN SCIENCE\n\n\nThe theory of the early Christian Church was that the Earth was flat,\nlike a plate, and the sky was a solid dome above it, like an inverted\nblue basin.\n\nThe Sun revolved round the Earth to give light by day, the Moon revolved\nround the Earth to give light by night. The stars were auxiliary lights,\nand had all been specially, and at the same time, created for the good\nof man.\n\nGod created the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Earth in six days. He created them\nby word, and He created them out of nothing.\n\nThe centre of the Universe was the Earth. The Sun was made to give light\nto the Earth by day, and the Moon to give light to Earth by night.\n\nAny man who denied that theory in those days was in danger of being\nmurdered as an Infidel.\n\nTo-day our ideas are very different. Hardly any educated man or woman\nin the world believes that the world is flat, or that the Sun revolves\nround the Earth, or that what we call the sky is a solid substance, like\na domed ceiling.\n\nAdvanced thinkers, even amongst the Christians, believe that the world\nis round, that it is one of a series of planets revolving round the Sun,\nthat the Sun is only one of many millions of other suns, that these\nsuns were not created simultaneously, but at different periods, probably\nseparated by millions or billions of years.\n\nWe have all, Christians and Infidels alike, been obliged to acknowledge\nthat the Earth is not the centre of the whole Universe, but only a minor\nplanet revolving around, and dependent upon, one of myriads of suns.\n\nGod, called by Christians \"Our Heavenly Father,\" created all things. He\ncreated not only the world, but the whole universe. He is all-wise,\nHe is all-powerful, He is all-loving, and He is revealed to us in the\nScriptures.\n\nLet us see. Let us try to imagine what kind of a God the creator of\nthis Universe would be, and let us compare him with the God, or Gods,\nrevealed to us in the Bible, and in the teachings of the Church.\n\nWe have seen the account of the Universe and its creation, as given in\nthe revealed Scriptures. Let us now take a hasty view of the Universe\nand its creation as revealed to us by science.\n\nWhat is the Universe like, as far as our limited knowledge goes?\n\nOur Sun is only one sun amongst many millions. Our planet is only one of\neight which revolve around him.\n\nOur Sun, with his planets and comets, comprises what is known as the\nsolar system.\n\nThere is no reason to suppose that his is the only Solar System: there\nmay be many millions of solar systems. For aught we know, there may be\nmillions of systems, each containing millions of solar systems.\n\nLet us deal first with the solar system of which we are a part.\n\nThe Sun is a globe of 866,200 miles diameter. His diameter is more than\n108 times that of the Earth. His volume is 1,305,000 times the volume\nof the Earth. All the eight planets added together only make\none-seven-hundredth part of his weight. His circumference is more than\ntwo and a-half millions of miles. He revolves upon his axis in 25 1/4\ndays, or at a speed of nearly 4,000 miles an hour.\n\nThis immense and magnificent globe diffuses heat and light to all the\nother planets.\n\nWithout the light and heat of the Sun no life would now be, or in the\npast have been, possible on this Earth, or any other planet of the solar\nsystem.\n\nThe eight planets of the solar system are divided into four inferior and\nfour superior.\n\nThe inferior planets are Mercury, Venus, the Earth, and Mars. The\nsuperior are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.\n\nThe diameters of the smaller planets are as follow: Mercury, 3,008\nmiles; Mars, 5,000 miles; Venus, 7,480 miles; the Earth, 7,926 miles.\n\nThe diameters of the large planets are: Jupiter, 88,439 miles; Saturn,\n75,036 miles; Neptune, 37,205 miles; Uranus, 30,875 miles.\n\nThe volume of Jupiter is 1,389 times, of Saturn 848 times, of Neptune\n103 times, and of Uranus 59 times the volume of the Earth.\n\nThe mean distances from the Sun are: Mercury, 36 million miles; Venus,\n67 million miles; the Earth, 93 million miles; Mars, 141 million miles;\nJupiter, 483 million miles; Saturn, 886 million miles; Uranus, 1,782\nmillion miles; Neptune, 2,792 million miles.\n\nTo give an idea of the meaning of these distances, I may say that a\ntrain travelling night and day at 60 miles an hour would take quite 176\nyears to come from the Sun to the Earth.\n\nThe same train, at the same speed, would be 5,280 years in travelling\nfrom the Sun to Neptune.\n\nReckoning that Neptune is the outermost planet of the solar system, that\nsystem would have a diameter of 5,584 millions of miles.\n\nIf we made a chart of the solar system on a scale of 1 inch to a million\nmiles, we should need a sheet of paper 465 feet 4 inches wide. On this\nsheet the Sun would have a diameter of less than 1 inch, and the Earth\nwould be about the size of a pin-prick.\n\nIf an express train, going at 60 miles an hour, had to travel round the\nEarth's orbit, it would be more than 1,000 years on the journey. If the\nEarth moved no faster, our winter would last more than 250 years. But\nin the solar system the speeds are as wonderful as the sizes. The Earth\nturns upon its axis at the rate of 1,000 miles an hour, and travels in\nits orbit round the Sun at the rate of more than 1,000 miles a minute,\nor 66,000 miles an hour.\n\nSo much for the size of the solar system. It consists of a Sun and eight\nplanets, and the outer planet's orbit is one of 5,584 millions of miles\nin diameter, which it would take an express train, at 60 miles an hour,\n10,560 years to cross.\n\nBut this distance is as nothing when we come to deal with the distances\nof the other stars from our Sun.\n\nThe distance from our Sun to the nearest fixed (?) star is more than\n20 millions of millions of miles. Our express train, which crosses the\ndiameter of the solar system in 10,560 years, would take, if it went 60\nmiles an hour day and night, about 40 million years to reach the nearest\nfixed star from the Sun.\n\nAnd if we had to mark the nearest fixed star on our chart made on a\nscale of 1 inch to the million miles, we should find that whereas\na sheet of 465 feet would take in the outermost planet of the solar\nsystem, a sheet to take in the nearest fixed star would have to be about\n620 miles wide. On this sheet, as wide as from London to Inverness, the\nSun would be represented by a dot three-quarters of an inch in diameter,\nand the Earth by a pin-prick.\n\nBut these immense distances only relate to the _nearest_ stars. Now, the\nnearest stars are about four \"light years\" distant from us. That is to\nsay, that light, travelling at a rate of about 182,000 miles in _one\nsecond_, takes four years to come from the nearest fixed star to the\nEarth.\n\nBut I have seen the distance from the Earth to the Great Nebula in Orion\ngiven as _a thousand light years_, or 250 times the distance of the\nfixed star above alluded to.\n\nTo reach that nebula at 60 miles an hour, an express train would have to\ntravel for 35 millions of years multiplied by 250--that is to say, for\n8,750 million years.\n\nAnd yet there are millions of stars whose distances are even greater\nthan the distance of the Great Nebula in Orion.\n\nHow many stars are there? No one can even guess. But L. Struve estimates\nthe number of those visible to the great telescopes at 20 millions.\n\nTwenty millions of suns. And as for the size of these suns, Sir Robert\nBall says Sirius is ten times as large as our Sun; and a well-known\nastronomer, writing in the _English Mechanic_ about a week ago, remarks\nthat Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuze) has probably 700 times the light of our\nSun.\n\nLooking through my telescope, which is only 3-inch aperture, I have seen\nstar clusters of wonderful beauty in the Pleiades and in Cancer. There\nis, in the latter constellation, a dim star which, when viewed through\nmy glass, becomes a constellation larger, more brilliant, and more\nbeautiful than Orion or the Great Bear. I have looked at these jewelled\nsun-clusters many a time, and wondered over them. But I have never\nonce thought of believing that they were specially created to be lesser\nlights to the Earth.\n\nAnd now let me quote from that grand book of Richard A. Proctor's, _The\nExpanse of Heaven_, a fine passage descriptive of some of the wonders of\nthe \"Milky Way\":\n\n     There are stars in all orders of brightness, from those which\n     (seen with the telescope) resemble in lustre the leading glories\n     of the firmament, down to tiny points of light only caught by\n     momentary twinklings.  Every variety of arrangement is seen.\n     Here the stars are scattered as over the skies at night; there\n     they cluster in groups, as though drawn together by some irresistible\n     power; in one region they seem to form sprays of stars like\n     diamonds sprinkled over fern leaves; elsewhere they lie in\n     streams and rows, in coronets and loops and festoons, resembling\n     the star festoon which, in the constellation Perseus, garlands\n     the black robe of night.  Nor are varieties of colour wanting\n     to render the display more wonderful and more beautiful.  Many\n     of the stars which crowd upon the view are red, orange, and yellow\n     Among them are groups of two and three and four (multiple stars\n     as they are called), amongst which blue and green and lilac and\n     purple stars appear, forming the most charming contrast to the\n     ruddy and yellow orbs near which they are commonly seen.\n\nMillions and millions--countless millions of suns. Innumerable galaxies\nand systems of suns, separated by black gulfs of space so wide that no\nman can realise the meaning of the figures which denote their stretch.\nSuns of fire and light, whirling through vast oceans of space like\nswarms of golden bees. And round them planets whirling at thousands of\nmiles a minute.\n\nAnd on Earth there are forms of life so minute that millions of them\nexist in a drop of water. There are microscopic creatures more beautiful\nand more highly finished than any gem, and more complex and effective\nthan the costliest machine of human contrivance. In _The Story of\nCreation_ Mr. Ed. Clodd tells us that one cubic inch of rotten stone\ncontains 41 thousand million vegetable skeletons of diatoms.\n\nI cut the following from a London morning paper:\n\n     It was discovered some few years ago that a peculiar bacillus\n     was present in all persons suffering from typhoid, and in all\n     foods and drinks which spread the disease.  Experiments were\n     carried out, and it was assumed, not without good reason, that\n     the bacillus was the primary cause of the malady, and it was\n     accordingly labelled the typhoid bacillus.\n\n     But the bacteriologists further discovered that the typhoid\n     bacillus was present in water which was not infectious, and in\n     persons who were not ill, or had never been ill, with typhoid.\n\n     So now a theory is propounded that a healthy typhoid bacillus\n     does not cause typhoid, but that it is only when the bacillus\n     is itself sick of a fever, or, in other words, is itself the\n     prey of some infinitely minuter organisms, which feed on it\n     alone, that it works harm to mortal men.\n\nThe bacillus is so small that one requires a powerful microscope to see\nhim, and his blood may be infested with bacilli as small to him as he is\nto us.\n\nAnd there are millions, and more likely billions, of suns!\n\nTalk about Aladdin's palace, Sinbad's valley of diamonds, Macbeth's\nwitches, or the Irish fairies! How petty are their exploits, how tawdry\nare their splendours, how paltry are their riches, when we compare them\nto the romance of science.\n\nWhen did a poet conceive an idea so vast and so astounding as the\ntheory of evolution? What are a few paltry, lumps of crystallised carbon\ncompared to a galaxy of a million million suns? Did any Eastern inventor\nof marvels ever suggest such a human feat as that accomplished by\nthe men who have, during the last handful of centuries, spelt out the\nmystery of the universe? These scientists have worked miracles before\nwhich those of the ancient priests and magicians are mere tricks of\nhanky-panky.\n\nLook at the romance of geology; at the romance of astronomy; at\nthe romance of chemistry; at the romance of the telescope, and the\nmicroscope, and the prism. More wonderful than all, consider the story\nof how flying atoms in space became suns, how suns made planets, how\nplanets changed from spheres of flame and raging fiery storm to worlds\nof land and water. How in the water specks of jelly became fishes,\nfishes reptiles, reptiles mammals, mammals monkeys; monkeys men;\nuntil, from the fanged and taloned cannibal, roosting in a forest, have\ndeveloped art and music, religion and science; and the children of the\njellyfish can weigh the suns, measure the stellar spaces, ride on\nthe ocean or in the air, and speak to each other from continent to\ncontinent.\n\nTalk about fairy tales! what is this? You may look through a telescope,\nand see the nebula that is to make a sun floating, like a luminous mist,\nthree hundred million miles away. You may look again, and see another\nsun in process of formation. You may look again, and see others almost\ncompleted. You may look again and again, and see millions of suns and\nsystems spread out across the heavens like rivers of living gems.\n\nYou will say that all this speaks of a Creator. I shall not contradict\nyou. But what kind of Creator must He be who has created such a universe\nas this?\n\nDo you think He is the kind of Creator to make blunders and commit\ncrimes? Can you, after once thinking of the Milky Way, with its rivers\nof suns, and the drop of water teeming with spangled dragons, and the\nawful abysses of dark space, through which comets shoot at a speed\na thousand times as fast as an express train--can you, after seeing\nSaturn's rings, and Jupiter's moons, and the clustered gems of Hercules,\nconsent for a moment to the allegation that the creator of all this\npower and glory got angry with men, and threatened them with scabs\nand sores, and plagues of lice and frogs? Can you suppose that such a\ncreator would, after thousands of years of effort, have failed even now\nto make His repeated revelations comprehensible? Do you believe that\nHe would be driven across the unimaginable gulfs of space, but of the\ntranscendent glory of His myriad resplendent suns, to die on a cross,\nin order to win back to Him the love of the puny creatures on one puny\nplanet in the marvellous universe His power had made?\n\nDo you believe that the God who imagined and created such a universe\ncould be petty, base, cruel, revengeful, and capable of error? I do not\nbelieve it.\n\nAnd now let us examine the character and conduct of this God as depicted\nfor us in the Bible--the book which is alleged to have been directly\nrevealed by God Himself.\n\n\n\n\nJEHOVAH THE ADOPTED HEAVENLY FATHER OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nIn giving the above brief sketch of the known universe my object was to\nsuggest that the Creator of a universe of such scope and grandeur must\nbe a Being of vast power and the loftiest dignity.\n\nNow, the Christians claim that their God created this universe--not the\nuniverse He is described, in His own inspired word, as creating, but the\nuniverse revealed by science; the universe of twenty millions of suns.\n\nAnd the Christians claim that this God is a God of love, a God\nomnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. And the Christians claim that this\ngreat God, the Creator of our wonderful universe, is the God revealed to\nus in the Bible.\n\nLet us, then, go to the Bible, and find out for ourselves whether the\nGod therein revealed is any more like the ideal Christian God than the\nuniverse therein revealed is like the universe since discovered by man\nwithout the aid of divine inspiration.\n\nAs for the biblical God, Jahweh, or Jehovah, I shall try to show\nfrom the Bible itself that He was not all-wise, nor all-powerful,\nnor omnipresent; that He was not merciful nor just; but that, on the\ncontrary, He was fickle, jealous, dishonourable, immoral, vindictive,\nbarbarous, and cruel.\n\nNeither was He, in any sense of the words, great nor good. But, in fact,\nHe was a tribal god, an idol, made by man; and, as the idol of a savage\nand ignorant tribe, was Himself a savage and ignorant monster.\n\nFirst then, as to my claim that Jahweh, or Jehovah, was a tribal god. I\nshall begin by quoting from _Shall We Understand the Bible?_ by the Rev.\nT. Rhondda Williams:\n\n     The theology of the Jahwist is very childish and elementary,\n     though it is not all on the same level.  He thinks of God very\n     much as in human form, holding intercourse with men almost\n     as one of themselves.  His document begins with Genesis ii. 4,\n     and its first portion continues, without break, to the end of\n     chapter iv.  This portion contains the story of Eden.  Here\n     Jahweh _moulds_ dust into human form, and _breathes_ into it;\n     _plants_ a garden, and puts the man in it.  Jahweh comes to the\n     man in his sleep, and takes part of his body to make a woman,\n     and so skilfully, apparently, that the man never wakes under\n     the operation.  Jahweh _walks_ in the garden like a man in the\n     cool of the day.  He even _makes coats_ for Adam and Eve.\n     Further on the Jahwist has a flood story, in which Jahweh _repents_\n     that he had made man, and decides to drown him, saving only\n     one family.  When all is over, and Noah sacrifices on his new\n     altar, Jahweh _smells_ a sweet savour, just as a hungry man\n     smells welcome food.  When men build the Tower of Babel,\n     Jahweh _comes down_ to see it--he cannot see it from where he\n     is.  In Genesis xviii. the Jahwist tells a story of three men\n     coming to Abraham's tent.  Abraham gives them water to wash\n     their feet, and bread to eat, and Sarah makes cakes for them,\n     and \"they did eat\"; altogether, they seemed to have had a nice\n     time.  As the story goes on, he leaves you to infer that one\n     of these was Jahweh himself.  It is J. who describes the story\n     of Jacob _wrestling_ with some mysterious person, who, by inference,\n     is Jahweh.  He tells a very strange story in Exodus iv. 24, that\n     when Moses was returning into Egypt, at Jahweh's own request,\n     Jahweh met him at a lodging-place, and sought to kill him.  In\n     Exodus xiv. 15 it is said Jahweh took the wheels off the chariots\n     of the Egyptians.  If we wanted to believe that such statements\n     were true at all, we should resort to the device of saying they\n     were figurative.  But J. meant them literally.  The Jahwist\n     would have no difficulty in thinking of God in this way.  The\n     story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah belongs to this\n     same document, in which, you remember, Jahweh says: \"I will go\n     down now, and see whether they have done altogether according\n     to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know\"\n     (Gen. xviii. 21).  That God was omniscient and omnipresent had\n     never occurred to the Jahwist.  Jahweh, like a man, had to go and\n     see if he wanted to know.  There is, however, some compensation\n     in the fact that he can move about without difficulty--he can\n     come down and go up.  One might say, perhaps, that in J., though\n     Jahweh cannot _be_ everywhere, he can go to almost any place.\n     All this is just like a child's thought.  The child, at Christmas,\n     can believe that, though Santa Claus cannot be everywhere, he\n     can move about with wonderful facility, and, though he is a man,\n     he is rather mysterious.  The Jahwist's thought of God represents\n     the childhood stage of the national life.\n\nLater, Mr. Williams writes:\n\n     All this shows that at one time Jahweh was one of many gods;\n     other gods were real gods.  The Israelites themselves believed,\n     for example, that Chemosh was as truly the god of the Moabites\n     as Jahweh was theirs, and they speak of Chemosh giving territory\n     to his people to inherit, just as Jahweh had given them territory\n     (Judges xi. 24).\n\n     Just as a King of Israel would speak of Jahweh, the King of\n     Moab speaks of Chemosh.  His god sends him to battle.  If he\n     is defeated, the god is angry; if he succeeds, the god is\n     favourable.  And we have seen that there was a time when the\n     Israelite believed Chemosh to be as real for Moab as Jahweh\n     for himself.  You find the same thing everywhere.  The old\n     Assyrian kings said exactly the same thing of the god Assur.\n\n     Assur sent them to battle, gave defeat or victory, as he thought\n     fit.  The history, however, is very obscure up to the time of\n     Samuel, and uncertain for some time after.  Samuel organised\n     a Jahweh party.  David worshipped Jahweh only, though he\n     regards it as possible to be driven out of Jahweh's inheritance\n     into that of other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19).  Solomon was not\n     exclusively devoted to Jahweh, for he built places of worship\n     for other deities as well.\n\nIn the chapter on \"Different Conceptions of Providence in the Bible,\"\nMr. Williams says:\n\n     I have asked you to read Judges iii. 15-30, iv. 17-24, v. 24-31.\n     The first is the story of Ehud getting at Eglon, Israel's enemy,\n     by deceit, and killing him--an act followed by a great slaughter\n     of Moabites.  The second is the story of Jael pretending to play\n     the friend to Sisera, and then murdering him.  The third is the\n     eulogy of Jael for doing so, as \"blessed above women,\" in the\n     so-called Song of Deborah.  Here, you see, Providence is only\n     concerned with the fortunes of Israel; any deceit and any\n     cruelty is right which brings success to this people.  Providence\n     is not concerned with morality; nor is it concerned with individuals,\n     except as the individual serves or opposes Israel.\n\nIn these two chapters Mr. Williams shows that the early conception of\nGod was a very low one, and that it underwent considerable change. In\nfact, he says, with great candour and courage, that the early Bible\nconception of God is one which we cannot now accept.\n\nWith this I entirely agree. We cannot accept as the God of Creation\nthis savage idol of an obscure tribe, and we have renounced Him, and are\nashamed of Him, not because of any later divine revelation, but because\nmankind have become too enlightened, too humane, and too honourable to\ntolerate Jehovah.\n\nAnd yet the Christian religion adopted Jehovah, and called upon its\nfollowers to worship and believe Him, on pain of torture, or death, or\nexcommunication in this world, and of hell-fire in the world to come. It\nis astounding.\n\nBut lest the evidence offered by Mr. Williams should not be considered\nsufficient, I shall quote from another very useful book, _The Evolution\nof the Idea of God_, by the late Grant Allen. In this book Mr. Allen\nclearly traces the origins of the various ideas of God, and we hear of\nJehovah again, as a kind of tribal stone idol, carried about in a box or\nark. I will quote as fully as space permits:\n\n     But Jahweh was an object of portable size, for, omitting for\n     the present the descriptions in the Pentateuch--which seem\n     likely to be of later date, and not too trustworthy, through\n     their strenuous Jehovistic editing--he was carried from Shiloh\n     in his ark to the front during the great battle with the\n     Philistines at Ebenezer; and the Philistines were afraid, for\n     they said, \"A god is come into the camp.\"  But when the Philistines\n     captured the ark, the rival god, Dagon, fell down and broke in\n     pieces--so Hebrew legend declared--before the face of Jahweh.\n     After the Philistines restored the sacred object, it rested for\n     a time at Kirjath-jearim till David, on the capture of Jerusalem\n     from the Jebusites, went down to that place to bring up from\n     thence the ark of the god; and as it went, on a new cart, they\n     \"played before Jahweh on all manner of instruments,\" and David\n     himself \"danced before Jahweh.\"... The children of Israel in\n     early times carried about with them a tribal god, Jahweh, whose\n     presence in their midst was intimately connected with a certain\n     ark or chest containing a stone object or objects.  This chest\n     was readily portable, and could be carried to the front in case\n     of warfare.  They did not know the origin of the object in the\n     ark with certainty; but they regarded it emphatically as \"Jahweh\n     their god, which led them out of the land of Egypt.\"...\n\n     I do not see, therefore, how we can easily avoid the obvious\n     inference that Jahweh the god of the Hebrews, who later became\n     sublimated and etherealised into the God of Christianity, was,\n     in his origin, nothing more nor less than the ancestral sacred\n     stone of the people of Israel, however sculptured, and, perhaps,\n     in the very last resort of all, the unhewn monumental pillar of\n     some early Semitic sheikh or chieftain.\n\nIt was, indeed, as the Rev. C. E. Beeby says, in his book _Creed and\nLife_, a sad mistake of St. Augustine to tack this tribal fetish in his\nbox on to the Christian religion as the All-Father, and Creator of the\nUniverse. For Jehovah was a savage war-god, and, as such, was impotent\nto save the tribe who worshipped him.\n\nBut let us look further into the accounts of this original God of\nthe Christians, and see how he comported himself, and let us put our\nexamples under separate heads; thus:\n\n\nJehovah's Anger\n\nJahweh's bad temper is constantly displayed in the Bible. Jahweh made\na man, whom he supposed to be perfect. When the man turned bad on his\nhands, Jahweh was angry, and cursed him and his seed for thousands of\nyears. This vindictive act is accepted by the Apostle Paul as a natural\nthing for a God of Love to do.\n\nJahweh who had already cursed all the seed of Adam, was so angry about\nman's sin, in the time of Noah, that he decided to drown all the people\non the earth except Noah's family, and not only that, but to drown\nnearly all the innocent animals as well.\n\nWhen the children of Israel, who had eaten nothing but manna for forty\nyears, asked Jahweh for a change of diet, Jahweh lost his temper again,\nand sent amongst them \"fiery serpents,\" so that \"much people of Israel\ndied.\" But still the desire for other food remained, and the Jews wept\nfor meat. Then the Lord ordered Moses to speak to the people as follows:\n\n  ... The Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.  Ye shall\n     not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days\n     nor twenty days: but even a whole month, until it come out of\n     your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye\n     have despised the Lord, which is among you, and have wept\n     before Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?\n\nThen Jahweh sent immense numbers of quails, and the people ate them, and\nthe anger of their angry god came upon them in the act, and smote them\nwith \"a very great plague.\"\n\nOne more instance out of many. In the First Book of Samuel we are\ntold that on the return of Jahweh in his ark from the custody of the\nPhilistines some men of Bethshemesh looked into the ark. This made\nJahweh so angry that he smote the people, and slew more than fifty\nthousand of them.\n\n\nThe Injustice of Jehovah\n\nI have already instanced Jahweh's injustice in cursing the seed of Adam\nfor Adam's sin, and in destroying the whole animal creation, except a\nselected few, because he was angry with mankind. In the Book of Samuel\nwe are told that Jahweh sent three years' famine upon the whole nation\nbecause of the sins of Saul, and that his wrath was only appeased by the\nhanging in cold blood of seven of Saul's sons for the evil committed by\ntheir father.\n\nIn the Book of Joshua is the story of how Achan, having stolen some\ngold, was ordered to be burnt; and how Joshua and the Israelites took\n\"Achan, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses,\nand his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had,\" and stoned them to\ndeath, and \"burnt them with fire.\"\n\nIn the First Book of Chronicles the devil persuades David to take a\ncensus of Israel. And again Jahweh acted in blind wrath and injustice,\nfor he sent a pestilence, which slew seventy thousand of the people for\nDavid's fault. _But David he allowed to live._ In Samuel we learn how\nJahweh, because of an attack upon the Israelites four hundred years\nbefore the time of speaking, ordered Saul to destroy the Amalekites,\n\"man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.\" And\nSaul did as he was directed; but because he spared King Agag, the Lord\ndeprived him of the crown and made David king in his stead.\n\n\nThe Immorality Of Jehovah\n\nIn the Second Book of Chronicles Jehovah gets Ahab, King of Israel,\nkilled by putting lies into the mouths of the prophets:\n\n     And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab, king of Israel, that\n     he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?  And one spake, saying\n     after this manner, and another saying after that manner.\n\n     Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and\n     said, I will entice him.  And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith?\n\n     And he said, I will go out, and be a lying spirit in the mouth\n     of all his prophets.  And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him,\n     and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so.\n\nIn Deuteronomy are the following orders as to conduct in war:\n\n     When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the\n     Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou\n     hast taken them captive.\n\n     And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a\n     desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;\n     Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall\n     shave her head, and pare her nails;\n\n     And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her,\n     and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her\n     mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her,\n     and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.\n\n     And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shall\n     let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all\n     for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou\n     hast humbled her.\n\nThe children of Israel, having been sent out by Jahweh to punish the\nMidianites, \"slew all the males.\" But Moses was wrath, because they had\nspared the women, and he ordered them to kill all the married women, and\nto take the single women \"for themselves.\" The Lord allowed this\nbrutal act--which included the murder of all the male children--to be\nconsummated. There were sixteen thousand females spared, of which we are\ntold that \"the Lord's tribute was thirty and two.\"\n\n\nThe Cruelty Of Jehovah\n\nI could find in the Bible more instances of Jahweh's cruelty and\nbarbarity and lack of mercy than I can find room for.\n\nIn Deuteronomy, the Lord hardens the heart of Sihon, King of Hesbon, to\nresist the Jews, and then \"utterly destroyed the men, women, and little\nones of every city.\"\n\nIn Leviticus, Jahweh threatens that if the Israelites will not reform\nhe will \"walk contrary to them in fury, _and they shall eat the flesh of\ntheir own sons and daughters_.\"\n\nIn Deuteronomy is an account of how Bashan was utterly destroyed, men,\nwomen, and children being slain.\n\nIn the same book occur the following passages:\n\n     When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither\n     thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before\n     thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites,\n     and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and\n     the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;\n\n     And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee;\n     thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt\n     make no covenant with them, or show mercy unto them.\n\nThat is from chapter vii. In chapter xx. there are further instructions\nof a like horrible kind:\n\n     Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off\n     from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.\n\n     But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth\n     give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing\n     that breatheth:\n\n     But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and\n     the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites,\n     and the Jebusites, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.\n\nAnd here, in a long quotation, is an example of the mercy of Jahweh, and\nhis faculty for cursing:\n\n     The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he\n     have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to\n     possess it.\n\n     The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a\n     fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning,\n     and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and\n     they shall pursue thee until thou perish.\n\n     And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the\n     earth that is under thee shall be iron.\n\n     The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust:\n     from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be\n     destroyed.\n\n     The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies:\n     thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways\n     before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of\n     the earth.\n\n     And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and\n     unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.\n\n     The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with\n     the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou\n     canst not be healed.\n\n     The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and\n     astonishment of heart:...\n\n     And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high\n     and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout\n     all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates\n     throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.\n\n     And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of\n     thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath\n     given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness wherewith\n     thine enemies shall distress thee:\n\n     So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate,\n     his eyes shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife\n     of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he\n     shall leave....\n\n     For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn into the\n     lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase,\n     and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.\n\n     I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows\n     upon them.\n\n     They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning\n     heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth\n     of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.\n\n     The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the\n     young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of\n     grey hairs.\n\nI think I have quoted enough to show that what I say of the Jewish God\nJehovah is based on fact. But I could, if needful, heap proof on proof,\nfor the books of the Old Testament reek with blood, and are horrible\nwith atrocities.\n\nNow, consider, is the God of whom we have been reading a God of love?\nIs He the Father of Christ? Is He not rather the savage idol of a savage\ntribe?\n\nMan and his gods: what a tragi-comedy it is. Man has never seen one of\nhis gods, never heard the voice of one of his gods, does not know the\nshape, expression, or bearing of one of his gods. Yet man has cursed\nman, hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered man, for the sake\nof shadows and fantasies of his own terror, or vanity, or desire. We\ntiny, vain feeblenesses, we fussy ephemera; we sting each other, hate\neach other, hiss at each other, for the sake of the monster gods of\nour own delirium. As we are whirled upon our spinning, glowing planet\nthrough the unfathomable spaces, where myriads of suns, like golden\nbees, gleam through the awful mystery of \"the vast void night,\" what\nare the phantom gods to us? They are no more than the waterspouts on the\nocean, or the fleeting shadows on the hills. But the man, and the woman,\nand the child, and the dog with its wistful eyes; these know us, touch\nus, appeal to us, love us, serve us, grieve us.\n\nShall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for the sake of the\nlurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in his box?\n\nDo you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who prized nothing but\nhis own aggrandisement, and slew or cursed all who offended him, is\nthe Creator, the same who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and the\nresplendent mystery of the Milky Way?\n\nIs this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of Christ? Is he the God\nwho inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and\nDarwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in\nrapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and\npolygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities,\nand greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter--we\nmay easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable\npersonality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a\nmurderous tribe of savages. We have no use for him. We have no criminal\nso ruthless nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch our\ncities, imperfect as we are. The thought of him defiles and nauseates.\nWe should think him too horrible and pitiless for a devil, this\nred-handed, black-hearted Jehovah of the Jews.\n\nAnd yet: in the inspired Book, in the Holy Bible, this awful creature\nis still enshrined as \"God the Father Almighty.\" It is marvellous. It\nis beyond the comprehension of any man not blinded by superstition, not\nwarped by prejudice and old-time convention. _This_ the God of Heaven?\n_This_ the Father of Christ? This the Creator of the Milky Way? No.\nHe will not do. He is not big enough. He is not good enough. He is not\nclean enough. He is a spiritual nightmare: a bad dream born in savage\nminds of terror and ignorance and a tigerish lust for blood.\n\nBut if He is not the Most High, if He is not the Heavenly Father, if\nHe is not the King of kings, the Bible is not an inspired book, and its\nclaims to divine revelation will not stand. THE HEROES OF THE BIBLE\n\n\nCarlyle said we might judge a people by their heroes. The heroes of the\nBible, like the God of the Bible, are immoral savages. That is because\nthe Bible is a compilation from the literature of savage and immoral\ntribes.\n\nHad the Bible been the word of God we should have found in it a\nlofty and a pure ideal of God. We should not have found in it open\napproval--divine approval--of such unspeakable savages as Moses, David,\nSolomon, Jacob, and Lot.\n\nLet us consider the lives of a few of the Bible heroes. We will begin\nwith Moses.\n\nWe used to be taught in school that Moses was the meekest man the world\nhas known: and we used to marvel.\n\nIt is written in the second chapter of Exodus thus:\n\n     And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that\n     he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens:\n     and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.\n\n     And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that\n     there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.\n\n     And when he went out the second day, behold two men of the\n     Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the\n     wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?  And he said, Who\n     made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill\n     me as thou killedst the Egyptian?  And Moses feared, and said,\n     Surely this thing is known.\n\nThe meekest of men slays an Egyptian deliberately and in cold blood. It\nmay be pleaded that the Egyptian was doing wrong; but the remarks of the\nHebrew suggest that even the countrymen of Moses looked upon his act of\nviolence with disfavour.\n\nBut the meekness of Moses is further illustrated in the laws attributed\nto him, in which the death penalty is almost as common as it was in\nEngland in the Middle Ages.\n\nAlso, in the thirty-first chapter of Numbers we have the following\nstory. The Lord commands Moses to \"avenge the children of Israel of the\nMidianites,\" after which Moses is to die. Moses sends out an army:\n\n     And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded\n     Moses; and they slew all the males.\n\n     And they slew the kings of Midian, besides the rest of them\n     that were slain; namely Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur,\n     and Reba, five kings of Midian: Balaam also the son of Beor\n     they slew with the sword.\n\n     And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian\n     captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all\n     their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.\n\n     And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all\n     their goodly castles, with fire.\n\n     And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men\n     and of beasts....\n\n     And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the\n     captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which\n     came from the battle.\n\n     And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?\n\n     Behold, these called the children of Israel, through the counsel\n     of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of\n     Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.\n\n     Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill\n     every woman that hath known man by lying with him.\n\n     But all the women children that have not known a man by lying\n     with him, keep alive for yourselves.\n\nMoses is a patriarch of the Jews, and the meekest man. But suppose any\npagan or Mohammedan general were to behave to a Christian city as Moses\nbehaved to the people of Midian, what should we say of him? But God was\n_pleased_ with him.\n\nFurther, in the sixteenth chapter of Numbers you will find how Moses the\nMeek treated Korah, Dathan, and Abiram for rebelling against himself and\nAaron; how the earth opened and swallowed these men and their families\nand friends, at a hint from Moses; and how the Lord slew with fire from\nheaven two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense, and how\nafterwards there came a pestilence by which some fourteen thousand\npersons died.\n\nMoses was a politician; his brother was a priest. I shall express no\nopinion of the pair; but I quote from the Book of Exodus, as follows:\n\n     And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out\n     of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto\n     Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go\n     before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up\n     out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.\n\n     And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings,\n     which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of\n     your daughters, and bring them unto me.\n\n     And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were\n     in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.\n\n     And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a\n     graving tool after he had made it a molten calf: and they said,\n     These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the\n     land of Egypt.\n\n     And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron\n     made proclamation, and said, To-morrow is a feast to the Lord.\n\n     And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings,\n     and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and\n     to drink, and rose up to play.\n\n     And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people\n     which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted\n     themselves.\n\nAaron, when asked by Moses why he has done this thing, tells a lie:\n\n     And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that\n     thou hast brought so great a sin upon them?\n\n     And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot; thou\n     knowest the people, that they are set on mischief.\n\n     For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us:\n     for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the\n     land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.\n\n     And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break\n     it off.  So they gave it to me: then I cast it into the fire,\n     and there came out this calf.\n\n     And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had\n     made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)\n\n     Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on\n     the Lord's side? let him come unto me.  And all the sons of\n     Levi gathered themselves together unto him.\n\n     And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put\n     every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate\n     to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother,\n     and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.\n\n     And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses;\n     and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.\n\nSo much for this meek father of the Jews.\n\nAnd now let us consider David and his son Solomon, the greatest of the\nBible kings, and the ancestors of Jesus Christ.\n\nJudging King David by the Bible record, I should conclude that he was a\ncruel, treacherous, and licentious savage. He lived for some time as\na bandit, robbing the subjects of the King of Gath, who had given him\nshelter. When asked about this by the king, David lied. As to the nature\nof his conduct at this time, no room is left for doubt by the story of\nNabal. David demanded blackmail of Nabal, and, on its being refused, set\nout with four hundred armed men to rob Nabal, and kill every male on his\nestate. This he was prevented from doing by Nabal's wife, who came out\nto meet David with fine presents and fine words. _Ten days later Nabal\ndied, and David married his widow._ See twenty-fifth chapter First Book\nof Samuel.\n\nDavid had seven wives, and many children. One of his favourite wives was\nBathsheba, the widow of Uriah.\n\nWhile Uriah was at \"the front,\" fighting for David, that king seduced\nhis wife, Bathsheba. To avoid discovery, David recalled Uriah from the\nwar, and bade him go home to his wife. Uriah said it would dishonour\nhim to seek ease and pleasure at home while other soldiers were enduring\nhardship at the front. The king then made the soldier drunk, but even so\ncould not prevail.\n\nTherefore David sent word to the general to place Uriah in the front of\nthe battle, where the fight was hardest. And Uriah was killed, and David\nmarried Bathsheba, who became the mother of Solomon.\n\nSo much for David's honour. Now for a sample of his humanity. I quote\nfrom the twelfth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel:\n\n     And Joab sent messengers to David, and said, I have fought\n     against Rabbah, and have taken the city of waters.\n\n     Now therefore gather the rest of the people together, and\n     encamp against the city, and take it: lest I take the city,\n     and it be called after my name.\n\n     And David gathered all the people together, and went to Rabbah,\n     and fought against it, and took it.\n\n     And he took their king's crown from off his head, the weight\n     whereof was a talent of gold with the precious stones: and it\n     was set on David's head.  And he brought forth the spoil of the\n     city in great abundance.\n\n     And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them\n     under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under axes of iron,\n     and made them pass through the brick kiln: and thus did he unto\n     all the cities of the children of Ammon.  So David and all the\n     people returned unto Jerusalem.\n\nBut nothing in David's life became him so little as his leaving of it. I\nquote from the second chapter of the First Book of Kings. David, on his\ndeathbed, is speaking to Solomon, his son:\n\n     Moreover thou knowest also what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me,\n     and what he did to the two captains of the host of Israel, unto\n     Abner the son of Ner, and unto Amasa the son of Jether, whom he\n     slew, and shed the blood of war in peace, and put the blood of war\n     upon his girdle that was about his loins, and in his shoes that\n     were on his feet.\n\n     Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head\n     go down to the grave in peace.\n\n     But show kindness unto the sons of Barzillai, the Gileadite, and\n     let them be of those that eat at thy table; for so they came to\n     me when I fled because of Absalom thy brother.\n\n     And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a\n     Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in\n     the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me\n     at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not\n     put thee to death with the sword.  Now therefore hold him not\n     guiltless: for thou art a wise man, and knowest what thou oughtest\n     to do unto him; but his hoar head bring thou down to the grave\n     with blood.\n\nThese seem to have been the last words spoken by King David. Joab was\nhis best general, and had many times saved David's throne.\n\nSolomon began by stealing the throne from his brother, the true heir.\nThen he murders the brother he has robbed, and disgraces and exiles a\npriest, who had been long a faithful friend to David, his father. Later\nhe murders Joab at the altar, and brings down the hoar head of Shimei to\nthe grave with blood.\n\nAfter which he gets him much wisdom, builds a temple, and marries many\nwives.\n\nMuch glamour has been cast upon the names of Solomon and David by their\nalleged writings. But it is now acknowledged that David wrote few, if\nany, of the Psalms, and that Solomon wrote neither Ecclesiastes nor the\nSong of Songs, though some of the Proverbs may be his.\n\nIt seems strange to me that such men as Moses, David, and Solomon should\nbe glorified by Christian men and women who execrate Henry VIII. and\nRichard III. as monsters.\n\nMy pet aversion amongst the Bible heroes is Jacob; but Abraham and Lot\nwere pitiful creatures.\n\nJacob cheated his brother out of the parental blessing, and lied about\nGod, and lied to his father to accomplish his end. He robbed his\nbrother of his birthright by trading on his necessity. He fled from his\nbrother's wrath, and went to his uncle Laban. Here he cheated his uncle\nout of his cattle and his wealth, and at last came away with his two\ncousins as his wives, one of whom had stolen her own father's gods.\n\nAbraham was the father of Ishmael by the servant-maid Hagar. At his\nwife's demand he allowed Hagar and Ishmael to be driven into the desert\nto die. And here is another pretty story of Abraham. He and his family\nare driven forth by a famine:\n\n     And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt,\n     that he said unto Sarai, his wife, Behold now, I know that thou\n     art a fair woman to look upon:\n\n     Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see\n     thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill\n     me, but they will save thee alive.\n\n     Say, I pray thee, thou are my sister; that it may be well with\n     me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.\n\n     And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt the\n     Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.\n\n     The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before\n     Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.\n\n     And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep,\n     and oxen, and he-asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and\n     she-asses, and camels.\n\n     And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues\n     because of Sarai, Abram's wife.\n\n     And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast\n     done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?\n\n     Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her\n     to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go\n     thy way.\n\n     And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him\n     away, and his wife, and all that he had.\n\nBut Abraham was so little ashamed of himself that he did the same thing\nagain, many years afterwards, and Abimelech King of Gerar, behaved to\nhim as nobly as did King Pharaoh on the former occasion.\n\nThe story of Lot is too disgusting to repeat. But what are we to think\nof his offering his daughters to the mob, and of his subsequent conduct?\n\nAnd what of Noah, who got drunk, and then cursed the whole of his sons'\ndescendants for ever, because Ham had seen him in his shame?\n\nJoseph seems to me to have been anything but an admirable character,\nand I do not see how his baseness in depriving the Egyptians of their\nliberties and their land by a corner in wheat can be condoned. Jacob\nrobbed his brother of his birthright by trading on his hunger; Joseph\nrobbed a whole people in the same way.\n\nSamson was a dissolute ruffian and murderer, who in these days would be\nhanged as a brigand.\n\nReuben committed incest. Simeon and Levi were guilty of treachery and\nmassacre. Judah was guilty of immorality and hypocrisy.\n\nJoshua was a Jewish general of the usual type. When he captured a city\nhe murdered every man, woman, and child within its walls. Here is one\nexample from the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua:\n\n     And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir; and\n     fought against it:\n\n     And he took it, and the king thereof; and all the cities\n     thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword,\n     and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he\n     left none remaining: as he had done to Hebron, so he did\n     to Debir, and to the king thereof; as he had done also to\n     Libnah, and to her king.\n\n     So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south,\n     and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he\n     left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed,\n     as the Lord God of Israel commanded.\n\n     And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and\n     all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.\n\nElijah the prophet was of the same uncompromising kind. After he had\nmocked the god Baal, and had triumphed over him by miracle, he said to\nthe Israelites:\n\n     \"Take the prophets of Baal.  _Let not one of them escape._\"\n     And they took them, and Elijah brought them down to the brook\n     Kishon, and slew them there.\n\nNow, there were 450 of the priests of Baal, all of whom Elijah the\nprophet had killed in cold blood.\n\nAnd here is a story about Elisha, another great prophet of the Jews. I\nquote from the second chapter of the Second Book of Kings.\n\n     And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up\n     by the way, there came forth little children out of the city,\n     and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up,\n     thou bald head.\n\n     And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the\n     name of the Lord.  And there came forth two she bears out of\n     the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.\n\nAfter this, Elisha assists King Jehoram and two other kings to waste and\nslaughter the Moabites, who had refused to pay tribute. You may read the\nhorrible story for yourselves in the third chapter of the Second Book\nof Kings. There was the usual massacre, but this time the trees were cut\ndown and the wells choked up.\n\nLater, Elisha cures a man of leprosy, and refuses a reward. But his\nservant runs after the man, and gets two talents of silver and some\ngarments under false pretences. When Elisha hears of this crime, he\nstrikes the servant with leprosy, _and all his seed for ever_.\n\nNow, it is not necessary for me to harp upon the conduct of these men of\nGod: what I want to point out is that these cruel and ignorant savages\nhave been saddled upon the Christian religion as heroes and as models.\n\nEven to-day the man who called David, or Moses, or Elisha by his proper\nname in an average Christian household would be regarded as a wicked\nblasphemer.\n\nAnd yet, what would a Christian congregation say of an \"Infidel\" who\ncommitted half the crimes and outrages of any one of those Bible heroes?\n\nDo you know what the Christians call Tom Paine? To this day the\nrespectable Christian Church or chapel goer shudders at the name of the\n\"infidel,\" Tom Paine. But in point of honour, of virtue, of humanity,\nand general good character, not one of the Bible heroes I have mentioned\nwas worthy to clean Tom Paine's shoes.\n\nNow, it states in the Bible that God loved Jacob, and hated Esau. Esau\nwas a _man_, and against him the Bible does not chronicle one bad act.\nBut God _hated_ Esau.\n\nAnd it states in the Bible that Elijah went up in a chariot of fire to\nheaven.\n\nAnd in the New Testament Christ or His apostles speak of Abraham, Isaac,\nand Jacob as being in heaven. Paul speaks of David as a \"man after God's\nown heart\"; Elijah and Moses come down from heaven, and appear talking\nwith Christ; and, in Hebrews, Paul praises Samuel, Jephtha, Samson, and\nDavid.\n\nMy point is not that these heroes were bad men, but that, in a book\nalleged to be the word of God, they are treated as heroes.\n\nI have been accused of showing irreverence towards these barbarous\nkings and priests. Irreverence! It is like charging a historian with\ndisrespect to the memory of Nero.\n\nI have been accused of having an animus against Moses, and David, and\nall the rest. I have no animus against any man, nor do I presume to\ncensure my fellow creatures. I only wish to show that these favourites\nof God were not admirable characters, and that therefore the Bible\ncannot be a divine revelation. As for animus: I do not believe any of\nthese men ever existed. I regard them as myths. Should one be angry with\na myth? I should as soon think of being angry with Bluebeard, or the\nGiant that Jack slew.\n\nBut I should be astonished to hear that Bluebeard had been promoted to\nthe position of a holy patriarch, and a model of all the virtues for the\nemulation of innocent children in a modern Sunday school. And I think it\nis time the Church considered itself, and told the truth about Jehovah,\nand Moses, and Joshua, and Samson.\n\nIf you fail to agree with me I can only accept your decision with\nrespectful astonishment.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF BOOKS\n\n\nFloods of sincere, but unmerited, adulation have been lavished on the\nHebrew Bible. The world has many books of higher moral and literary\nvalue. It would be easy to compile, from the words of Heretics and\nInfidels, a purer and more elevated moral guide than this \"Book of\nBooks.\"\n\nThe ethical code of the Old Testament is no longer suitable as the rule\nof life. The moral and intellectual advance of the human race has left\nit behind.\n\nThe historical books of the Old Testament are largely pernicious, and\noften obscene. These books describe, without disapproval, polygamy,\nslavery, concubinage, lying and deceit, treachery, incest, murder, wars\nof plunder, wars of conquest, massacre of prisoners of war, massacre of\nwomen and of children, cruelty to animals; and such immoral, dishonest,\nshameful, or dastardly deeds as those of Solomon, David, Abraham, Jacob,\nand Lot.\n\nThe ethical code of the Old Testament does not teach the sacredness\nof truth, does not teach religious tolerance, nor humanity, nor human\nbrotherhood, nor peace.\n\nIts morality is crude. Much that is noblest in modern thought has no\nplace in the \"Book of Books.\" For example, take these words of Herbert\nSpencer's:\n\n     Absolute morality is the regulation of conduct in such way\n     that pain shall not be inflicted.\n\nThere is nothing so comprehensive, nothing so deep as that in the Bible.\nThat covers all the moralities of the Ten Commandments, and all the\nEthics of the Law and the Prophets, in one short sentence, and leaves a\nhandsome surplus over.\n\nNote next this, from Kant:\n\n     What are the aims which are at the same time duties?  They\n     are the perfecting of ourselves, and the happiness of others.\n\nI do not know a Bible sentence so purely moral as that. And in what part\nof the Bible shall we find a parallel to the following sentence, from an\nAgnostic newspaper:\n\n     Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of action are\n     helps to the children of men in their search for wisdom.\n\nTom Paine left Moses and Isaiah centuries behind when he wrote:\n\n     The world is my country: to do good my religion.\n\nRobert Ingersoll, another \"Infidel,\" surpassed Solomon when he said:\n\n     The object of life is to be happy, the place to be happy is\n     here, the time to be happy is now, the way to be happy is by\n     making others happy.\n\nWhich simple sentence contains more wisdom than all the pessimism of\nthe King of kings. And again, Ingersoll went beyond the sociological\nconception of the Prophets when he wrote:\n\n     And let us do away for ever with the idea that the care of the\n     sick, of the helpless, is a charity.  It is not a charity: it\n     is a duty.  It is something to be done for our own sakes.  It\n     is no more a charity than it is to pave or light the streets,\n     no more a charity than it is to have a system of sewers.  It\n     is all for the purpose of protecting society, and civilising\n     ourselves.\n\nI will now put together a few sayings of Pagans and Unbelievers as an\nexample of non-biblical morality:\n\n     Truth is the pole-star of morality, by it alone can we steer.\n     Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent\n     man not speaking the truth?  Abhor dissimulation.  To know the\n     truth and fear to speak it: that is cowardice.  One thing here\n     is worth a good deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice,\n     with a benevolent disposition, even to liars and unjust men.\n\n     He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, for he makes\n     himself bad.  The practice of religion involves as a first\n     principle a loving compassionate heart for all creatures.\n     Religion means self-sacrifice.  A loving heart is the great\n     requirement: not to oppress, not to destroy, not to exalt\n     oneself by treading down others; but to comfort and befriend\n     those in suffering.  Like as a mother at the risk of her life\n     watches over her only child, so also let every one cultivate\n     towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind.\n\n     Man's great business is to improve his mind.  What is it to\n     you whether another is guilty or guiltless?  Come, friend,\n     atone for your own guilt.\n\n     Virtue consists in contempt for death.  Why should we cling\n     to this perishable body?  In the eye of the wise the only\n     thing it is good for is to benefit one's fellow creatures.\n\n     Treat others as you wish them to treat you.  Do not return\n     evil for evil.  Our deeds, whether good or evil, follow us\n     like shadows.\n\n     Never will man attain full moral stature until woman is free.\n     Cherish and reverence little children.  Let the slave cease,\n     and the master of slaves cease.\n\n     To conquer your enemy by force increases his resentment.\n     Conquer him by love and you will have no after-grief.\n     Victory breeds hatred.\n\n     I look for no recompense--not even to be born in heaven--\n     but seek the benefit of men, to bring back those who have\n     gone astray, to enlighten those living in dismal error, to\n     put away all sources of sorrow and pain in the world.\n\n     I cannot have pleasure while another grieves and I have\n     power to help him.\n\nThose who regard the Bible as the \"Book of Books,\" and believe it to be\ninvaluable and indispensable to the world, must have allowed their early\nassociations or religious sentiment to mislead them.\n\nCarlyle is more moral than Jeremiah, Ruskin is superior to Isaiah;\nIngersoll, the Atheist, is a nobler moralist and a better man than\nMoses; Plato and Marcus Aurelius are wiser than Solomon; Sir Thomas\nMore, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, Matthew Arnold, and Emerson are worth\nmore to us than all the Prophets.\n\nI hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some parts of the Old\nTestament; but I seriously think that the loss of the first fourteen\nbooks would be a distinct gain to the world. For the rest, there is\nconsiderable literary and some ethical value in Job (which is not\nJewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in the Song of Solomon (which\nis an erotic love song), and in parts of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah,\nEzekiel, and Amos. But I don't think any of these books equal to Henry\nGeorge's _Progress and Poverty_, or William Morris' _News from Nowhere_.\nOf course, I am not blaming Moses and the Prophets: they could only tell\nus what they knew.\n\nThe Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is nothing\nin those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the rack-renter, the\njerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine,\nthe gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the\nreligious persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the\nfox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs and cattle.\nThere is nothing about \"cultivating towards all beings a bounteous\nfriendly mind,\" nothing about liberty of speech and conscience, nothing\nabout the wrong of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness;\nnothing against anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and\nforgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences\nof the possessions and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a\nmoral code the Commandments amount to very little.\n\nMoreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology, and\nscience.\n\nIt relates childish stories of impossible miracles as facts.\n\nIt presents a low idea of God.\n\nIt gives an erroneous account of the relations between God and man.\n\nIt fosters international hatred.\n\nIt fosters religious pride and fanaticism.\n\nIts penal code is horrible.\n\nIts texts have been used for nearly two thousand years in defence of\nwar, slavery, religious persecution, and the slaughter of \"witches\" and\nof \"sorcerers.\"\n\nIn a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have perpetrated massacre and\noutrage with the blood-bolstered phrases of the Bible on their lips.\n\nIn a thousand trials the cruel witness of Moses has sent innocent women\nto a painful death.\n\nAnd always when an apology or a defence of the barbarities of human\nslavery was needed it was sought for and found in the Holy Bible.\n\nRenan says:\n\n     In all ancient Christian literature there is not one word that\n     tells the slave to revolt, or that tells the master to liberate\n     the slave, or even that touches the problem of public right\n     which arises out of slavery.\n\nMr. Remsburg, in his book, _The Bible_, shows that in America slavery\nwas defended by the churches on the authority of the sacred Scriptures.\nHe says:\n\n     The Fugitive Slave law, which made us a nation of kidnappers,\n     derived its authority from the New Testament.  Paul had\n     established a precedent by returning a fugitive slave to\n     his master.\n\nMr. Remsburg quotes freely from the sermons and speeches of Christian\nministers to show the influence of the Bible in upholding slavery. Here\nare some of his many examples:\n\n     The Rev. Alexander Campbell wrote: \"There is not one verse in\n     the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it.  It is\n     not, then, we conclude, immoral.\"\n\n     Said the Rev. Mr. Crawder, Methodist, of Virginia: \"Slavery is\n     not only countenanced, permitted, and regulated by the Bible,\n     but it was positively instituted by God Himself.\"\n\nI shall quote no more on the subject of slavery. That inhuman\ninstitution was defended by the churches, and the appeal of the churches\nwas to the Bible.\n\nAs to witchcraft, the Rev. T. Rhondda Williams says that in one century\na hundred thousand women were killed for witchcraft in Germany. Mr.\nRemsburg offers still more terrible evidence. He says:\n\n     One thousand were burned at Como in one year; eight hundred\n     were burned at Wurzburg in one year; five hundred perished\n     at Geneva in three months; eighty were burned in a single\n     village of Savoy; nine women were burned in a single fire\n     at Leith; sixty were hanged in Suffolk; three thousand were\n     legally executed during one session of Parliament, while\n     thousands more were put to death by mobs; Remy, a Christian\n     judge, executed eight hundred; six hundred were burned by\n     one bishop at Bamburg; Bogult burned six hundred at St. Cloud;\n     thousands were put to death by the Lutherans of Norway and\n     Sweden; Catholic Spain butchered thousands; Presbyterians\n     were responsible for the death of four thousand in Scotland;\n     fifty thousand were sentenced to death during the reign of\n     Francis I.; seven thousand died at Treves; the number killed\n     in Paris in a few months is declared to have been \"almost\n     infinite.\"  Dr. Sprenger places the total number of executions\n     for witchcraft in Europe at _nine millions_.  For centuries\n     witch fires burned in nearly every town of Europe, and this\n     Bible text, \"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,\" was the\n     torch that kindled them.\n\nCount up the terrible losses in the many religious wars of the world,\nadd in the massacres, the martyrdoms, the tortures for religion's\nsake; put to the sum the long tale of witchcraft murders; remember what\nslavery has been; and then ask yourselves whether the Book of Books\ndeserves all the eulogy that has been laid upon it.\n\nI believe that to-day all manner of evil passions are fostered, and\nall the finer motions of the human spirit are retarded, by the habit of\nreading those savage old books of the Jews as the word of God.\n\nI do not think the Bible, in its present form, is a fit book to place\nin the hands of children, and it certainly is not a fit book to send out\nfor the \"salvation\" of savage and ignorant people.\n\n\n\n\nOUR HEAVENLY FATHER\n\n\nThe Rev. T. Rhondda Williams, in _Shall We Understand the Bible?_ shows\nvery clearly the gradual evolution of the idea of God amongst the Jews\nfrom a lower to a higher conception.\n\nHaving dealt with the lower conception, let us now consider the higher.\n\nThe highest conception of God is supposed to be the Christian conception\nof God as a Heavenly Father. This conception credits the Supreme Being\nwith supernal tenderness and mercy--\"God is Love.\" That is a very\nlofty, poetical, and gratifying conception, but it is open to one fatal\nobjection--it is not true.\n\nFor this Heavenly Father, whose nature is Love, is also the All-knowing\nand All-powerful Creator of the world.\n\nBeing All-powerful and All-knowing, He has power, and had always power,\nto create any kind of world He chose. Being a God of Love, He would not\nchoose to create a world in which hate and pain should have a place.\n\nBut there is evil in the world. There has been always evil in the world.\nWhy did a good and loving God allow evil to enter the world? Being\nAll-Powerful and All-knowing, He could have excluded evil. Being good,\nHe would hate evil. Being a God of Love He would wish to exclude evil.\nWhy, then, did He permit evil to enter?\n\nThe world is full of sorrow, of pain, of hatred and crime, and strife\nand war. All life is a perpetual deadly struggle for existence. The law\nof nature is the law of prey.\n\nIf God is a tender, loving, All-knowing, and All-powerful Heavenly\nFather, why did He build a world on cruel lines? Why does He permit evil\nand pain to continue? Why does He not give the world peace, and health,\nand happiness, and virtue?\n\nIn the New Testament Christ compares God, as Heavenly Father to Man, to\nan earthly father, representing God as more benevolent and tender: \"How\nmuch more your Father which is in heaven?\"\n\nWe may, then, on the authority of the Founder of Christianity, compare\nthe Christian Heavenly Father with the human father. And in doing so\nwe shall find that Christ was not justified in claiming that God is a\nbetter father to Man than Man is to his own children. We shall find that\nthe poetical and pleasing theory of a Heavenly Father, and God of Love\nis a delusion.\n\n\"Who among you, if his child asks bread, will give him a stone?\" None\namongst us. But in the great famines, as in India and Russia, God allows\nmillions to die of starvation. These His children pray to Him for bread.\nHe leaves them to die. Is it not so?\n\nGod made the sunshine, sweet children, gracious women; green hills, blue\nseas; music, laughter, love, humour; the palm tree, the hawthorn buds,\nthe \"sweet-briar wind\"; the nightingale and the rose.\n\nBut God made the earthquake, the volcano, the cyclone; the shark,\nthe viper, the tiger, the octopus, the poison berry; and the deadly\nloathsome germs of cholera, consumption, typhoid, smallpox, and the\nblack death. God has permitted famine, pestilence, and war. He has\npermitted martyrdom, witch-burning, slavery, massacre, torture, and\nhuman sacrifice. He has for millions of years looked down upon the\nignorance, the misery, the crimes of men. He has been at once the\nauthor and the audience of the pitiful, unspeakable, long-drawn and\nfar-stretched tragedy of earthly life. Is it not so?\n\nFor thousands of years--perhaps for millions of years--the generations\nof men prayed to God for help, for comfort, for guidance. God was deaf,\nand dumb, and blind.\n\nMen of science strove to read the riddle of life; to guide and to\nsuccour their fellow creatures. The priests and followers of God\npersecuted and slew these men of science. God made no sign. Is it not\nso?\n\nTo-day men of science are trying to conquer the horrors of cancer and\nsmallpox, and rabies and consumption. But not from Burning Bush nor Holy\nHill, nor by the mouth of priest or prophet does our Heavenly Father\nutter a word of counsel or encouragement.\n\nMillions of innocent dumb animals have been subjected to the horrible\ntortures of vivisection in the frantic endeavours of men to find a\nway of escape from the fell destroyers of the human race; and God has\nallowed the piteous brutes to suffer anguish, when He could have saved\nthem by revealing to Man the secret for which he so cruelly sought. Is\nit not so?\n\n\"Nature is red in beak and claw.\" On land and in sea the animal creation\nchase and maim, and slay and devour each other. The beautiful swallow on\nthe wing devours the equally beautiful gnat. The graceful flying-fish,\nlike a fair white bird, goes glancing above the blue magnificence of\nthe tropical seas. His flight is one of terror; he is pursued by the\nravenous dolphin. The ichneumon-fly lays its eggs under the skin of the\ncaterpillar. The eggs are hatched by the warmth of the caterpillar's\nblood. They produce a brood of larvae which devour the caterpillar\nalive. A pretty child dances on the village green. Her feet crush\ncreeping things: there is a busy ant or blazoned beetle, with its back\nbroken, writhing in the dust, unseen. A germ flies from a stagnant\npool, and the laughing child, its mother's darling, dies dreadfully\nof diphtheria. A tidal wave rolls landward, and twenty thousand human\nbeings are drowned, or crushed to death. A volcano bursts suddenly into\neruption, and a beautiful city is a heap of ruins, and its inhabitants\nare charred or mangled corpses. And the Heavenly Father, who is Love,\nhas power to save, and makes no sign. Is it not so?\n\nBlindness, epilepsy, leprosy, madness, fall like a dreadful blight\nupon a myriad of God's children, and the Heavenly Father gives neither\nguidance nor consolation. Only man helps man. Only man pities; only man\n_tries_ to save.\n\nMillions of harmless women have been burned as witches. God, our\nHeavenly Father, has power to save them. He allows them to suffer and\ndie.\n\nGod knew that those women were being tortured and burnt on a false\ncharge. He knew that the infamous murders were in His name. He knew\nthat the whole fabric of crime was due to the human reading of His\n\"revelation\" to man. He could have saved the women; He could have\nenlightened their persecutors; He could have blown away the terror, the\ncruelty, and the ignorance of His priests and worshippers with a breath.\n\nAnd He was silent. He allowed the armies of poor women to be tortured\nand murdered in His name. Is it not so?\n\nWill you, then, compare the Heavenly Father with a father among men? Is\nthere any earthly father who would allow his children to suffer as God\nallows Man to suffer? If a man had knowledge and power to prevent or\nto abolish war and ignorance and hunger and disease; if a man had the\nknowledge and the power to abolish human error and human suffering and\nhuman wrong and did not do it, we should call him an inhuman monster, a\ncruel fiend. Is it not so?\n\nBut God has knowledge and power, and we are asked to regard Him as a\nHeavenly Father, and a God of infinite wisdom, and infinite mercy, and\ninfinite love.\n\nThe Christians used to tell us, and some still tell us, that this\nHeavenly Father of infinite love and mercy would doom the creatures He\nhad made to Hell--for their _sins_. That, having created us imperfect,\nHe would punish our imperfections with everlasting torture in a lake\nof everlasting fire. They used to tell us that this good God allowed a\nDevil to come on earth and tempt man to his ruin. They used to say this\nDevil would win more souls than Christ could win: that there should be\n\"more goats than sheep.\"\n\nTo escape from these horrible theories, the Christians (some of them)\nhave thrown over the doctrines of Hell and the Devil.\n\nBut without a Devil how can we maintain a belief in a God of love and\nkindness? With a good God, and a bad God (or Devil), one might get\nalong; for then the good might be ascribed to God, and the evil to the\nDevil. And that is what the old Persians did in their doctrine of Ormuzd\nand Ahrimann. But with no Devil the belief in a merciful and loving\nHeavenly Father becomes impossible.\n\nIf God blesses, who curses? If God saves, who damns? If God helps, who\nharms?\n\nThis belief in a \"Heavenly Father,\" like the belief in the perfection of\nthe Bible, drives its votaries into weird and wonderful positions. For\nexample, a Christian wrote to me about an animal called the aye-aye. He\nsaid:\n\n     There is a little animal called an aye-aye.  This animal has\n     two hands.  Each hand has five fingers.  The peculiar thing\n     about these hands is that the middle finger is elongated a great\n     deal--it is about twice as long as the others.  This is to enable\n     it to scoop a special sort of insect out of special cracks in\n     the special trees it frequents.  Now, how did the finger begin\n     to elongate?  A little lengthening would be absolutely no good,\n     as the cracks in the trees are 2 inches or 3 inches deep.  It\n     must have varied from the ordinary length to one twice as long\n     at once.  There is no other way.  Where does natural selection\n     come in?  In this, as in scores of other instances, it shows\n     the infinite goodness of God.\n\nNow, how does the creation of this long finger show the \"infinite\ngoodness of God\"? The infinite goodness of God to whom? To the animal\nwhose special finger enables him to catch the insect? Then what about\nthe insect? Where does he come in? Does not the long finger of the\nanimal show the infinite badness of God to the insect?\n\nWhat of the infinite goodness of God in teaching the cholera microbe to\nfeed on man? What of the infinite goodness of God in teaching the grub\nof the ichneumon-fly to eat up the cabbage caterpillar alive?\n\nI see no infinite goodness here, but only the infinite foolishness of\nsentimental superstition.\n\nIf a man fell into the sea, and saw a shark coming, I cannot fancy him\npraising the infinite goodness of God in giving the shark so large a\nmouth. The greyhound's speed is a great boon to the greyhound; but it is\nno boon to the hare.\n\nBut this theory of a merciful, and loving Heavenly Father is vital to\nthe Christian religion.\n\nDestroy the idea of the Heavenly Father, who is Love, and Christianity\nis a heap of ruins. For there is no longer a benevolent God to build our\nhopes upon; and Jesus Christ, whose glory is a newer revelation of God,\nhas not revealed Him truly, as He is, but only as Man fain would believe\nHim to be.\n\nAnd I claim that this Heavenly Father is a myth: that in face of a\nknowledge of life and the world we cannot reasonably believe in Him.\n\nThere is no Heavenly Father watching tenderly over us, His children. He\nis the baseless shadow of a wistful human dream.\n\n\n\n\nPRAYER AND PRAISE\n\n\nAs to prayer and praise.\n\nChristians believe that God is just, that He is all-wise and\nall-knowing.\n\nIf God is just, will He not do justice without being entreated of men?\n\nIf God is all wise, and knows all that happens, will He not know what is\nfor man's good better than man can tell Him?\n\nIf He knows better than Man knows what is best for man, and if He is a\njust God and a loving Father, will He not do right without any advice or\nreminder from Man?\n\nIf He is a just God, will He give us less than justice unless we pray to\nHim; or will He give us more than justice because we importune Him?\n\nTo ask God for His love, or for His grace, or for any worldly benefit\nseems to me unreasonable.\n\nIf God knows we need His grace, or if He knows we need some help or\nbenefit, He will give it to us if we deserve it. If we do not deserve\nit, or do not need what we ask for, it would not be just nor wise of Him\nto grant our prayer.\n\nTo pray to God is to insult Him. What would a man think if his children\nknelt and begged for his love or for their daily bread? He would think\nhis children showed a very low conception of their father's sense of\nduty and affection.\n\nThen Christians think God answers prayer. How can they think that?\n\nIn the many massacres, and famines, and pestilences has God answered\nprayer? As we learn more and more of the laws of Nature we put less and\nless reliance on the effect of prayer.\n\nWhen fever broke out, men used to run to the priest: now they run to\nthe doctor. In old times when plague struck a city, the priests marched\nthrough the streets bearing the Host, and the people knelt to pray;\nnow the authorities serve out soap and medicine and look sharply to the\ndrains.\n\nAnd yet there still remains a superstitious belief in prayer, and most\nsurprising are some of its manifestations.\n\nFor instance, I went recently to see Wilson Barrett in _The Silver\nKing_. Wilfred Denver, a drunken gambler, follows a rival to kill him.\nHe does not kill him, but he thinks he has killed him. He flies from\njustice.\n\nNow this man Denver leaves London by a fast train for Liverpool. Between\nLondon and Rugby he jumps out of the train, and, after limping many\nmiles, goes to an inn, orders dinner and a private room, and asks for\nthe evening paper.\n\nWhile he waits for the paper he kneels down and prays to God, for the\nsake of wife and children, to allow him to escape.\n\nAnd, directly after, in comes a girl with a paper, and Denver reads\nhow the train he rode in caught fire, and how all the passengers in the\nfirst three coaches were burnt to cinders.\n\nDown goes Denver on his knees, _and thanks God for listening to his\nprayer_.\n\nAnd not a soul in the audience laughed. God, to allow a murderer to\nescape from the law, has burnt to death a lot of innocent passengers,\nand Wilfred Denver is piously grateful. And nobody laughed!\n\nBut Christians tell us they _know_ that prayer is efficacious. And to\nthem it may be so in some measure. Perhaps, if a man pray for strength\nto resist temptation, or for guidance in time of perplexity, and if he\nhave _faith_, his prayer shall avail him something.\n\nWhy? Not because God will hear, or answer, but for two natural reasons.\n\nFirst, the act of prayer is emotional, and so calms the man who prays,\nfor much of his excitement is worked off. It is so when a sick man\ngroans: it eases his pain. It is so when a woman weeps: it relieves her\novercharged heart.\n\nSecondly, the act of prayer gives courage or confidence, in proportion\nto the faith of him that prays. If a man has to cross a deep ravine by\na narrow plank, and if his heart fail him, and he prays for God's\nhelp, believing that he will get it, he will walk his plank with more\nconfidence. If he prays for help against a temptation, he is really\nappealing to his own better nature; he is rousing up his dormant faculty\nof resistance and desire for righteousness, and so rises from his knees\nin a sweeter and calmer frame of mind.\n\nFor myself, I never pray, and never feel the need of prayer. And though\nI admit, as above, that it may have some present advantage, yet I\nam inclined to think that it is bought too dearly at the price of a\ndecrease in our self-reliance. I do not think it is good for a man to be\nalways asking for help, for benefits, or for pardon. It seems to me that\nsuch a habit must tend to weaken character.\n\n\"He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.\" It\nis better to work for the general good, to help our weak or friendless\nfellow-creatures, than to pray for our own grace, or benefit, or pardon.\nWork is nobler than prayer, and far more dignified.\n\nAnd as to praise, I cannot imagine the Creator of the Universe wanting\nmen's praise. Does a wise man prize the praise of fools? Does a strong\nman value the praise of the weak? Does any man of wisdom and power care\nfor the applause of his inferiors? We make God into a puny man, a man\nfull of vanity and \"love of approbation,\" when we confer on Him the\nimpertinence of our prayers and our adoration.\n\nWhile there is so much grief and misery and unmerited and avoidable\nsuffering in the world, it is pitiful to see the Christian millions\nsquander such a wealth of time and energy and money on praise and\nprayer.\n\nIf you were a human father, would you rather your children praised you\nand neglected each other, or that brother should stand by brother and\nsister cherish sister? Then \"how much more your Father which is in\nHeaven?\"\n\nTwelve millions of our British people on the brink of starvation! In\nChristian England hundreds of thousands of thieves, knaves, idlers,\ndrunkards, cowards, and harlots; and fortunes spent on churches and the\npraise of God.\n\nIf the Bible had not habituated us to the idea of a barbarous God who\nwas always ravenous for praise and sacrifice, we could not tolerate the\nmockery of \"Divine Service\" by well-fed and respectable Christians in\nthe midst of untaught ignorance, unchecked roguery, unbridled vice,\nand the degradation and defilement and ruin of weak women and little\nchildren. Seven thousand pounds to repair a chapel to the praise and\nglory of God, and under its very walls you may buy a woman's soul for a\nfew pieces of silver.\n\nI cannot imagine a God who would countenance such a religion. I cannot\nunderstand why Christians are not ashamed of it. To me the national\naffectation of piety and holiness resembles a white shirt put on over a\ndirty skin.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NEW TESTAMENT THE RESURRECTION\n\nVALUE OF THE EVIDENCE IN LAW\n\n\nChristianity as a religion must, I am told, stand or fall with the\nclaims that Christ was divine, and that He rose from the dead and\nascended into Heaven. Archdeacon Wilson, in a sermon at Rochdale,\ndescribed the divinity and Resurrection of Christ as \"the central\ndoctrines of Christianity.\" The question we have to consider here is the\nquestion of whether these central doctrines are true.\n\nChristians are fond of saying that the Resurrection is one of the best\nattested facts in history. I hold that the evidence for the Resurrection\nwould not be listened to in a court of law, and is quite inadmissible in\na court of cool and impartial reason.\n\nFirst of all, then, what is the fact which this evidence is supposed to\nprove? The fact alleged is a most marvellous miracle, and one upon which\na religion professed by some hundreds of millions of human beings is\nfounded. The fact alleged is that nearly two thousand years ago God came\ninto the world as a man, that He was known as Jesus of Nazareth, that He\nwas crucified, died upon the cross, was laid in a tomb, and on the third\nday came to life again, left His tomb, and subsequently ascended into\nHeaven.\n\nThe fact alleged, then, is miraculous and important, and the evidence in\nproof of such a fact should be overwhelmingly strong.\n\nWe should demand stronger evidence in support of a thing alleged to have\nhappened a thousand years ago than we should demand in support of a fact\nalleged to have happened yesterday.\n\nThe Resurrection is alleged to have happened eighteen centuries ago.\n\nWe should demand stronger evidence in support of an alleged fact which\nwas outside human experience than we should demand in support of a fact\ncommon to human experience.\n\nThe incarnation of a God in human form, the resurrection of a man or a\nGod from the dead, are facts outside human experience.\n\nWe should demand stronger evidence in support of an alleged fact when\nthe establishment of that fact was of great importance to millions of\nmen and women, than we should demand when the truth or falsity of the\nalleged fact mattered very little to anybody.\n\nThe alleged fact of the Resurrection is of immense importance to\nhundreds of millions of people.\n\nWe should demand stronger evidence in support of an alleged fact when\nmany persons were known to have strong political, sentimental, or\nmercenary motives for proving the fact alleged, than we should demand\nwhen no serious interest would be affected by a decision for or against\nthe fact alleged.\n\nThere are millions of men and women known to have strong\nmotives--sentimental, political, or mercenary--for proving the verity of\nthe Resurrection.\n\nOn all these counts we are justified in demanding the strongest of\nevidence for the alleged fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead.\n\nThe more abnormal or unusual the occurrence, the weightier should be the\nevidence of its truth.\n\nIf a man told a mixed company that Captain Webb swam the English\nChannel, he would have a good chance of belief.\n\nThe incident happened but a few years ago; it was reported in all the\nnewspapers of the day. It is not in itself an impossible thing for a man\nto do.\n\nBut if the same man told the same audience that five hundred years ago\nan Irish sailor had swum from Holyhead to New York, his statement would\nbe received with less confidence.\n\nBecause five centuries is a long time, there is no credible record of\nthe feat, and we _cannot believe_ any man capable of swimming about four\nthousand miles.\n\nLet us look once more at the statement made by the believers in the\nResurrection.\n\nWe are asked to believe that the all-powerful eternal God, the God\nwho created twenty millions of suns, came down to earth, was born of a\nwoman, was crucified, was dead, was laid in a tomb for three days, and\nthen came to life again, and ascended into Heaven.\n\nWhat is the nature of the evidence produced in support of this\ntremendous miracle?\n\nIs there any man or woman alive who has seen God? No. Is there any man\nor woman alive who has seen Christ? No.\n\nThere is no human being alive who can say that God exists or that Christ\nexists. The most they can say is that they _believe_ that God and Christ\nexist.\n\nNo historian claims that any God has been seen on earth for nearly\nnineteen centuries.\n\nThe Christians deny the assertions of all other religions as to divine\nvisits; and all the other religions deny their assertions about God and\nChrist.\n\nThere is no reason why God should have come down to earth, to be born\nof a woman, and die on the cross. He could have convinced and won over\nmankind without any such act. He has _not_ convinced or won over mankind\nby that act. Not one-third of mankind are professing Christians to-day,\nand of those not one in ten is a true Christian and a true believer.\n\nThe Resurrection, therefore, seems to have been unreasonable,\nunnecessary, and futile. It is also contrary to science and to human\nexperience.\n\nWhat is the nature of the evidence?\n\nThe common idea of the man in the street is the idea that the Gospels\nwere written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; that Matthew, Mark,\nLuke, and John were contemporaries of Christ; and that the Gospels were\nwritten and circulated during the lives of the authors.\n\nThere is no evidence to support these beliefs. There is no evidence,\noutside the New Testament, that any of the Apostles ever existed. We\nknow nothing about Paul, Peter, John, Mark, Luke, or Matthew, except\nwhat is told in the New Testament.\n\nOutside the Testament there is not a word of historical evidence of\nthe divinity of Christ, of the Virgin Birth, of the Resurrection or\nAscension.\n\nTherefore it is obvious that, before we can be expected to believe the\ntremendous story of the Resurrection, we must be shown overwhelming\nevidence of the authenticity of the Scriptures.\n\nBefore you can prove your miracle you have to prove your book.\n\nSuppose the case to come before a judge. Let us try to imagine what\nwould happen:\n\nCOUNSEL: M'lud, may it please your ludship. It is stated by Paul of\nTarsus that he and others worked miracles--\n\nTHE JUDGE: Do you intend to call Paul of Tarsus?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud. He is dead.\n\nJUDGE: Did he make a proper sworn deposition?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud. But some of his letters are extant, and I propose to\nput them in.\n\nJUDGE: Are these letters affidavits? Are they witnessed and attested?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Are they signed?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Are they in the handwriting of this Paul of Tarsus?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud. They are copies; the originals are lost.\n\nJUDGE: Who was Paul of Tarsus?\n\nCOUNSEL: M'lud, he was the apostle to the Gentiles.\n\nJUDGE: You intend to call some of these Gentiles?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud. There are none living.\n\nJUDGE: But you don't mean to, say--how long has this shadowy witness,\nPaul of Tarsus, been dead?\n\nCOUNSEL: Not two thousand years, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Thousand years dead? Can you bring evidence to prove that he was\never alive?\n\nCOUNSEL: Circumstantial, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: I cannot allow you to read the alleged statements of a\nhypothetical witness who is acknowledged to have been dead for nearly\ntwo thousand years. I cannot admit the alleged letters of Paul as\nevidence.\n\nCOUNSEL: I shall show that the act of resurrection was witnessed by one\nMary Magdalene, by a Roman soldier--\n\nJUDGE: What is the soldier's name?\n\nCOUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Call him.\n\nCOUNSEL: He is dead, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Deposition?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Strike out his evidence. Call Mary Magdalene.\n\nCOUNSEL: She is dead, m'lud. But I shall show that she told the\ndisciples--\n\nJUDGE: What she told the disciples is not evidence.\n\nCOUNSEL: Well, m'lud, I shall give the statements of Matthew, Mark,\nLuke, and John. Matthew states very plainly that--\n\nJUDGE: Of course, you intend to call Matthew?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud. He is--he is dead.\n\nJUDGE: It seems to me, that to prove this resurrection you will have to\nperform a great many more. Are Mark and John dead, also?\n\nCOUNSEL: Yes, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Who were they?\n\nCOUNSEL: I--I don't know, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: These statements of theirs, to which you allude: are they in\ntheir own handwriting?\n\nCOUNSEL: May it please your ludship, they did not write them. The\nstatements are not given as their own statements, but only as statements\n\"according to them.\" The statements are really copies of translations\nof copies of translations of statements supposed to be based upon what\nsomeone told Matthew, and--\n\nJUDGE: Who copied and translated, and re-copied and re-translated, this\nhearsay evidence?\n\nCOUNSEL: I do not know, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Were the copies seen and revised by the authors? Did they correct\nthe proofs?\n\nCOUNSEL: I don't know, m'lud.\n\nJUDGE: Don't know? Why?\n\nCOUNSEL: There is no evidence that the documents had ever been heard of\nuntil long after the authors were dead.\n\nJUDGE: I never heard of such a case. I cannot allow you to quote these\npapers. They are not evidence. Have you _any_ witnesses?\n\nCOUNSEL: No, m'lud.\n\n\nThat fancy dialogue about expresses the legal value of the evidence for\nthis important miracle.\n\nBut, legal value not being the only value, let us now consider the\nevidence as mere laymen.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOSPEL WITNESSES\n\n\nAs men of the world, with some experience in sifting and weighing\nevidence, what can we say about the evidence for the Resurrection?\n\nIn the first place, there is no acceptable evidence outside the New\nTestament, and the New Testament is the authority of the Christian\nChurch.\n\nIn the second place, there is nothing to show that the Gospels were\nwritten by eye-witnesses of the alleged fact.\n\nIn the third place, the Apostle Paul was not an eye-witness of the\nalleged fact.\n\nIn the fourth place, although there is some evidence that some Gospels\nwere known in the first century, there is no evidence that the Gospels\nas we know them were then in existence.\n\nIn the fifth place, even supposing that the existing Gospels and the\nEpistles of Paul were originally composed by men who knew Christ, and\nthat these men were entirely honest and capable witnesses, there is no\ncertainty that what they wrote has come down to us unaltered.\n\nThe only serious evidence of the Resurrection being in the books of the\nNew Testament, we are bound to scrutinise those books closely, as on\ntheir testimony the case for Christianity entirely depends.\n\nWho, then, are the witnesses? They are the authors of the Gospels, the\nActs, and the Epistles of Peter and of Paul.\n\nWho were these authors? Matthew and John are \"supposed\" to have been\ndisciples of Christ; but were they? I should say Matthew certainly\nwas not contemporary with Jesus, for in the last chapter of the Gospel\naccording to Matthew we read as follows:\n\n     Now while they were going behold some of the guard came into\n     the city, and told unto the chief priests all the things that\n     were come to pass.  And when they were assembled with the elders,\n     and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers,\n     saying, Say yet his disciples came by night and stole him away\n     while we slept.  And if this come to the governor's ears, we\n     will persuade him, and rid you of care.  So they took the money,\n     and did as they were taught: and this saying was spread abroad\n     among the Jews, and continueth until this day.\n\nMatthew tells us that the saying \"continueth until this day.\" Which day?\nThe day on which Matthew is writing or speaking. Now, a man does not say\nof a report or belief that it \"continueth until this day\" unless that\nreport or belief originated a long time ago, and the use of such a\nphrase suggests that Matthew told or repeated the story after a lapse of\nmany years.\n\nThat apart, there is no genuine historical evidence, outside the New\nTestament, that such men as Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John\never existed.\n\nNeither can it be claimed that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John actually\nwrote the Gospels which bear their names. These Gospels are called\nthe Gospel \"according to Matthew,\" the Gospel \"according to Mark,\" the\nGospel \"according to Luke,\" and the Gospel \"according to John.\" They\nwere, then, Gospels condensed, paraphrased, or copied from some older\nGospels, or they were Gospels taken down from dictation, or composed\nfrom the verbal statements of the men to whom they were attributed.\n\nThus it appears that the Gospels are merely reports or copies of some\nverbal or written statements made by four men of whom there is no\nhistoric record whatever. How are we to know that these men ever lived?\nHow are we to know that they were correctly reported, if they ever spoke\nor wrote? How can we rely upon such evidence after nineteen hundred\nyears, and upon a statement of facts so important and so marvellous?\n\nThe same objection applies to the evidence of Peter and of Paul. Many\ncritics and scholars deny the existence of Peter and Paul. There is no\ntrustworthy evidence to oppose to that conclusion.\n\nThat by the way. Let us now examine the evidence given in these men's\nnames. The earliest witness is Paul. Paul does not corroborate the\nGospel writers' statements as to the life or the teachings of Christ;\nbut he does vehemently assert that Christ rose from the dead.\n\nWhat is Paul's evidence worth? He did not see Christ crucified. He did\nnot see His dead body. He did not see Him quit the tomb. He did not see\nHim in the flesh after He had quitted the tomb. He was not present when\nHe ascended into Heaven. Therefore Paul is not an eye-witness of the\nacts of Christ, nor of the death of Christ, nor of the Resurrection of\nChrist, nor of the Ascension of Christ.\n\nIf Paul ever lived, which none can prove and many deny, his evidence for\nthe Resurrection was only hearsay evidence.\n\nPaul, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, says that after His\nResurrection Christ was \"seen of about five hundred persons; of whom the\ngreat part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.\"\n\nBut none of the Gospels mentions this five hundred, nor does Paul give\nthe name of any one of them, nor is the testimony of any one of them\npreserved, in the Testament or elsewhere.\n\nNow, let us remember how difficult it was to disprove the statements of\nthe claimant in the Tichborne Case, although the trial took place in the\nlifetime of the claimant, and although most of the witnesses knew\nthe real Roger Tichborne well; and let us also bear in mind that many\ncritics and scholars dispute the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, as\nto which strong contemporary evidence is forthcoming, and then let\nus ask ourselves whether we shall be justified in believing such a\nmarvellous story as this of the Resurrection upon the evidence of men\nwhose existence cannot be proved, and in support of whose statements\nthere is not a scrap of historical evidence of any kind.\n\nNor is this all. The stories of the Resurrection as told in the\nGospels are full of discrepancies, and are rendered incredible by the\ninterpolation of miraculous incidents.\n\nLet us begin with Matthew. Did Matthew see Christ crucified? Did Matthew\nsee Christ's dead body? Did Matthew see Christ quit the tomb? Did\nMatthew see Christ in the flesh and alive after His Resurrection? Did\nMatthew see Christ ascend into Heaven? Matthew nowhere says so. Nor is\nit stated by any other writer in the Testament that Matthew saw any of\nthese things. No: Matthew nowhere gives evidence in his own name. Only,\nin the Gospel \"according to Matthew\" it is stated that such things did\nhappen.\n\nMatthew's account of the Resurrection and the incidents connected\ntherewith differs from the accounts in the other Gospels.\n\nThe story quoted above from Matthew as to the bribing of Roman soldiers\nby the priests to circulate the falsehood about the stealing of Christ's\nbody by His disciples is not alluded to by Mark, Luke, or John.\n\nMatthew, in his account of the fact of the Resurrection, says that there\nwas an earthquake when the angel rolled away the stone. In the other\nGospels there is no word of this earthquake.\n\nBut not in any of the Gospels is it asserted that any man or woman saw\nJesus leave the tomb.\n\nThe story of His actual rising from the dead was first told by some\nwoman, or women, who said they had seen an angel, or angels, who had\ndeclared that Jesus was risen.\n\nThere is not an atom of evidence that these young men who told the story\nwere angels. There is not an atom of evidence that they were not men,\nnor that they had not helped to revive or to remove the swooned or dead\nJesus.\n\nStress has been laid upon the presence of the Roman guard. The presence\nof such a guard is improbable. But if the guard was really there, it\nmight have been as easily bribed to allow the body to be removed, as\nMatthew suggests that it was easily bribed to say that the body had been\nstolen.\n\nMatthew says that after the Resurrection the disciples were ordered to\ngo to Galilee. Mark says the same. Luke says they were commanded not to\nleave Jerusalem. John says they did go to Galilee.\n\nSo, again, with regard to the Ascension. Luke and Mark say that Christ\nwent up to Heaven. Matthew and John do not so much as mention the\nAscension. And it is curious, as Mr. Foote points out, that the two\napostles who were supposed to have been disciples of Christ and might\nbe supposed to have seen the Ascension, if it took place, do not mention\nit. The story of the Ascension comes to us from Luke and Mark, who were\nnot present.\n\nJesus rose from the dead on the third day. Yet Luke makes Him say to the\nthief on the cross: \"Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with\nme in Paradise.\" Matthew, Mark, and John do not repeat this blunder.\n\nThere are many other differences and contradictions in the Gospel\nversions of the Resurrection and Ascension; but as I do not regard those\ndifferences as important, I shall pass them by.\n\nWhether or not the evidence of these witnesses be contradictory, the\nfacts remain that no one of them states that he knows anything about the\nmatter of his own knowledge; that no one of them claims to have himself\nheard the story of the woman, or the women, or the angels; that no one\nof them states that the women saw, or said they saw, Christ leave the\ntomb.\n\nAs for the alleged appearances of Christ to the disciples, those\nappearances may be explained in several ways. We may say that Christ\nreally had risen from the dead, and was miraculously present; we may say\nthat the accounts of His miraculous appearance are legends; or we may\nsay that His reappearance was not miraculous at all, for He had never\ndied, but only swooned.\n\nAs Huxley remarked, when we are asked to consider an alleged case of\nresurrection, the first essential fact to make sure of is the fact of\ndeath. Before we argue as to whether a dead man came to life, let us\nhave evidence that he _was_ dead.\n\nConsidering the story of the crucifixion as historical, it cannot be\nsaid that the evidence of Christ's death is conclusive.\n\nDeath by crucifixion was generally a slow death. Men often lingered on\nthe cross for days before they died. Now, Christ was only on the cross\nfor a few hours; and Pilate is reported as expressing surprise when told\nthat he was dead.\n\nTo make sure that the other prisoners were dead, the soldiers broke\ntheir legs. But they did not break Christ's legs.\n\nTo be sure, the Apostle John reports that a soldier pierced Christ's\nside with a spear. But the authors of the three synoptic Gospels do\nnot mention this wounding with the spear. Neither do they allude to\nthe other story told by John, as to the scepticism of Thomas, and his\nputting his hand into the wound made by the spear. It is curious that\nJohn is the only one to tell both stories: so curious that both stories\nlook like interpellations.\n\nBut even if we accept the story of the spear thrust, it affords no\nproof of death, for John adds that there issued from the wound blood and\nwater: and blood does not flow from wounds inflicted after death.\n\nThen, when the body of Christ was taken down from the cross, it was not\nexamined by any doctor, but was taken away by friends, and laid in a\ncool sepulchre.\n\nWhat evidence is forthcoming that Christ did not recover from a swoon,\nand that His friends did not take Him away in the night? Remember, we\nare dealing with probabilities in the absence of any exact knowledge of\nthe facts, and consider which is more probable--that a man had swooned\nand recovered; or that a man, after lying for three days dead, should\ncome to life again, and walk away?\n\nApologists will say that the probabilities in the case of a man do not\nhold in the case of a God. But there is no evidence at all that\nChrist was God. Prove that Christ was God, and therefore that He was\nomnipotent, and there is nothing impossible in the Resurrection, however\nimprobable His death may seem.\n\nEven assuming that the Gospels are historical documents, the evidence\nfor Christ's death is unsatisfactory, and that for His Resurrection\nquite inadequate. But is there any reason to regard the Gospel stories\nof the death, Resurrection, and Ascension on of Christ as historical?\nI say that we have no surety that these stories have come down to us as\nthey were originally compiled, and we have strong reasons for concluding\nthat these stories are mythical.\n\nSome two or three years ago the Rev. R. Horton said: \"Either Christ\nwas the Son of God, and one with God, or He was a bad man, or a madman.\nThere is no fourth alternative possible.\" That is a strange statement\nto make, but it is an example of the shifts to which apologists are\nfrequently reduced. No fourth alternative possible! Indeed there is; and\na fifth!\n\nIf a man came forward to-day, and said he was the Son of God, and one\nwith God, we should conclude that he was an impostor or a lunatic.\n\nBut if a man told us that another man had said he was a god, we should\nhave what Mr. Horton calls a \"fourth alternative\" open to us. For\nwe might say that the person who reported his speech to us had\nmisunderstood him, which would be a \"fourth alternative\"; or that\nthe person had wilfully misrepresented him, which would be a fifth\nalternative.\n\nSo in the Gospels. Nowhere have we a single word of Christ's own\nwriting. His sayings come to us through several hands, and through more\nthan one translation. It is folly, then, to assert that Christ was God,\nor that He was mad, or an impostor.\n\nSo in the case of the Gospel stories of the Crucifixion, the\nResurrection, and Ascension of Christ. Many worthy people may suppose\nthat in denying the facts stated in the Gospels we are accusing St.\nMatthew and St. John of falsehood.\n\nBut there is no certainty who St. Matthew and the others were. There is\nno certainty that they wrote these stories. Even if they did write them,\nthey probably accepted them at second or third hand. With the best faith\nin the world, they may not have been competent judges of evidence. And\nafter they had done their best their testimony may have been added to or\nperverted by editors and translators.\n\nLooking at the Gospels, then, as we should look at any other ancient\ndocuments, what internal evidence do they afford in support of the\nsuspicion that they are mythical?\n\nIn the first place, the whole Gospel story teems with miracles. Now, as\nMatthew Arnold said, miracles never happen. Science has made the belief\nin miracles impossible. When we speak of the antagonism between religion\nand science, it is this fact which we have in our mind: that science has\nkilled the belief in miracles, and, as all religions are built up upon\nthe miraculous, science and religion cannot be made to harmonise.\n\nAs Huxley said:\n\n     The magistrate who listens with devout attention to the precept,\n     \"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,\" on Sunday, on Monday\n     dismisses, as intrinsically absurd, a charge of bewitching a\n     cow brought against some old woman; the superintendent of a\n     lunatic asylum who substituted exorcism for rational modes of\n     treatment, would have but a short tenure of office; even parish\n     clerks doubt the utility of prayers for rain, so long as the\n     wind is in the east; and an outbreak of pestilence sends men,\n     not to the churches, but to the drains.  In spite of prayers for\n     the success of our arms, and _Te Deums_ for victory, our real\n     faith is in big battalions and keeping our powder dry; in\n     knowledge of the science of warfare; in energy, courage, and\n     discipline.  In these, as in all other practical affairs, we\n     act on the aphorism, _Laborare est orare_; we admit that\n     intelligent work is the only acceptable worship, and that,\n     whether there be a Supernature or not, our business is with Nature.\n\nWe have ceased to believe in miracles. When we come upon a miracle in\nany historical document we feel not only that the miracle is untrue, but\nalso that its presence reduces the value of the document in which it is\ncontained. Thus Matthew Arnold, in _Literature and Dogma_, after saying\nthat we shall \"find ourselves inevitably led, sooner or later,\" to\nextend one rule to all miraculous stories, and that \"the considerations\nwhich apply in other cases apply, we shall most surely discover, with\neven greater force in the case of Bible miracles,\" goes on to declare\nthat \"this being so, there is nothing one would more desire for a\nperson or document one greatly values than to make them independent of\nmiracles.\"\n\nVery well. The Gospels teem with miracles. If we make the accounts\nof the death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ \"independent\nof miracles,\" we destroy those accounts completely. To make the\nResurrection \"independent of miracles\" is to disprove the Resurrection,\nwhich is a miracle or nothing.\n\nWe must believe in miracles, or disbelieve in the Resurrection; and\n\"miracles never happen.\"\n\nWe must believe miracles, or disbelieve them. If we disbelieve them, we\nshall lose confidence in the verity of any document in proportion to the\nelement of the miraculous which that document contains. The fact that\nthe Gospels teem with miracles destroys the claim of the Gospels to\nserious consideration as historic evidence.\n\nTake, for example, the account of the Crucifixion in the Gospel\naccording to Matthew. While Christ is on the cross \"from the sixth hour\nthere was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour,\" and when He\ndies, \"behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to\nthe bottom; and the earth did quake; and the rocks were rent; and the\ntombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep\nwere raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His Resurrection,\nthey entered into the holy city, and appeared unto many.\"\n\nMark mentions the rending of the veil of the temple, but omits the\ndarkness, the earthquake, and the rising of the dead saints from the\ntombs. Luke tells of the same phenomena as Mark; John says nothing about\nany of these things.\n\nWhat conclusion can we come to, then, as to the story in the first\nGospel? Here is an earthquake and the rising of dead saints, who quit\ntheir graves and enter the city, and three out of the four Gospel\nwriters do not mention it. Neither do we hear another word from Matthew\non the subject. The dead get up and walk into the city, and \"are seen of\nmany,\" and we are left to wonder what happened to the risen saints, and\nwhat effect their astounding apparition had upon the citizens who saw\nthem. Did these dead saints go back to their tombs? Did the citizens\nreceive them into their midst without fear, or horror, or doubt? Had\nthis stupendous miracle no effect upon the Jewish priests who had\ncrucified Christ as an impostor? The Gospels are silent.\n\nHistory is as silent as the Gospels. From the fifteenth chapter of the\nfirst volume of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ I take\nthe following passage:\n\n     But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan\n     and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented\n     by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their\n     senses?  During the age of Christ, of His Apostles, and of\n     their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was\n     confirmed by innumerable prodigies.  The lame walked, the\n     blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons\n     were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended\n     for the benefit of the Church.  But the sages of Greece and\n     Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the\n     ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious\n     of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the\n     world.  Under the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least\n     a celebrated province of the Roman Empire, was involved in a\n     preternatural darkness of three hours.  Even this miraculous\n     event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity,\n     and the devotion of all mankind, passed without notice in an\n     age of science and history.  It happened during the lifetime\n     of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the\n     immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence of\n     the prodigy.  Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work,\n     has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes,\n     meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable\n     curiosity could collect.  But the one and the other have\n     omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which mortal\n     eye has been witness since the creation of the globe.  A\n     distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an\n     extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents\n     himself with describing the singular defect of light which\n     followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest\n     part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without\n     splendour.  This season of obscurity, which surely cannot be\n     compared with the preternatural darkness of the Passion, had\n     been already celebrated by most of the poets and historians\n     of that memorable age.\n\nNo Greek nor Roman historian nor scientist mentioned that strange\neclipse. No Jewish historian nor scientist mentioned the rending of the\nveil of the temple, nor the rising of the saints from the dead. Nor do\nthe Jewish priests appear to have been alarmed or converted by these\nmarvels.\n\nConfronted by this silence of all contemporary historians, and by the\nsilence of Mark, Luke, and John, what are we to think of the testimony\nof Matthew on these points? Surely we can only endorse the opinion of\nMatthew Arnold:\n\n     And the more the miraculousness of the story deepens, as after\n     the death of Jesus, the more does the texture of the incidents\n     become loose and floating, the more does the very air and aspect\n     of things seem to tell us we are in wonderland.  Jesus after his\n     resurrection not known by Mary Magdalene, taken by her for the\n     gardener; appearing _in another form_, and not known by the\n     two disciples going with him to Emmaus and at supper with him\n     there; not known by His most intimate apostles on the borders\n     of the Sea of Galilee; and presently, out of these vague\n     beginnings, the recognitions getting asserted, then the ocular\n     demonstrations, the final commissions, the ascension; one\n     hardly knows which of the two to call the most evident here,\n     the perfect simplicity and good faith of the narrators, or\n     the plainness with which they themselves really say to us\n     _Behold a legend growing under your eyes!_\n\nBehold a legend growing under your eyes! Now, when we have to consider\na miracle-story or a legend, it behoves us to look, if that be possible,\ninto the times in which that legend is placed. What was the \"time\nspirit\" in the day when this legend arose? What was the attitude of\nthe general mind towards the miraculous? To what stage of knowledge and\nscience had those who created or accepted the myth attained? These are\npoints that will help us signally in any attempt to understand such a\nstory as the Gospel story of the Resurrection.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TIME SPIRIT IN THE FIRST CENTURY\n\n\nA story emanating from a superstitious and unscientific people would be\nreceived with more doubt than a story emanating from people possessing a\nknowledge of science, and not prone to accept stories of the marvellous\nwithout strict and full investigation.\n\nA miracle story from an Arab of the Soudan would be received with a\nsmile; a statement of some occult mystery made by a Huxley or a Darwin\nwould be accorded a respectful hearing and a serious criticism.\n\nNow, the accounts of the Resurrection in the Gospels belong to the\nless credible form of statement. They emanated from a credulous and\nsuperstitious people in an unscientific age and country.\n\nThe Jews in the days of which the Gospels are supposed to tell, and the\nJews of Old Testament times, were unscientific and superstitious people,\nwho believed in sorcery, in witches, in demons and angels, and in all\nmanner of miracles and supernatural agents. We have only to read the\nScriptures to see that it was so. But I shall quote here, in support\nof my assertion, the opinions taken by the author of _Supernatural\nReligion_ from the works of Dean Milman and Dr. Lightfoot. In his\n_History of Christianity_ Dean Milman speaks of the Jews as follows:\n\n     The Jews of that period not only believed that the Supreme\n     Being had the power of controlling the course of Nature, but\n     that the same influence was possessed by multitudes of subordinate\n     spirits, both good and evil.  Where the pious Christian of the\n     present day would behold the direct Agency of the Almighty, the\n     Jews would invariably have interposed an angel as the author\n     or ministerial agent in the wonderful transaction.  Where the\n     Christian moralist would condemn the fierce passion, the\n     ungovernable lust, or the inhuman temper, the Jew discerned\n     the workings of diabolical possession.  Scarcely a malady was\n     endured, or crime committed, which was not traced to the\n     operation of one of these myriad demons, who watched every\n     opportunity of exercising their malice in the sufferings and\n     the sins of men.\n\nRead next the opinion of John Lightfoot, D.D., Master of Catherine Hall,\nCambridge:\n\n  ... Let two things only be observed: (1) That the nation under\n     the Second Temple was given to magical arts beyond measure;\n     and (2) that it was given to an easiness of believing all\n     manner of delusions beyond measure... It is a disputable\n     case whether the Jewish nation were more mad with superstition\n     in matters of religion, or with superstition in curious arts:\n     (1) There was not a people upon earth that studied or attributed\n     more to dreams than they; (2) there was hardly any people in\n     the whole world that more used, or were more fond of amulets,\n     charms, mutterings, exorcisms, and all kinds of enchantments.\n\nIt is from this people, \"mad with superstition\" in religion and\nin sorcery, the most credulous people in the whole world, a people\ndestitute of the very rudiments of science, as science is understood\nto-day--it is from this people that the unreasonable and impossible\nstories of the Resurrection, coloured and distorted on every page with\nmiracles, come down to us.\n\nWe do not believe that miracles happen now. Are we, on the evidence of\nsuch a people, to believe that miracles happened two thousand years ago?\n\nWe in England to-day do not believe that miracles happen now. Some of us\nbelieve, or persuade ourselves that we believe, that miracles did happen\na few thousand years ago.\n\nBut amongst some peoples the belief in miracles still persists, and\nwherever the belief in miracles is strongest we shall find that the\npeople who believe are ignorant of physical science, are steeped in\nsuperstition, or are abjectly subservient to the authority of priests or\nfakirs. Scientific knowledge and freedom of thought and speech are fatal\nto superstition. It is only in those times, or amongst those people,\nwhere ignorance is rampant, or the priest is dominant, or both, that\nmiracles are believed.\n\nIt will be urged that many educated Englishmen still believe the Gospel\nmiracles. That is true; but it will be found in nearly all such cases\nthat the believers have been mentally marred by the baneful authority\nof the Church. Let a person once admit into his system the poisonous\nprinciple of \"faith,\" and his judgment in religious matters will be\ninjured for years, and probably for life.\n\nBut let me here make clear what I mean by the poisonous principle of\n\"faith.\" I mean, then, the deadly principle that we are to believe any\nstatement, historical or doctrinal, without evidence.\n\nThus we are to believe that Christ rose from the dead because the\nGospels say so. When we ask why we are to accept the Gospels as true, we\nare told because they are inspired by God. When we ask who says that the\nGospels are inspired by God, we are told that the Church says so. When\nwe ask how the Church knows, we are told that we must have faith. That\nis what I call a poisonous principle. That is the poison which saps the\njudgment and perverts the human kindness of men.\n\nThe late Dr. Carpenter wrote as follows:\n\n     It has been my business lately to inquire into the mental\n     condition of some of the individuals who have reported the\n     most remarkable occurrences.  I cannot--it would not be fair--\n     say all I could with regard to that mental condition; but I can\n     only say this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the\n     result of my previous studies upon the subject, namely, that\n     there is nothing too strange to be believed by those who have\n     once surrendered their judgment to the extent of accepting as\n     credible things which common sense tells us are entirely incredible.\n\nIt is unwise and immoral to accept any important statement without\nproof. HAVE THE DOCUMENTS BEEN TAMPERED WITH?\n\n\nI come now to a phase of this question which I touch with regret. It\nalways pains me to acknowledge that any man, even an adversary, has\nacted dishonourably. In this discussion I would, if I could, avoid the\nimputation of dishonesty to any person concerned in the foundation or\nadaptation of the Christian religion. But I am bound to point out the\nprobability that the Gospels have been tampered with by unscrupulous or\nover-zealous men. That probability is very strong, and very important.\n\nIn the first place, it is too well known to make denial possible\nthat many Gospels have been rejected by the Church as doubtful or as\nspurious. In the second place, some of the books in the accepted canon\nare regarded as of doubtful origin. In the third place, certain passages\nof the Gospels have been relegated to the margin by the translators of\nthe Revised Version of the New Testament. In the fourth place, certain\nhistoric Christian evidence--as the famous interpolation in Josephus,\nfor instance--has been branded as forgeries by eminent Christian\nscholars.\n\nMany of the Christian fathers were holy men; many priests have been, and\nare, honourable and sincere; but it is notorious that in every Church\nthe world has ever known there has been a great deal of fraud and\nforgery and deceit. I do not say this with any bitterness, I do not wish\nto emphasise it; but I must go so far as to show that the conduct\nof some of the early Christians was of a character to justify us in\nbelieving that the Scriptures have been seriously tampered with.\n\nMosheim, writing on this subject, says:\n\n     A pernicious maxim which was current in the schools, not only\n     of the Egyptians, the Platonists, and the Pythagoreans, but\n     also of the Jews, was very early recognised by the Christians,\n     and soon found among them numerous patrons--namely, that those\n     who made it their business to deceive, with a view of promoting\n     the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation than\n     of censure.\n\nAnd if we seek internal evidence in support of this charge we need go no\nfurther than St. Paul, who is reported (Rom. iii. 7) as saying: \"For if\nthe truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His Glory, why\nyet am I also judged as a sinner?\" I do not for a moment suppose that\nPaul ever wrote those words. But they are given as his in the Epistle\nbearing his name. I daresay they may be interpreted in more than one\nway: my point is that they were interpreted in an evil way by many\nprimitive Christians, who took them as a warranty that it was right to\nlie for the glory of God.\n\nMosheim, writing of the Church of the fifth century, alludes to the\n\n     Base audacity of those who did not blush to palm their own\n     spurious productions on the great men of former times, and,\n     even on _Christ_ Himself and His Apostles, so that they might\n     be able, in the councils and in their books, to oppose names\n     against names and authorities against authorities.  The whole\n     Christian Church was, in this century, overwhelmed with these\n     disgraceful fictions.\n\nDr. Giles speaks still more strongly. He says:\n\n     But a graver accusation than that of inaccuracy or deficient\n     authority lies against the writings which have come down to us\n     from the second century.  There can be no doubt that great numbers\n     of books were then written with no other view than to deceive\n     the simple-minded multitude who at that time formed the great\n     bulk of the Christian community.\n\nDean Milman says:\n\n     It was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Christianity\n     was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself.\n\nBishop Fell says:\n\n     In the first ages of the Church, so extensive was the licence\n     of forging, so credulous were the people in believing, that\n     the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured.\n\nJohn E. Remsburg, author of the newly-published American book, _The\nBible_, says:\n\n     That these admissions are true, that primitive Christianity\n     was propagated chiefly by falsehood, is tacitly admitted by\n     all Christians.  They characterise as forgeries, or unworthy\n     of credit, three-fourths of the early Christian writings.\n\nMr. Lecky, the historian, in his _European Morals_, writes in the\nfollowing uncompromising style:\n\n     The very large part that must be assigned to deliberate\n     forgeries in the early apologetic literature of the Church\n     we have already seen; and no impartial reader can, I think,\n     investigate the innumerable grotesque and lying legends that,\n     during the whole course of the Middle Ages, were deliberately\n     palmed upon mankind as undoubted facts, can follow the history\n     of the false decretals, and the discussions that were connected\n     with them, or can observe the complete and absolute incapacity\n     most Catholic historians have displayed of conceiving any good\n     thing in the ranks of their opponents, or of stating with common\n     fairness any consideration that can tell against their cause,\n     without acknowledging how serious and how inveterate has been\n     the evil.  It is this which makes it so unspeakably repulsive\n     to all independent and impartial thinkers, and has led a great\n     German historian (Herder) to declare, with much bitterness,\n     that the phrase \"Christian veracity\" deserves to rank with the\n     phrase \"Punic faith.\"\n\nI could go on quoting such passages. I could give specific instances of\nforgery by the dozen, but I do not think it necessary. It is sufficient\nto show that forgery was common, and has been always common, amongst\nall kinds of priests, and that therefore we cannot accept the Gospels as\ngenuine and unaltered documents.\n\nYet upon these documents rests the whole fabric of Christianity.\n\nProfessor Huxley says:\n\n     There is no proof, nothing more than a fair presumption, that\n     any one of the Gospels existed, in the state in which we find\n     it in the authorised version of the Bible, before the second\n     century, or, in other words, sixty or seventy years after the\n     events recorded.  And between that time and the date of the\n     oldest extant manuscripts of the Gospel there is no telling\n     what additions and alterations and interpolations may have\n     been made.  It may be said that this is all mere speculation,\n     but it is a good deal more.  As competent scholars and honest\n     men, our revisers have felt compelled to point out that such\n     things have happened even since the date of the oldest known\n     manuscripts.  The oldest two copies of the second Gospel end\n     with the eighth verse of the sixteenth chapter; the remaining\n     twelve verses are spurious, and it is noteworthy that the maker\n     of the addition has not hesitated to introduce a speech in\n     which Jesus promises His disciples that \"in My name shall\n     they cast out devils.\"\n\n     The other passage \"rejected to the margin\" is still more\n     instructive.  It is that touching apologue, with its profound\n     ethical sense, of the woman taken in adultery--which, if\n     internal evidence were an infallible guide, might well be\n     affirmed to be a typical example of the teaching of Jesus.\n     Yet, say the revisers, pitilessly, \"Most of the ancient\n     authorities omit John vii. 53--viii. 11.\"  Now, let any\n     reasonable man ask himself this question: if after an\n     approximate settlement of the canon of the New Testament,\n     and even later than the fourth or fifth centuries, literary\n     fabricators had the skill and the audacity to make such\n     additions and interpolations as these, what may they have\n     done when no one had thought of a canon; when oral tradition\n     still unfixed, was regarded as more valuable than such\n     written records as may have existed in the latter portion\n     of the first century?  Or, to take the other alternative,\n     if those who gradually settled the canon did not know of\n     the oldest codices which have come down to us; or, if knowing\n     them, they rejected their authority, what is to be thought\n     of their competency as critics of the text?\n\nSince alterations have been made in the text of Scripture we can never\nbe certain that any particular text is genuine, and this circumstance\nmilitates seriously against the value of the evidence for the\nResurrection.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY BEFORE CHRIST\n\n\nIf the story of Christ's life were true, we should not expect to\nfind that nearly all the principal events of that life had previously\nhappened in the lives of some earlier god or gods, long since\nacknowledged to be mythical.\n\nIf the Gospel record were the _only_ record of a god coming upon earth,\nof a god born of a virgin, of a god slain by men, that record would seem\nto us more plausible than it will seem if we discover proof that other\nand earlier gods have been fabled to have come on earth, to have been\nborn of virgins, to have lived and taught on earth, and to have been\nslain by men.\n\nBecause, if the events related in the life of Christ have been\npreviously related as parts of the lives of earlier mythical gods, we\nfind ourselves confronted by the possibilities that what is mythical\nin one narrative may be mythical in another; that if one god is a myth\nanother god may be a myth; that if 400,000,000 of Buddhists have been\ndeluded, 200,000,000 of Christians may be deluded; that if the events\nof Christ's life were alleged to have happened before to another person,\nthey may have been adopted from the older story, and made features of\nthe new.\n\nIf Christ was God--the omnipotent, eternal, and _only_ God--come on\nearth, He would not be likely to repeat acts, to re-act the adventures\nof earlier and spurious gods; nor would His divine teachings be mere\nshreds and patches made up of quotations, paraphrases, and repetitions\nof earlier teachings, uttered by mere mortals, or mere myths.\n\nWhat are we to think, then when we find that there are hardly any events\nin the life of Christ which were not, before His birth, attributed to\nmythical gods; that there are hardly any acts of Christ's which may not\nbe paralleled by acts attributed to mythical gods before His advent;\nthat there are hardly any important thoughts attributed to Christ which\nhad not been uttered by other men, or by mythical gods, in earlier\ntimes? What _are_ we to think if the facts be thus?\n\nMr. Parsons, in _Our Sun God_, quotes the following passage from a Latin\nwork by St. Augustine:\n\n     Again, in that I said, \"This is in our time the Christian\n     religion, which to know and also follow is most sure and\n     certain salvation,\" it is affirmed in regard to this name,\n     not in regard to the sacred thing itself to which the name\n     belongs.  For the sacred thing which is now called the\n     Christian religion existed in ancient times, nor, indeed,\n     was it absent from the beginning of the human race until\n     the Christ Himself came in the flesh, whence the true religion\n     which already existed came to be called \"the Christian.\"  So\n     when, after His resurrection and ascension to heaven, the\n     Apostles began to preach and many believed, it is thus written,\n     \"The followers were first called Christians at Antioch.\"\n     Therefore I said, \"This is in our time the Christian religion,\"\n     not because it did not exist in earlier times, but as having\n     in later times received this particular name.\n\nFrom Eusebius, the great Christian historian, Mr. Parsons, quotes as\nfollows:\n\n     What is called the Christian religion is neither new nor\n     strange, but--_if it be lawful to testify as to the truth_--\n     was known to the ancients.\n\nMr. Arthur Lillie, in _Buddha and Buddhism_, quotes M. Burnouf as\nsaying:\n\n     History and comparative mythology are teaching every day\n     more plainly that creeds grow slowly up.  None came into the\n     world ready-made, and as if by magic.  The origin of events\n     is lost in the infinite.  A great Indian poet has said: \"The\n     beginning of things evades us; their end evades us also; we\n     see only the middle.\"\n\nBefore Darwin's day it was considered absurd and impious to talk of\n\"pre-Adamite man,\" and it will still, by many, be held absurd and\nimpious to talk of \"Christianity before Christ.\"\n\nAnd yet the incidents of the life and death of Christ, the teachings of\nChrist and His Apostles, and the rites and mysteries of the Christian\nChurch can all be paralleled by similar incidents, ethics, and\nceremonies embodied in religions long anterior to the birth of Jesus.\n\nChrist is said to have been God come down upon the earth. The idea of a\ngod coming down upon the earth was quite an old and popular idea at the\ntime when the Gospels were written. In the Old Testament God makes many\nvisits to the earth; and the instances in the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian\nmythologies of gods coming amongst men and taking part in human affairs\nare well known.\n\nChrist is said to have been the Son of God. But the idea of a son-god is\nvery much older than the Christian religion.\n\nChrist is said to have been a redeemer, and to have descended from a\nline of kings. But the idea of a king's son as a redeemer is very much\nolder than the Christian religion.\n\nChrist is said to have been born of a virgin. But many heroes before Him\nwere declared to have been born of virgins.\n\nChrist is said to have been born in a cave or stable while His parents\nwere on a journey. But this also was an old legend long before the\nChristian religion.\n\nChrist is said to have been crucified. But very many kings, kings' sons,\nson-gods, and heroes had been crucified ages before Him.\n\nChrist is said to have been a sacrifice offered up for the salvation\nof man. But thousands and thousands of men before Him had been slain\nas sacrifices for the general good, or as atonements for general or\nparticular sins.\n\nChrist is said to have risen from the dead. But that had been said of\nother gods before Him.\n\nChrist is said to have ascended into Heaven. But this also was a very\nold idea.\n\nChrist is said to have worked miracles. But all the gods and saints of\nall the older religions were said to have worked miracles.\n\nChrist is said to have brought to men, direct from Heaven, a new message\nof salvation. But the message He brought was in nowise new.\n\nChrist is said to have preached a new ethic of mercy and peace and\ngood-will to all men. But this ethic had been preached centuries before\nHis supposed advent.\n\nThe Christians changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. Sun-day is\nthe day of the Sun God.\n\nChrist's birthday was fixed on the 25th of December. But the 25th of\nDecember is the day of the Winter solstice--the birthday, of Apollo, the\nSun God--and had been from time immemorial the birthday of the sun gods\nin all religions. The Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Phoenicians, and\nTeutonic races all kept the 25th of December as the birthday of the Sun\nGod.\n\nThe Christians departed from the monotheism of the Jews, and made their\nGod a Trinity. The Buddhists and the Egyptians had Holy Trinities long\nbefore. But whereas the Christian Trinity is unreasonable, the older\nidea of the Trinity was based upon a perfectly lucid and natural\nconception.\n\nChrist is supposed by many to have first laid down the Golden Rule, \"Do\nunto others as you would that they should do unto you.\" But the Golden\nRule was laid down centuries before the Christian era.\n\nTwo of the most important of the utterances attributed to Christ are\nthe Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount. But there is very strong\nevidence that the Lord's Prayer was used before Christ's time, and still\nstronger evidence that the Sermon on the Mount was a compilation, and\nwas never uttered by Christ or any other preacher in the form in which\nit is given by St. Matthew.\n\nChrist is said to have been tempted of the Devil. But apart from\nthe utter absurdity of the Devil's tempting God by offering Him the\nsovereignty of the earth--when God had already the sovereignty of twenty\nmillions of suns--it is related of Buddha that he also was tempted of\nthe Devil centuries before Christ was born.\n\nThe idea that one man should die as a sacrifice to the gods on behalf\nof many, the idea that the god should be slain for the good of men,\nthe idea that the blood of the human or animal \"scapegoat\" had power to\npurify or to save, the idea that a king or a king's son should expiate\nthe sins of a tribe by his death, and the idea that a god should offer\nhimself as a sacrifice to himself in atonement for the sins of his\npeople--all these were old ideas, and ideas well known to the founders\nof Christianity.\n\nThe resemblances of the legendary lives of Christ and Buddha are\nsurprising: so also are the resemblances of forms and ethics of the\nancient Buddhists and the early Christians.\n\nMr. Arthur Lillie, in _Buddha and Buddhism_, makes the following\nquotation from M. Leon de Rosny:\n\n     The astonishing points of contact between the popular legend\n     of Buddha and that of Christ, the almost absolute similarity\n     of the moral lessons given to the world between these two\n     peerless teachers of the human race, the striking affinities\n     between the customs of the Buddhists and the Essenes, of whom\n     Christ must have been a disciple, suggest at once an Indian\n     origin to Primitive Christianity.\n\nMr. Lillie goes on to say that there was a sect of Essenes in Palestine\nfifty years B.C., and that fifty years after the death of Christ there\nexisted in Palestine a similar sect, from whom Christianity was derived.\nMr. Lillie says of these sects:\n\n     Each had two prominent rites: baptism, and what Tertullian\n     calls the \"oblation of bread.\"  Each had for officers, deacons,\n     presbyters, ephemerents.  Each sect had monks, nuns, celibacy,\n     community of goods.  Each interpreted the Old Testament in a\n     mystical way--so mystical, in fact, that it enabled each to\n     discover that the bloody sacrifice of Mosaism was forbidden,\n     not enjoined.  The most minute likenesses have been pointed\n     out between these two sects by all Catholic writers from\n     Eusebius to the poet Racine... Was there any connection\n     between these two sects?  It is difficult to conceive that\n     there can be two answers to such a question.\n\nThe resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity were accounted for by\nthe Christian Fathers very simply. The Buddhists had been instructed by\nthe Devil, and there was no more to be said. Later Christian scholars\nface the difficulty by declaring that the Buddhists copied from the\nChristians.\n\nReminded that Buddha lived five hundred years before Christ, and that\nthe Buddhist religion was in its prime two hundred years before Christ,\nthe Christian apologist replies that, for all that, the Buddhist\nScriptures are of comparatively late date. Let us see how the matter\nstands.\n\nThe resemblances of the two religions are of two kinds. There is, first,\nthe resemblance between the Christian life of Christ and the Indian life\nof Buddha; and there is, secondly, the resemblance between the moral\nteachings of Christ and Buddha.\n\nNow, if the Indian Scriptures _are_ of later date than the Gospels, it\nis just possible that the Buddhists may have copied incidents from the\nlife of Christ.\n\nBut it is perfectly certain that the change of borrowing cannot be\nbrought against Augustus Caesar, Plato, and the compilers of the\nmythologies of Egypt and Greece and Rome. And it is as certain that\nthe Christians did borrow from the Jews as that the Jews borrowed from\nBabylon. But a little while ago all Christendom would have denied the\nindebtedness of Moses to King Sargon.\n\nNow, since the Christian ideas were anticipated by the Babylonians, the\nEgyptians, the Romans, and the Greeks, why should we suppose that\nthey were copied by the Buddhists, whose religion was triumphant some\ncenturies before Christ?\n\nAnd, again, while there is no reason to suppose that Christian\nmissionaries in the early centuries of the era made any appreciable\nimpression on India or China, there is good reason to suppose that the\nBuddhists, who were the first and most successful of all missionaries,\nreached Egypt and Persia and Palestine, and made their influence felt.\n\nI now turn to the statement of M. Burnouf, quoted by Mr. Lillie. M.\nBurnouf asserts that the Indian origin of Christianity is no longer\ncontested:\n\n     It has been placed in full light by the researches of scholars,\n     and notably English scholars, and by the publication of the\n     original texts... In point of fact, for a long time folks had\n     been struck with the resemblances--or, rather, the identical\n     elements--contained in Christianity and Buddhism.  Writers\n     of the firmest faith and most sincere piety have admitted them.\n     In the last century these analogies were set down to the\n     Nestorians; but since then the science of Oriental chronology\n     has come into being, and proved that Buddha is many years\n     anterior to Nestorius and Jesus.  Thus the Nestorian theory\n     had to be given up.  But a thing may be posterior to another\n     without proving derivation.  So the problem remained unsolved\n     until recently, when the pathway that Buddhism followed was\n     traced step by step from India to Jerusalem.\n\nThere was baptism before Christ, and before John the Baptist. There were\ngods, man-gods, son-gods, and saviours before Christ. There were Bibles,\nhymns, temples, monasteries, priests, monks, missionaries, crosses,\nsacraments, and mysteries before Christ.\n\nPerhaps the most important sacrament of the Christian religion to-day is\nthe Eucharist, or Lord's Supper. But this idea of the Eucharist, or the\nceremonial eating of the god, has its roots far back in the prehistoric\ndays of religious cannibalism. Prehistoric man believed that if he ate\nanything its virtue passed into his physical system. Therefore he began\nby devouring his gods, body and bones. Later, man mended his manners so\nfar as to substitute animal for human sacrifice; still later he employed\nbread and wine as symbolical substitutes for flesh and blood. This is\nthe origin and evolution of the strange and, to many of us, repulsive\nidea of eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ.\n\nNow, supposing these facts to be as I have stated them above, to what\nconclusion do they point?\n\nBear in mind the statement of M. Burnouf, that religions are built\nup slowly by a process of adaptation; add that to the statements of\nEusebius, the great Christian historian, and of St. Augustine, the great\nChristian Father, that the Christian religion is no new thing, but was\nknown to the ancients, and does it not seem most reasonable to suppose\nthat Christianity is a religion founded on ancient myths and legends,\non ancient ethics, and on ancient allegorical mysteries and metaphysical\nerrors?\n\nTo support those statements with adequate evidence I should have to\ncompile a book four times as large as the present volume. As I have\nnot room to state the case properly, I shall content myself with the\nrecommendation of some books in which the reader may study the subject\nfor himself.\n\nA list of these books I now subjoin:\n\n     _The Golden Bough._  Frazer.  Macmillan & Co.\n     _A Short History of Christianity._  Robertson.  Watts & Co.\n     _The Evolution of the Idea of God._  Grant Allen.  Rationalist\n\nPress Association.     _Buddha and Buddhism._  Lillie.  Clark.\n     _Our Sun God._  Parsons.  Parsons.\n     _Christianity and Mythology._  Robertson.  Watts & Co.\n     _Pagan Christs._  Robertson.  Watts & Co.\n     _The Legend of Perseus._  Hartland.  Nutt.\n     _The Birth of Jesus._  Soltau.  Black.\n\nThe above are all scholarly and important books, and should be generally\nknown.\n\nFor reasons given above I claim, with regard to the divinity and\nResurrection of Jesus Christ:\n\n     That outside the New Testament there is no evidence of any\n     value to show that Christ ever lived, that He ever taught,\n     that He ever rose from the dead.\n\n     That the evidence of the New Testament is anonymous, is\n     contradictory, is loaded with myths and miracles.\n\n     That the Gospels do not contain a word of proof by any\n     eye-witness as to the fact that Christ was really dead;\n     nor the statement of any eye-witness that He was seen to\n     return to life and quit His tomb.\n\n     That Paul, who preached the Resurrection of Christ, did not\n     see Christ dead, did not see Him arise from the dead, did\n     not see Him ascend into Heaven.\n\n     That Paul nowhere supports the Gospel accounts of Christ's\n     life and teaching.\n\n     That the Gospels are of mixed and doubtful origin, that they\n     show signs of interpolation and tampering, and that they have\n     been selected from a number of other Gospels, all of which\n     were once accepted as genuine.\n\n     And that, while there is no real evidence of the life or the\n     teachings, or the Resurrection of Christ, there is a great\n     deal of evidence to show that the Gospels were founded upon\n     anterior legends and older ethics.\n\nBut Christian apologists offer other reasons why we should accept the\nstories of the miraculous birth and Resurrection of Christ as true. Let\nus examine these reasons, and see what they amount to.\n\n\n\n\nOTHER EVIDENCES OF CHRIST'S DIVINITY\n\n\nArchdeacon Wilson gives two reasons for accepting the doctrines of\nChrist's divinity and Resurrection as true. The first of these reasons\nis, the success of the Christian religion; the second is, the evolution\nof the Christlike type of character.\n\nIf the success of the Christian religion proves that Christ was God,\nwhat does the success of the Buddhist religion prove? What does the\nsuccess of the Mohammedan religion prove?\n\nWas Buddha God? Was Mahomet God?\n\nThe archdeacon does not believe in any miracles but those of his own\nreligion. But if the spread of a faith proves its miracles to be\ntrue, what can be said about the spread of the Buddhist and Mohammedan\nreligions?\n\nIslam spread faster and farther than Christianity. So did Buddhism.\nTo-day the numbers of these religions are somewhat as follows:\n\nBuddhist: 450 millions.\n\nChristians: 375 millions, of which only 180 millions are Protestants.\n\nHindus: 200 millions.\n\nMohammedans: 160 millions.\n\nIt will be seen that the Buddhist religion is older than Christianity,\nand has more followers. What does that prove?\n\nBut as to the reasons for the great growth of these two religions I will\nsay more by and by. At present I merely repeat that the Buddhist faith\nowed a great deal to the fact that King Asoka made it the State religion\nof a great kingdom, and that Christianity owes a great deal to the fact\nthat Constantine adopted it as the State religion of the Roman Empire.\n\nWe come now to the archdeacon's second argument: that the divinity of\nChrist is proved by the evolution of the Christlike type of character.\n\nAnd here the archdeacon makes a most surprising statement, for he says\nthat type of character was unknown on this globe until Christ came.\n\nThen how are we to account for King Asoka?\n\nThe King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was as spiritual, as gentle, as pure,\nand as loving as the Christ of the Gospels.\n\nThe King Asoka of the Rock Edicts was wiser, more tolerant, more humane\nthan the Christ of the Gospels.\n\nNowhere did Christ or the Fathers of His Church forbid slavery; nowhere\ndid they forbid religious intolerance; nowhere did they forbid cruelty\nto animals.\n\nThe type of character displayed by the rock inscriptions of King Asoka\nwas a higher and sweeter type than the type of character displayed by\nthe Jesus of the Gospels.\n\nDoes this prove that King Asoka or his teacher, Buddha, was divine? Does\nit prove that the Buddhist faith is the only true faith? I shall treat\nthis question more fully in another chapter.\n\n\nAnother Christian argument is the claim that the faithfulness of\nthe Christian martyrs proves Christianity to be true. A most amazing\nargument. The fact that a man dies for a faith does not prove the faith\nto be true; it proves that he believes it to be true--a very different\nthing.\n\nThe Jews denied the Christian faith, and died for their own. Does that\nprove that Christianity was not true? Did the Protestant martyrs prove\nProtestantism true? Then the Catholic martyrs proved the reverse.\n\nThe Christians martyred or murdered millions, many millions, of innocent\nmen and women. Does _that_ prove that Christ was divine? No: it only\nproves that Christians could be fanatical, intolerant, bloody, and\ncruel.\n\nAnd now, will you ponder these words of Arthur Lillie, M.A., the author\nof _Buddha and Buddhism_? Speaking of the astonishing success of the\nBuddhist missionaries, Mr. Lillie says:\n\n     This success was effected by moral means alone, for Buddhism\n     _is the one religion guiltless of coercion_.\n\nChristians are always boasting of the wonderful good works wrought by\ntheir religion. They are silent about the horrors, infamies, and shames\nof which it has been guilty.\n\nBuddhism is the only religion with no blood upon its hands. I submit\nanother very significant quotation from Mr. Lillie:\n\nI will write down a few of the achievements of this inactive Buddha and\nthe army of Bhikshus that he directed:\n\n   1. The most formidable priestly tyranny that the world had ever seen\n      crumbled away before his attack, and the followers of Buddha were\n      paramount in India for a thousand years.\n\n   2. The institution of caste was assailed and overthrown.\n\n   3. Polygamy was for the first time assailed and overturned.\n\n   4. Woman, from being considered a chattel and a beast of burden, was\n      for the first time considered man's equal, and allowed to develop\n      her spiritual life.\n\n   5. All bloodshed, whether with the knife of the priest or the sword\n      of the conqueror, was rigidly forbidden.\n\n   6. Also, for the first time in the religious history of mankind, the\n      awakening of the spiritual life of the individual was substituted\n      for religion by body corporate.\n\n   7. The principle of religious propagandism was for the first time\n      introduced with its two great instruments, the missionary and\n      the preacher.\n\nTo that list we may add that Buddhism abolished slavery and religious\npersecution; taught temperance, chastity, and humanity; and invented\nthe higher morality and the idea of the brotherhood of the entire human\nrace.\n\nWhat does _that_ prove? It seems to me to prove that Archdeacon Wilson\nis mistaken.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN RELIGION WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?\n\n\nWhat _is_ Christianity? When I began to discuss religion in the\n_Clarion_ I thought I knew what Christianity was. I thought it was\nthe religion I had been taught as a boy in Church of England and\nCongregationalist Sunday schools. But since then I have read many\nbooks, and pamphlets, and sermons, and articles intended to explain\nwhat Christianity is, and I begin to think there are as many kinds of\nChristianity as there are Christians. The differences are numerous and\nprofound: they are astonishing. That must be a strange revelation of God\nwhich can be so differently interpreted.\n\nWell, I cannot describe all these variants, nor can I reduce them to a\ncommon denominator. The most I can pretend to offer is a selection of\nsome few doctrines to which all or many Christians would subscribe.\n\n   1. All Christians believe in a Supreme Being, called God, who\n      created all beings.  They all believe that He is a good and\n      loving God, and our Heavenly Father.\n\n   2. Most Christians believe in Free Will.\n\n   3. All Christians believe that Man has sinned and does sin against God.\n\n   4. All Christians believe that Jesus Christ is in some way necessary\n      to Man's \"salvation,\" and that without Christ Man will be \"lost.\"\n\n      But when we ask for the meaning of the terms \"salvation\" and \"lost\"\n      the Christians give conflicting or divergent answers.\n\n   5. All Christians believe in the immortality of the soul. And I\n      think they all, or nearly all, believe in some kind of future\n      punishment or reward.\n\n   6. Most Christians believe that Christ was God.\n\n   7. Most Christians believe that after crucifixion Christ rose from\n      the dead and ascended into Heaven.\n\n   8. Most Christians believe, or think they believe, in the efficacy\n      of prayer.\n\n   9. Most Christians believe in a Devil; but he is a great many different\n      kinds of a Devil.\n\nOf these beliefs I should say:\n\n1. As to God. If there is no God, or if God is not a loving Heavenly\nFather, who answers prayer, Christianity as a religion cannot stand.\n\nI do not pretend to say whether there is or is not a God, but I deny\nthat there is a loving Heavenly Father who answers prayer.\n\n2 and 3. If there is no such thing as Free Will Man could not sin\nagainst God, and Christianity as a religion will not stand.\n\nI deny the existence of Free Will, and possibility of Man's sinning\nagainst God.\n\n4. If Jesus Christ is not necessary to Man's \"salvation,\" Christianity\nas a religion will not stand.\n\nI deny that Christ is necessary to Man's salvation from Hell or from\nSin.\n\n5. I do not assert or deny the immortality of the soul. I know nothing\nabout the soul, and no man is or ever was able to tell me more than I\nknow.\n\nOf the remaining four doctrines I will speak in due course.\n\nI spoke just now of the religion I was taught in my boyhood, some forty\nyears ago. As that religion seems to be still very popular I will try to\nexpress it as briefly as I can.\n\nAdam was the first man, and the father of the human race. He was created\nby God, in the likeness of God: that is to say, he was made \"perfect.\"\n\nBut, being tempted of the Devil, Adam sinned: he fell. God was so angry\nwith Adam for his sin that He condemned him and all his descendants for\nfive thousand years to a Hell of everlasting fire.\n\nAfter consigning all the generations of men for five thousand years to\nhorrible torment in Hell, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, down on earth\nto die, and to go Hell for three days, as an atonement for the sin of\nAdam.\n\nAfter Christ rose from the dead all who believed on Him and were\nbaptised would go to Heaven. All who did not believe on Him, or were not\nbaptised, would go to Hell, and burn for ever in a lake of fire.\n\nThat is what we were taught in our youth; and that is what millions\nof Christians believe to-day. That is the old religion of the Fall, of\n\"Inherited Sin,\" of \"Universal Damnation,\" and of atonement by the blood\nof Christ.\n\nThere is a new religion now, which shuts out Adam and Eve, and the\nserpent, and the hell of fire, but retains the \"Fall,\" the \"Sin against\nGod,\" and the \"Atonement by Christ.\"\n\nBut in the new Atonement, as I understand, or try to understand it,\nChrist is said to be God Himself, come down to win back to Himself Man,\nwho had estranged himself from God, or else God (as Christ) died to save\nMan, not from Hell, but from Sin.\n\nAll these theories, old and new, seem to me impossible.\n\nI will deal first, in a short way, with the new theories of the\nAtonement.\n\nIf Christ died to save Man from sin, how is it that nineteen centuries\nafter His death the world is full of sin?\n\nIf God (the All-powerful God, who loves us better than an earthly father\nloves his children) wished to forgive us the sin Adam committed ages\nbefore we were born, why did He not forgive us without dying, or causing\nHis Son to die, on a cross?\n\nIf Christ is essential to a good life on earth, how is it that many who\nbelieve in Him lead bad lives, while many of the best men and women of\nthis and former ages either never heard of Christ or did not follow Him?\n\nAs to the theory that Christ (or God) died to win back Man to Himself,\nit does not harmonise with the facts.\n\nMan never did estrange himself from God. All history shows that Man has\npersistently and anxiously sought for God, and has served Him, according\nto his light, with a blind devotion even to death and crime.\n\nFinally, Man never did, and never could, sin against God. For Man is\nwhat God made him; could only act as God enabled him, or constructed him\nto act, and therefore was not responsible for his act, and could not sin\nagainst God.\n\nIf God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's\nact. Therefore Man cannot sin against God.\n\nBut I shall deal more fully with the subject of Free Will, and of the\nneed for Christ as our Saviour, in another part of this book.\n\n\nLet us now turn to the old idea of the Fall and the Atonement.\n\nFirst, as to Adam and the Fall and inherited sin. Evolution, historical\nresearch, and scientific criticism have disposed of Adam. Adam was\na myth. Hardly any educated Christians now regard him as an historic\nperson.\n\nBut--no Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no Atonement, no Saviour.\nAccepting Evolution, how can we believe in a Fall? _When_ did Man fall?\nWas it before he ceased to be a monkey, or after? Was it when he was a\ntree man, or later? Was it in the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, or in\nthe Age of Iron?\n\nThere never _was_ any \"Fall.\" Evolution proves a long slow _rise_.\n\nAnd if there never was a Fall, why should there be any Atonement?\n\nChristians accepting the theory of evolution have to believe that God\nallowed the sun to form out of the nebula, and the earth to form\nfrom the sun, that He allowed Man to develop slowly from the speck of\nprotoplasm in the sea. That at some period of Man's gradual evolution\nfrom the brute, God found Man guilty of some sin, and cursed him. That\nsome thousands of years later God sent His only Son down upon the earth\nto save Man from Hell.\n\nBut evolution shows Man to be, even now, an imperfect creature, an\nunfinished work, a building still undergoing alterations, an animal\nstill evolving.\n\nWhereas the doctrines of \"the Fall\" and the Atonement assume that he\nwas from the first a finished creature, and responsible to God for his\nactions.\n\nThis old doctrine of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement is\nagainst reason as well as against science.\n\nThe universe is boundless. We know it to contain millions of suns, and\nsuppose it to contain millions of millions of suns. Our sun is but a\nspeck in the universe. Our earth is but a speck in the solar system.\n\nAre we to believe that the God who created all this boundless universe\ngot so angry with the children of the apes that He condemned them all\nto Hell for two score centuries, and then could only appease His rage by\nsending His own Son to be nailed upon a cross? Do you believe that? Can\nyou believe it?\n\nNo. As I said before, if the theory of evolution be true, there was\nnothing to atone for, and nobody to atone. _Man has never sinned against\nGod._ In fact, the whole of this old Christian doctrine is a mass of\nerror. There was no creation. There was no Fall. There was no Atonement.\nThere was no Adam, and no Eve, and no Eden, and no Devil, and no Hell.\n\nIf God is all-powerful, He had power to make Man by nature incapable of\nsin. But if, having the power to make Man incapable of sin, God made Man\nso weak as to \"fall,\" then it was God who sinned against Man, and not\nMan against God.\n\nFor if I had power to train a son of mine to righteousness, and I\ntrained him to wickedness, should I not sin against my son?\n\nOr if a man had power to create a child of virtue and intellect, but\nchose rather to create a child who was by nature a criminal or an idiot,\nwould not that man sin against his child?\n\nAnd do you believe that \"our Father in Heaven, our All-powerful God,\nwho is Love,\" would first create man fallible, and then punish him for\nfalling?\n\nAnd if He did so create and so punish man, could you call that just or\nmerciful?\n\nAnd if God is our \"maker,\" who but He is responsible for our make-up?\n\nAnd if He alone is responsible, how can Man have sinned against God?\n\nI maintain that besides being unhistorical and unreasonable, the old\ndoctrine of the Atonement is unjust and immoral.\n\nThe doctrine of the Atonement is not just nor moral, because it implies\nthat man should not be punished or rewarded according to his own merit\nor demerit, but according to the merit of another.\n\nIs it just, or is it moral, to make the good suffer for the bad?\n\nIs it just or moral to forgive one man his sin because another is\nsinless? Such a doctrine--the doctrine of Salvation for Christ's sake,\nand after a life of crime--holds out inducements to sin.\n\nRepentance is only good because it is the precursor of reform. But no\nrepentance can merit pardon, nor atone for wrong. If, having done wrong,\nI repent, and afterwards do right, that is good. But to be sorry and not\nto reform is not good.\n\nIf I do wrong, my repentance will not cancel that wrong. An act\nperformed is performed for ever.\n\nIf I cut a man's hand off, I may repent, and he may pardon me. But\nneither my remorse nor his forgiveness will make the hand grow again.\nAnd if the hand could grow again, the wrong I did would still have been\ndone.\n\nThat is a stern morality, but it is moral. Your doctrine of pardon\n\"for Christ's sake\" is not moral. God acts unjustly when He pardons for\nChrist's sake. Christ acts unjustly when He asks that pardon be granted\nfor his sake. If one man injures another, the prerogative of pardon\nshould belong to the injured man. It is for him who suffers to forgive.\n\nIf your son injure your daughter, the pardon must come from her. It\nwould not be just for you to say: \"He has wronged you, and has made no\natonement, but I forgive him.\" Nor would it be just for you to forgive\nhim because another son of yours was willing to be punished in his\nstead. Nor would it be just for that other son to come forward, and\nsay to you, and not to his injured sister, \"Father, forgive him for my\nsake.\"\n\nHe who wrongs a fellow-creature wrongs himself as well, and wrongs both\nfor all eternity. Let this awful thought keep us just. It is more moral\nand more corrective than any trust in the vicarious atonement of a\nSaviour.\n\nChrist's Atonement, or any other person's atonement, cannot _justly_\nbe accepted. For the fact that Christ is willing to suffer for another\nman's sin only counts to the merit of Christ, and does not in any way\ndiminish the offence of the sinner. If I am bad, does it make my offence\nthe less that another man is so much better?\n\nIf a just man had two servants, and one of them did wrong, and if the\nother offered to endure a flogging in expiation of his fault, what would\nthe just man do?\n\nTo flog John for the fault of James would be to punish John for being\nbetter than James. To forgive James because John had been unjustly\nflogged would be to assert that because John was good, and because the\nmaster had acted unjustly, James the guilty deserved to be forgiven.\n\nThis is not only contrary to reason and to justice: it is also a very\nfalse sentiment.\n\n\n\n\nDETERMINISM\n\nCAN MAN SIN AGAINST GOD?\n\n\nI have said several times that Man could not and cannot sin against God.\n\nThis is the theory of Determinism, and I will now explain it.\n\n_If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's\nacts._\n\nThe Christian says God is our Maker. God _made_ Man.\n\nWho is responsible for the quality or powers of a thing that is made?\n\nThe thing that is made cannot be responsible, for it did not make\nitself. But the maker is responsible, for he _made_ it.\n\nAs Man did not make himself, and had neither act, nor voice, nor\nsuggestion, nor choice in the creation of his own nature, Man cannot be\nheld answerable for the qualities or powers of his nature, and therefore\ncannot be held responsible for his acts.\n\nIf God made Man, God is responsible for the qualities and powers of\nMan's nature, and therefore God is responsible for Man's acts.\n\nChristian theology is built upon the sandy foundation of the doctrine of\nFree Will. The Christian theory may be thus expressed:\n\nGod gave Man a will to choose. Man chose evil, therefore Man is wicked,\nand deserves punishment.\n\nThe Christian says God _gave_ Man a will. The will, then, came from God,\nand was not made nor selected by Man.\n\nAnd this Will, the Christian says, is the \"power to choose.\"\n\nThen, this \"power to choose\" is of God's making and of God's gift.\n\nMan has only one will, therefore he has only one \"power of choice.\"\nTherefore he has no power of choice but the power God gave him. Then,\nMan can only choose by means of that power which God gave him, and he\ncannot choose by any other means.\n\nThen, if Man chooses evil, he chooses evil by means of the power of\nchoice God gave him.\n\nThen, if that power of choice given to him by God makes for evil,\nit follows that Man must choose evil, since he has no other power of\nchoice.\n\nThen, the only power of choice God gave Man is a power that will choose\nevil.\n\nThen, Man is unable to choose good because his only power of choice will\nchoose evil.\n\nThen, as Man did not make nor select his power of choice, Man cannot be\nblamed if that power chooses evil.\n\nThen, the blame must be God's, who gave Man a power of choice that would\nchoose evil.\n\nThen, Man cannot sin against God, for Man can only use the power God\ngave him, and can only use that power in the way in which that power\nwill work.\n\nThe word \"will\" is a misleading word. What is will? Will is not a\nfaculty, like the faculty of speech or touch. The word will is a symbol,\nand means the balance between two motives or desires.\n\nWill is like the action of balance in a pair of scales. It is the\nweights in the scales that decide the balance. So it is the motives in\nthe mind that decide the will. When a man chooses between two acts\nwe say that he \"exercises his will\"; but the fact is, that one motive\nweighs down the other, and causes the balance of the mind to lean to the\nweightier reason. There is no such thing as an exterior will outside the\nman's brain, to push one scale down with a finger. Will is abstract, not\nconcrete.\n\nA man always \"wills\" in favour of the weightier motive. If he loves\nthe sense of intoxication more than he loves his self-respect, he will\ndrink. If the reasons in favour of sobriety seem to him to outweigh the\nreasons in favour of drink, he will keep sober.\n\nWill, then, is a symbol for the balance of motives. Motives are born of\nthe brain. Therefore will depends upon the action of the brain.\n\nGod made the brain; therefore God is responsible for the action of the\nbrain; therefore God is responsible for the action of the will.\n\nTherefore Man is not responsible for the action of the will. Therefore\nMan cannot sin against God.\n\nChristians speak of the will as if it were a kind of separate soul, a\n\"little cherub who sits up aloft\" and gives the man his course.\n\nLet us accept this idea of the will. Let us suppose that a separate soul\nor faculty called the will governs the mind. That means that the \"little\ncherub\" governs the man.\n\nCan the man be justly blamed for the acts of the cherub?\n\nNo. Man did not make the cherub, did not select the cherub, and is\nobliged to obey the cherub.\n\nGod made the cherub, and gave him command of the man. Therefore God\nalone is responsible for the acts the man performs in obedience to the\ncherub's orders.\n\nIf God put a beggar on horseback, would the horse be blamable for\ngalloping to Monte Carlo? The horse must obey the rider. The rider was\nmade by God. How, then, can God blame the horse?\n\nIf God put a \"will\" on Adam's back, and the will followed the beckoning\nfinger of Eve, whose fault was that?\n\nThe old Christian doctrine was that Adam was made perfect, and that he\nfell. (How could the \"perfect\" fall?)\n\nWhy did Adam fall? He fell because the woman tempted him.\n\nThen Adam was not strong enough to resist the woman. Then, the woman had\npower to overcome Adam's will. As the Christian would express it, \"Eve\nhad the stronger will.\"\n\nWho made Adam? God made him. Who made Eve? God made her. Who made the\nSerpent? God made the Serpent.\n\nThen, if God made Adam weak, and Eve seductive, and the Serpent subtle,\nwas that Adam's fault or God's?\n\nDid Adam choose that Eve should have a stronger will than he, or that\nthe Serpent should have a stronger will than Eve? No. God fixed all\nthose things.\n\nGod is all-powerful. He could have made Adam strong enough to resist\nEve. He could have made Eve strong enough to resist the Serpent. He need\nnot have made the Serpent at all.\n\nGod is all-knowing. Therefore, when He made Adam and Eve and the Serpent\nHe knew that Adam and Eve _must_ fall. And if God knew they _must_ fall,\nhow could Adam help falling, and how _could_ he justly be blamed for\ndoing what he _must_ do?\n\nGod made a bridge--built it _Himself_, of His own materials, to His own\ndesign, and knew what the bearing strain of the bridge was.\n\nIf, then, God put upon the bridge a weight equal to double the bearing\nstrain, how could God justly blame the bridge for falling?\n\nThe doctrine of Free Will implies that God knowingly made the Serpent\nsubtle, Eve seductive, and Adam weak, and then damned the whole human\nrace because a bridge He had built to fall did not succeed in standing.\n\nSuch a theory is ridiculous; but upon it depends the entire fabric of\nChristian theology.\n\nFor if Man is not responsible for his acts, and therefore cannot sin\nagainst God, there is no foundation for the doctrines of the Fall, the\nSin, the Curse, or the Atonement.\n\nIf Man cannot sin against God, and if God is responsible for all Man's\nacts, the Old Testament is not true, the New Testament is not true, the\nChristian religion is not true.\n\nAnd if you consider the numerous crimes and blunders of the Christian\nChurch, you will always find that they grew out of the theory of\nFree Will, and the doctrines of Man's sin against God, and Man's\nresponsibility and \"wickedness.\"\n\nSt. Paul said, \"As in Adam all men fell, so in Christ are all made\nwhole.\" If Adam did not fall St. Paul was mistaken.\n\nChrist is reported to have prayed on the cross, \"Father, forgive them,\nfor they know not what they do.\"\n\nThat looks as if Jesus knew that the men were not responsible for their\nacts, and did not know any better. But if they knew not what they did,\nwhy should God be asked to _forgive_ them?\n\nBut let us go over the Determinist theory again, for it is most\nimportant.\n\n_If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's\nacts_.\n\nThe Christians say Man sinned, and they talk about his freedom of\nchoice. But they say God made Man, as He made all things.\n\nNow, if God is all-knowing, He knew before He made Man what Man would\ndo. He knew that Man could do nothing but what God had enabled him to\ndo. That he could do nothing but what he was foreordained by God to do.\n\nIf God is all-powerful, He need not have made Man at all. Or He could\nhave made a man who would be strong enough to resist temptation. Or He\ncould have made a man who was incapable of evil.\n\nIf the All-powerful God made a man, knowing that man would succumb to\nthe test to which God meant to subject him, surely God could not justly\nblame the man for being no better than God had made him.\n\nIf God had never made Man, then Man never could have succumbed to\ntemptation. God made Man of His own divine choice, and made him to His\nown divine desire.\n\nHow, then, could God blame Man for anything Man did?\n\nGod was responsible for Man's _existence_, for God made him. If God had\nnot made him, Man could never have been, and could never have acted.\nTherefore all that Man did was the result of God's creation of Man.\n\nAll man's acts were the effects of which his creation was the cause: and\nGod was responsible for the cause, and therefore God was responsible for\nthe effects.\n\nMan did not make himself. Man could not, before he existed, have asked\nGod to make him. Man could not advise nor control God so as to influence\nhis own nature. Man could only be what God caused him to be, and do what\nGod enabled or compelled him to do.\n\nMan might justly say to God: \"I did not ask to be created. I did not ask\nto be sent into this world. I had no power to select or mould my nature.\nI am what You made me. I am where You put me. You knew when You made\nme how I should act. If You wished me to act otherwise, why did You not\nmake me differently? If I have displeased You, I was fore-ordained to\ndisplease You. I was fore-ordained by You to be and to do what I am\nand have done. Is it my fault that You fore-ordained me to be and to do\nthus?\"\n\nChristians say a man has a will to choose. So he has. But that is only\nsaying that one human thought will outweigh another. A man thinks with\nhis brain: his brain was made by God.\n\nA tall man can reach higher than a short man. It is not the fault of the\nshort man that he is outreached: he did not fix his own height.\n\nIt is the same with the will. A man has a will to jump. He can jump over\na five-barred gate; but he cannot jump over a cathedral.\n\nSo with his will in moral matters. He has a will to resist temptation,\nbut though he may clear a small temptation, he may fall at a large one.\n\nThe actions of a man's will are as mathematically fixed at his birth as\nare the motions of a planet in its orbit.\n\nGod, who made the man and the planet, is responsible for the actions of\nboth.\n\nAs the natural forces created by God regulate the influences of Venus\nand Mars upon the Earth, so must the natural forces created by God have\nregulated the influences of Eve and the Serpent on Adam.\n\nAdam was no more blameworthy for failing to resist the influence of Eve\nthan the Earth is blameworthy for deviating in its course around the\nSun, in obedience to the influences of Venus and Mars.\n\nWithout the act of God there could have been no Adam, and therefore no\nFall. God, whose act is responsible for Adam's existence, is responsible\nfor the Fall.\n\n_If God is responsible for man's existence, God is responsible for all\nMan's acts._\n\nIf a boy brought a dog into the house and teased it until it bit him,\nwould not his parents ask the boy, \"Why did you bring the dog in at\nall?\"\n\nBut if the boy had trained the dog to bite, and knew that it would bite\nif it were teased, and if the boy brought the dog in and teased it until\nit bit him, would the parents blame the dog?\n\nAnd if a magician, like one of those at the court of Pharaoh,\ndeliberately made an adder out of the dust, knowing the adder would\nbite, and then played with the adder until it bit some spectator, would\nthe injured man blame the magician or the adder?\n\nHow, then, could God blame Man for the Fall?\n\nBut you may ask me, with surprise, as so many have asked me with\nsurprise, \"Do you really mean that no man is, under any circumstances,\nto be blamed for anything he may say or do?\"\n\nAnd I shall answer you that I do seriously mean that no man can, under\nany circumstances, be justly blamed for anything he may say or do. That\nis one of my deepest convictions, and I shall try very hard to prove\nthat it is just.\n\nBut you may say, as many have said: \"If no man can be justly blamed\nfor anything he says or does, there is an end of all law and order, and\nsociety is impossible.\"\n\nAnd I shall answer you: \"No, on the contrary, there is a beginning of\nlaw and order, and a chance that society may become civilised.\"\n\nFor it does not follow that because we may not blame a man we may not\ncondemn his acts. Nor that because we do not blame him we are bound to\nallow him to do all manner of mischief.\n\nSeveral critics have indignantly exclaimed that I make no difference\nbetween good men and bad, that I lump Torquemada, Lucrezia Borgia,\nFenelon, and Marcus Aurelius together, and condone the most awful\ncrimes.\n\nThat is a mistake. I regard Lucrezia Borgia as a homicidal maniac, and\nTorquemada as a religious maniac. I do not _blame_ such men and women.\nBut I should not allow them to do harm.\n\nI believe that nearly all crimes, vices, cruelties, and other evil acts\nare due to ignorance or to mental disease. I do not hate the man who\ncalls me an infidel, a liar, a blasphemer, or a quack. I know that he is\nignorant, or foolish, or ill-bred, or vicious, and I am sorry for him.\n\nSocrates, as reported by Xenophon, put my case in a nutshell. When a\nfriend complained to Socrates that a man whom he had saluted had not\nsaluted him in return, the father of philosophy replied: \"It is an odd\nthing that if you had met a man ill-conditioned in body you would not\nhave been angry; but to have met a man rudely disposed in mind provokes\nyou.\"\n\nThis is sound philosophy, I think. If we pity a man with a twist in his\nspine, why should we not pity the man with a twist in his brain? If we\npity a man with a stiff wrist, why not the man with a stiff pride? If we\npity a man with a weak heart, why not the man with the weak will? If we\ndo not blame a man for one kind of defect, why blame him for another?\n\nBut it does not follow that because we neither hate nor blame a criminal\nwe should allow him to commit crime.\n\nWe do not blame a rattlesnake, nor a shark. These creatures only fulfil\ntheir natures. The shark who devours a baby is no more sinful than the\nlady who eats a shrimp. We do not blame the maniac who burns a house\ndown and brains a policeman, nor the mad dog who bites a minor poet.\nBut, none the less, we take steps to defend ourselves against snakes,\nsharks, lunatics, and mad dogs.\n\nThe _Clarion_ does not hate a cruel sweater, nor a tyrannous landlord,\nnor a shuffling Minister of State, nor a hypocritical politician: it\npities such poor creatures. Yet the _Clarion_ opposes sweating and\ntyranny and hypocrisy, and does its best to defeat and to destroy them.\n\nIf a tiger be hungry he naturally seeks food. I do not blame the tiger;\nbut if he endeavoured to make his dinner off our business manager, and\nif I had a gun, I should shoot the tiger.\n\nWe do not hate nor blame the blight that destroys our roses and our\nvines. The blight is doing what we do: he is trying to live. But we\ndestroy the blight to preserve our roses and our grapes.\n\nSo we do not blame an incendiary. But we are quite justified in\nprotecting life and property. Dangerous men must be restrained. In cases\nwhere they attempt to kill and maim innocent and useful citizens, as,\nfor instance, by dynamite outrages, they must, in the last resort, be\nkilled.\n\n\"But,\" you may say, \"the dynamiter knows it is wrong to wreck a street\nand murder inoffensive strangers, and yet he does it. Is not that free\nwill? Is he not blameworthy?\"\n\nAnd I answer that when a man does wrong he does it because he knows no\nbetter, or because he is naturally vicious.\n\nAnd I hold that in neither case is he to blame: for he did not make\nhis nature, nor did he make the influences which have operated on that\nnature.\n\nMan is a creature of Heredity and Environment. He is by Heredity what\nhis ancestors have made him (or what God has made him). Up to the\nmoment of his birth he has had nothing to do with the formation of his\ncharacter. As Professor Tyndall says, \"that was done _for_ him, and not\n_by_ him.\" From the moment of his birth he is what his inherited nature,\nand the influences into which he has been sent without his consent, have\nmade him.\n\nAn omniscient being--like God--who knew exactly what a man's nature\nwould be at birth, and exactly the nature of the influences to which he\nwould be exposed after his birth, could predict every act and word of\nthat man's life.\n\nGiven a particular nature; given particular influences, the result will\nbe as mathematically inevitable as the speed and orbit of a planet.\n\nMan is what heredity (or God) and environment make him. Heredity gives\nhim his nature. That comes from his ancestors. Environment modifies his\nnature: environment consists of the operation of forces external to\nhis nature. No man can select his ancestors; no man can select\nhis environment. His ancestors make his nature; other men, and\ncircumstances, modify his nature.\n\nAsk any horse-breeder why he breeds from the best horses, and not from\nthe worst. He will tell you, because good horses are not bred from bad\nones.\n\nAsk any father why he would prefer that his son should mix with good\ncompanions rather than with bad companions. He will tell you that evil\ncommunications corrupt good manners, and pitch defiles.\n\nHeredity decides how a man shall be bred; environment regulates what he\nshall learn.\n\nOne man is a critic, another is a poet. Each is what heredity and\nenvironment have made him. Neither is responsible for his heredity nor\nfor his environment.\n\nIf the critic repents his evil deeds, it is because something has\nhappened to awake his remorse. Someone has told him of the error of his\nways. That adviser is part of his environment.\n\nIf the poet takes to writing musical comedies, it is because some\nevil influence has corrupted him. That evil influence is part of his\nenvironment.\n\nNeither of these men is culpable for what he has done. With nobler\nheredity, or happier environment, both might have been journalists; with\nbaser heredity, or more vicious environment, either might have been a\nmillionaire, a Socialist, or even a Member of Parliament.\n\nWe are all creatures of heredity and environment. It is Fate, and not\nhis own merit, that has kept George Bernard Shaw out of a shovel hat and\ngaiters, and condemned some Right Honourable Gentlemen to manage State\nDepartments instead of planting cabbages.\n\nThe child born of healthy, moral, and intellectual parents has a\nbetter start in life than the child born of unhealthy, immoral, and\nunintellectual parents.\n\nThe child who has the misfortune to be born in the vitiated atmosphere\nof a ducal palace is at a great disadvantage in comparison with the\nchild happily born amid the innocent and respectable surroundings of a\nsemi-detached villa in Brixton.\n\nWhat chance, then, has a drunkard's baby, born in a thieves' den, and\ndragged up amid the ignorant squalor of the slums?\n\nEnvironment is very powerful for good or evil. Had Shakespeare been born\nin the Cannibal Islands he would never have written _As You Like\nIt_; had Torquemada been born a Buddhist he never would have taken to\nroasting heretics.\n\nBut this, you may say, is sheer Fatalism. Well! It seems to me to be\n_truth_, and philosophy, and sweet charity.\n\nAnd now I will try to show the difference between this Determinism,\nwhich some think must prove so maleficent, and the Christian doctrine of\nFree Will, which many consider so beneficent.\n\nLet us take a flagrant instance of wrong-doing. Suppose some person\nto persist in playing \"Dolly Grey\" on the euphonium, or to contract a\nbaneful habit of reciting \"Curfew shall not Ring\" at evening parties,\nthe Christian believer in Free Will would call him a bad man, and would\nsay he ought to be punished.\n\nThe philosophic Determinist would denounce the offender's _conduct_, but\nwould not denounce the _offender_.\n\nWe Determinists do not denounce _men_; we denounce _acts_. We do not\nblame men; we try to teach them. If they are not teachable we restrain\nthem.\n\nYou will admit that our method is different from the accepted method.\nI shall try to convince you that it is also materially better than the\naccepted, or Christian, method.\n\nLet us suppose two concrete cases: (1) Bill Sikes beats his wife; (2)\nLord Rackrent evicts his tenants.\n\nLet us first think what would be the orthodox method of dealing with\nthese two cases?\n\nWhat would be the orthodox method? The parson and the man in the street\nwould say Bill Sikes was a bad man, and that he ought to be punished.\n\nThe Determinist would say that Bill Sikes had committed a crime, and\nthat he ought to be restrained, and taught better.\n\nYou may tell me there seems to be very little difference in the\npractical results of the two methods. But that is because we have not\nfollowed the two methods far enough.\n\nIf you will allow me to follow the two methods further you will, I hope,\nagree with me that their results will not be identical, but that our\nresults will be immeasurably better.\n\nFor the orthodox method is based upon the erroneous dogma that Bill\nSikes had a free will to choose between right and wrong, and, having\nchosen to do wrong, he is a bad man, and ought to be punished.\n\nBut the Determinist bases his method upon the philosophical theory that\nBill Sikes is what heredity and environment have made him; and that he\nis not responsible for his heredity, which he did not choose, nor for\nhis environment, which he did not make.\n\nStill, you may think the difference is not effectively great. But it is.\nFor the Christian would blame Bill Sikes, and no one but Bill Sikes.\nBut the Determinist would not blame Sikes at all: he would blame his\nenvironment.\n\nIs not that a material difference? But follow it out to its logical\nresults. The Christian, blaming only Bill Sikes, because he had a \"free\nwill,\" would punish Sikes, and perhaps try to convert Sikes; and there\nhis effort would logically end.\n\nThe Determinist would say: \"If this man Sikes has been reared in a slum,\nhas not been educated, nor morally trained, has been exposed to all\nkinds of temptation, the fault is that of the social system which has\nmade such ignorance, and vice, and degradation possible.\"\n\nThat is _one_ considerable difference between the results of a good\nreligion and a bad one. The Christian condemns the man--who is a victim\nof evil social conditions. The Determinist condemns the evil conditions.\nIt is the difference between the methods of sending individual sufferers\nfrom diphtheria to the hospital and the method of condemning the drains.\n\nBut you may cynically remind me that nothing will come of the\nDeterminists' protest against the evil social conditions. Perhaps not.\nLet us waive that question for a moment, and consider our second case.\n\nLord Rackrent evicts his tenants. The orthodox method is well known. It\ngoes no further than the denunciation of the peer, and the raising of a\nsubscription (generally inadequate) for the sufferers.\n\nThe Determinist method is different. The Determinist would say: \"This\npeer is what heredity and environment have made him. We cannot blame him\nfor being what he is. We can only blame his environment. There must be\nsomething wrong with a social system which permits one idle peer to ruin\nhundreds of industrious producers. This evil social system should be\namended, or evictions will continue.\"\n\nThat Determinist conclusion would be followed by the usual inadequate\nsubscription.\n\nAnd now we will go back to the point we passed. You may say, in the case\nof Sikes and the peer, that the logic of the Determinist is sound, but\nineffective: nothing comes of it.\n\nI admit that nothing comes of it, and I am now going to tell you _why_\nnothing comes of it.\n\nThe Determinist cannot put his wisdom into action, because he is in a\nminority.\n\nSo long as Christians have an overwhelming majority who will not touch\nthe drains, diphtheria must continue.\n\nSo long as the universal verdict condemns the victim of a bad system,\nand helps to keep the bad system in full working order, so long will\nevil flourish and victims suffer.\n\nIf you wish to realise the immense superiority of the Determinist\nprinciples over the Christian religion, you have only to imagine what\nwould happen if the Determinists had a majority as overwhelming as the\nmajority the Christians now hold.\n\nFor whereas the Christian theory of free will and personal\nresponsibility results in established ignorance and injustice, with no\nvisible remedies beyond personal denunciation, the prison, and a few\ncoals and blankets, the Determinist method would result in the abolition\nof lords and burglars, of slums and palaces, of caste and snobbery.\nThere would be no ignorance and no poverty left in the world.\n\nThat is because the Determinist understands human nature, and the\nChristian does not. It is because the Determinist understands morality,\nand the Christian does not.\n\nFor the Determinist looks for the cause of wrong-doing in the\nenvironment of the wrong-doer. While the Christian puts all the wrongs\nwhich society perpetrates against the individual, and all the wrongs\nwhich the individual perpetrates against his fellows down to an\nimaginary \"free will.\"\n\nSome Free-Willers are fond of crying out: \"Once admit that men are not\nto be blamed for their actions, and all morality and all improvement\nwill cease.\" But that is a mistake. As I have indicated above, a good\nmany evils now rife would cease, because then we should attack the\nevils, and not the victims of the evils. But it is absurd to suppose\nthat we do not detest cholera because we do not detest cholera patients,\nor that we should cease to hate wrong because we ceased to blame\nwrong-doers.\n\nAdmit the Determinist theory, and all would be taught to do well, and\nmost would take kindly to the lesson. Because the fact that environment\nis so powerful for evil suggests that it is powerful for good. If man is\nwhat he is made, it behoves a nation which desires and prizes good men\nto be very earnest and careful in its methods of making them.\n\nI believe that I am what heredity and environment made me. But I know\nthat I can make myself better or worse if I try. I know that because I\nhave learnt it, and the learning has been part of my environment.\n\nMy claim, as a Determinist, is that it is not so good to punish an\noffender as to improve his environment. It is good of the Christians to\nopen schools and to found charities. But as a Determinist I am bound to\nsay that there ought to be no such things in the world as poverty and\nignorance, and one of the contributory causes to ignorance and poverty\nis the Christian doctrine of free will.\n\nTake away from a man all that God gave him, and there will be nothing of\nhim left.\n\nTake away from a man all that heredity and environment have given him,\nand there will be nothing left.\n\nMan is what he is by the act of God, or the results of heredity and\nenvironment. In either case he is not to blame.\n\nIn one case the result is due to the action of his ancestors and\nsociety, in the other to the act of God.\n\nTherefore a man is not responsible for his actions, and cannot sin\nagainst God.\n\n_If God is responsible for Man's existence, God is responsible for Man's\nacts._\n\nA religion built upon the doctrine of Free Will and human responsibility\nto God is built upon a misconception and must fall.\n\nChristianity is a fabric of impossibilities erected upon a foundation of\nerror.\n\nPerhaps, since I find many get confused on the subject of Free Will from\ntheir consciousness of continually exercising the \"power of choice,\" I\nhad better say a few words here on that subject.\n\nYou say you have power to choose between two courses. So you have, but\nthat power is limited and controlled by heredity and environment.\n\nIf you have to choose between a showy costume and a plain one you will\nchoose the one you like best, and you will like best the one which your\nnature (heredity) and your training (environment) will lead you to like\nbest.\n\nYou think your will is free. But it is not. You may think you have power\nto drown yourself; but you have not.\n\nYour love of life and your sense of duty are too strong for you.\n\nYou might think I have power to leave the _Clarion_ and start an\nanti-Socialist paper. But I know I have not that power. My nature\n(heredity) and my training and habit (environment) are too strong for\nme.\n\nIf you knew a lady was going to choose between a red dress and a grey\none, and if you knew the lady very well, you could guess her choice\nbefore she made it.\n\nIf you knew an honourable man was to be offered a bribe to do a\ndishonourable act, you would feel sure he would refuse it.\n\nIf you knew a toper was to be offered as much free whisky as he could\ndrink, you would be sure he would not come home sober.\n\nIf you knew the nature and the environment of a man thoroughly well,\nand the circumstances (_all_ the circumstances) surrounding a choice\nof action to be presented to him, and if you were clever enough to work\nsuch a difficult problem, you could forecast his choice before he made\nit, as surely as in the case of the lady, the toper, and the honourable\nman above mentioned.\n\nYou have power to choose, then, but you can only choose as your heredity\nand environment _compel_ you to choose. And you do not select your own\nheredity nor your own environment.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIAN APOLOGIES CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES\n\n\nChristian apologists make some daring claims on behalf of their\nreligion. The truth of Christianity is proved, they say, by its\nendurance and by its power; the beneficence of its results testifies to\nthe divinity of its origin.\n\nThese claims command wide acceptance, for the simple reason that those\nwho deny them cannot get a hearing.\n\nThe Christians have virtual command of all the churches, universities,\nand schools. They have the countenance and support of the Thrones,\nParliaments, Cabinets, and aristocracies of the world, and they have the\nnominal support of the World's Newspaper Press. They have behind them\nthe traditions of eighteen centuries. They have formidable allies in the\nshape of whole schools of philosophy and whole libraries of eloquence\nand learning. They have the zealous service and unswerving credence of\nmillions of honest and worthy citizens: and they are defended by solid\nramparts of prejudice, and sentiment, and obstinate old custom.\n\nThe odds against the Rationalists are tremendous. To challenge the\nclaims of Christianity is easy: to get the challenge accepted is very\nhard. Rationalists' books and papers are boycotted. The Christians will\nnot listen, will not reason, will not, if they can prevent it, allow\na hostile voice to be heard. Thus, from sheer lack of knowledge, the\npublic accept the Christian apologist's assertions as demonstrated\ntruth.\n\nAnd the Christians claim this immunity from attack as a triumph of their\narms, and a further proof of the truth of their religion. Religion has\nbeen attacked before, they cry, and where now are its assailants? And\nthe answer must be, that many of its assailants are in their graves, but\nthat some of them are yet alive, and there are more to follow. But the\ncombat is very unequal. If the Rationalists could for only a few\nyears have the support of the Crowns, Parliaments, Aristocracies,\nUniversities, Schools, and Newspapers of the world; if they could preach\nScience and Reason twice every Sunday from a hundred thousand pulpits,\nperhaps the Christians would have less cause for boasting.\n\nBut as things are, we \"Infidels\" must cease to sigh for whirlwinds, and\ndo the best we can with the bellows.\n\nSo: the Christians claim that their religion has done wonders for the\nworld; a claim disputed by the Rationalists.\n\nNow, when we consider what Christianity has done, we should take account\nof the evil as well as the good. But this the Christians are unwilling\nto allow.\n\nChristians declare that the divine origin and truth of their religion\nare proved by its beneficent results.\n\nBut Christianity has done evil as well as good. Mr. G. K. Chesterton,\nwhile defending Christianity in the _Daily News_, said:\n\n     Christianity has committed crimes so monstrous that the sun might\n     sicken at them in heaven.\n\nAnd no one can refute that statement.\n\nBut Christians evade the dilemma. When the evil works of their\nreligion are cited, they reply that those evils were wrought by false\nChristianity, that they were contrary to the teachings of Christ, and so\nwere not the deeds of Christians at all.\n\n_The Christian Commonwealth_, in advancing the above plea as to real\nand false Christianity, instances the difference between Astrology and\nAstronomy, and said:\n\n     We fear Mr. Blatchford, if he has any sense of consistency,\n     must, when he has finished his tirade against Christianity,\n     turn his artillery on Greenwich Observatory, and proclaim the\n     Astronomer Royal a scientific quack, on account of the follies\n     of star-gazers in the past.\n\nBut that parallel is not a true one. Let us suppose that the follies of\nastrology and the discoveries of astronomy were bound up in one book,\nand called the Word of God. Let us suppose we were told that the whole\nbook--facts, reason, folly, and falsehoods--was divinely inspired and\nliterally true. Let us suppose that any one who denied the old crude\nerrors of astrology was persecuted as a heretic. Let us suppose that any\none denying the theory of Laplace or the theory of Copernicus would\nbe reviled as an \"Infidel.\" Let us suppose that the Astronomer Royal\nclaimed infallibility, not only in matters astronomical, but also\nin politics and morals. Let us suppose that for a thousand years the\nastrological-astronomical holy government had whipped, imprisoned,\ntortured, burnt, hanged, and damned for everlasting every man, woman, or\nchild who dared to tell it any new truth, and that some of the noblest\nmen of genius of all ages had been roasted or impaled alive for being\nrude to the equator. Let us suppose that millions of pounds were still\nannually spent on casting nativities, and that thousands of expensive\nobservatories were still maintained at the public cost for astrological\nrites. Let us suppose all this, and then I should say it would be quite\nconsistent and quite logical for me to turn my verbal artillery on\nGreenwich Observatory.\n\nWould the Christians listen to such a plea in any other case? Had\nSocialists been guilty of tyranny, or war, of massacre, or torture, of\nblind opposition to the truth of science, of cruel persecution of the\nfinest human spirits for fifteen centuries, can anyone believe for\na moment that Christians would heed the excuse that the founders of\nSocialism had not preached the atrocious policy which the established\nSocialist bodies and the recognised Socialist leaders had put in force\npersistently during all those hundreds of cruel years?\n\nWould the Christian hearken to such a defence from a Socialist, or\nfrom a Mohammedan? Would a Liberal accept it from a Tory? Would a Roman\nCatholic admit it from a Jew?\n\nNeither is it right to claim credit for the good deeds, and to avoid\nresponsibility for the evil deeds of the divine religion.\n\nAnd the fact must be insisted upon, that _all_ religion, in its very\nnature, makes for persecution and oppression. It is the assumption that\nit is wicked to doubt the accepted faith and the presumption that one\nreligion ought to revenge or justify its God upon another religion, that\nleads to all the pious crimes the world groans and bleeds for.\n\nThis is seen in the Russian outrages on the Jews, and in the Moslem\noutrages upon the Macedonians to-day. It is religious fanaticism that\nlights and fans and feeds the fire. Were all the people in the world\nof one, or of no, religion to-day, there would be no Jews murdered by\nChristians and no Christians murdered by Moslems in the East. The cause\nof the atrocities would be gone. The cause is religion.\n\nWhy is religious intolerance so much more fierce and bitter than\npolitical intolerance? Just because it _is_ religious. It is the\nsupernatural element that breeds the fury. It is the feeling that their\nreligion is divine and all other religions wicked: it is the belief that\nit is a holy thing to be \"jealous for the Lord,\" that drives men into\nblind rage and ruthless savagery.\n\nWe have to regard two things at once, then: the good influences of\nChrist's ethics, and the evil deeds of those who profess to be His\nfollowers.\n\nAs to what some Christians call \"the Christianity of Christ,\" I suggest\nthat the teachings of Christ were imperfect and inadequate. That they\ncontain some moral lessons I admit. But some of the finest and most\ngenerally admired of those lessons do not appear to have been spoken\nby Christ, and for the rest there is nothing in His ethics that had\nnot been taught by men before, and little that has not been extended or\nimproved by men since His era.\n\nThe New Testament, considered as a moral and spiritual guide for\nmankind, is unsatisfactory. For it is based upon an erroneous estimate\nof human nature and of God.\n\nI am sure that it would be easy to compile a book more suitable to\nthe needs of Man. I think it is a gross blunder to assume that all the\ngenius, all the experience, all the discovery and research; all the\npoetry, morality, and science of the entire human race during the past\neighteen hundred years have failed to add to or improve the knowledge\nand morality of the first century.\n\nMixed with much that is questionable or erroneous, the New Testament\ncontains some truth and beauty. Amid the perpetration of much bloodshed\nand tyranny, Christianity has certainly achieved some good. I should not\nlike to say of any religion that all its works were evil. But Christ's\nmessage, as we have it in the Gospels, is neither clear nor sufficing,\nand has been obscured, and, at times almost obliterated, by the pomps\nand casuistries of the schools and churches. And just as it is difficult\nto discover the actual Jesus among the conflicting Gospel stories of\nHis works and words, so it is almost impossible to discover the genuine\nauthentic Christian religion amid the swarm of more or less antagonistic\nsects who confound the general ear with their discordant testimonies.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION\n\n\nIt is a common mistake of apologists to set down all general\nimprovements and signs of improvements to the credit of the particular\nreligion or political theory they defend. Every good Liberal knows that\nbad harvests are due to Tory government. Every good Tory knows that\nhis Party alone is to thank for the glorious certainties that Britannia\nrules the waves, that an Englishman's house is his castle, and that\njourneymen tailors earn fourpence an hour more than they were paid in\nthe thirteenth century.\n\nCobdenites ascribe every known or imagined improvement in commerce, and\nthe condition of the masses, to Free Trade. Things are better than\nthey were fifty years ago: Free Trade was adopted fifty years ago.\n_Ergo_--there you are.\n\nThere is not a word about the development of railways and steamships,\nabout improved machinery, about telegraphs, the cheap post and\ntelephones; about education and better facilities of travel; about the\nFactory Acts and Truck Acts; about cheap books and newspapers; and who\nso base to whisper of Trade Unions, and Agitators, and County Councils?\n\nSo it is with the Christian religion. We are more moral, more civilised,\nmore humane, the Christians tell us, than any human beings ever were\nbefore us. And we owe this to the Christian religion, and to no other\nthing under Heaven.\n\nBut for Christianity we never should have had the House of Peers, the\n_Times_ newspaper, the Underground Railway, the _Adventures of Captain\nKettle_, the Fabian Society, or Sir Thomas Lipton.\n\nThe ancient Greek Philosophers, the Buddhist missionaries, the Northern\ninvaders, the Roman laws and Roman roads, the inventions of printing,\nof steam, and of railways, the learning of the Arabs, the discoveries\nof Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, Hunter, Laplace, Bacon,\nDescartes, Spencer, Columbus, Karl Marx, Adam Smith; the reforms\nand heroisms and artistic genius of Wilberforce, Howard, King Asoka,\nWashington, Stephen Langton, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Thomas More, Rabelais,\nand Shakespeare; the wars and travels and commerce of eighteen hundred\nyears, the Dutch Republic, the French Revolution, and the Jameson Raid\nhave had nothing to do with the growth of civilisation in Europe and\nAmerica.\n\nAnd so to-day: science, invention, education, politics, economic\nconditions, literature and art, the ancient Greeks and Oriental Wisdom,\nand the world's Press count for nothing in the moulding of the nations.\nEverything worth having comes from the pulpit, the British and Foreign\nBible Society, and the _War Cry_.\n\nIt is not to our scientists, our statesmen, our economists, our authors,\ninventors, and scholars that we must look for counsel and reform: such\nsecular aid is useless, and we shall be wise to rely entirely upon His\nHoliness the Pope and His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.\n\nIn the England of the Middle Ages, when Christianity was paramount,\nthere was a cruel penal code, there was slavery, there were barbarous\nforest laws, there were ruthless oppression and insolent robbery of the\npoor, there were black ignorance and a terror of superstition, there\nwere murderous laws against witchcraft, there was savage persecution\nof the Jews, there were \"trial by wager of battle,\" and \"question\" of\nprisoners by torture.\n\nMany of these horrors endured until quite recent times. Why did\nChristianity with its spiritual and temporal power, permit such things\nto be?\n\nDid Christianity abolish them? No. Christianity nearly always opposed\nreform. The Church was the enemy of popular freedom, the enemy of\npopular education; the friend of superstition and tyranny, and the\nrobber baron.\n\nThose horrors are no more. But Christianity did not abolish them. They\nwere abolished by the gradual spread of humane feelings and the light\nof knowledge; just as similar iniquities were abolished by the spread of\nhumane doctrines in India, centuries before the birth of Christ.\n\nOrganised and authoritative religion the world over makes for ignorance,\nfor poverty and superstition. In Russia, in Italy, in Spain, in\nTurkey, where the Churches are powerful and the authority is tense, the\ncondition of the people is lamentable. In America, England, and Germany,\nwhere the authority of the Church is less rigid and the religion is\nnearer Rationalism, the people are more prosperous, more intelligent,\nand less superstitious. So, again, the rule of the English Church seems\nless beneficial than that of the more rational and free Nonconformist.\nThe worst found and worst taught class in England is that of the\nagricultural labourers, who have been for centuries left entirely in the\nhands of the Established Church.\n\nIt may be urged that the French, although Catholics, are as intelligent\nand as prosperous as any nation in the world. But the French are a\nclever people, and since their Revolution have not taken their religion\nso seriously. Probably there are more Sceptics and Rationalists in\nFrance than in any other country.\n\nMy point is that the prosperity and happiness of a nation do not depend\nupon the form of religion they profess, but upon their native energy and\nintelligence and the level of freedom and knowledge to which they have\nattained.\n\nIt is because organised and authoritative religion opposes education and\nliberty that we find the most religious peoples the most backward. And\nthis is a strange commentary upon the claim of the Christians,\nthat their religion is the root from which the civilisation and the\nrefinement of the world have sprung.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY AND ETHICS\n\n\nChristianity, we are told, inaugurated the religion of humanity and\nhuman brotherhood. But the Buddhists taught a religion of humanity and\nuniversal brotherhood before the Christian era; and not only taught the\nreligion, but put it into practice, which the Christians never succeeded\nin doing, and cannot do to-day.\n\nAnd, moreover, the Buddhists did not spread their religion of\nhumanity and brotherhood by means of the sword, and the rack, and the\nthumb-screw, and the faggot; and the Buddhists liberated the slave, and\nextended their loving-kindness to the brute creation.\n\nThe Buddhists do not depend for the records of their morality on books.\nTheir testimony is written upon the rocks. No argument can explain away\nthe rock edicts of King Asoka.\n\nKing Asoka was one of the greatest Oriental kings. He ruled over a vast\nand wealthy nation. He was converted to Buddhism, and made it the State\nreligion, as Constantine made Christianity the State religion of Rome.\nIn the year 251 B.C., King Asoka inscribed his earliest rock edict.\nThe other edicts from which I shall quote were all cut more than two\ncenturies before our era. The inscription of the Rupuath Rock has the\nwords: \"Two hundred and fifty years have elapsed since the departure of\nthe teacher.\" Now, Buddha died in the fifth century before Christ.\n\nThe Dhauli Edict of King Asoka contains the following:\n\n     Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience,\n     I again declare; not less so is the laborious ambition of\n     dominion by a prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven.\n     Confess and believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience.\n\nFrom the Tenth Rock Edict:\n\n     Earthly glory brings little profit, but, on the contrary,\n     produces a loss of virtue.  To toil for heaven is difficult\n     to peasant and to prince, unless by a supreme effort he gives\n     up all.\n\nThis is from the Fourteenth Edict:\n\n     Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, values alone the harvest\n     of the next world.  For this alone has this inscription been\n     chiselled, that our sons and our grandsons should make no new\n     conquests.  Let them not think that conquests by the sword\n     merit the name of conquests.  Let them see their ruin, confusion,\n     and violence.  True conquests alone are the conquests of _Dharma_.\n\nRock Edict No. 1 has:\n\n     Formerly in the great refectory and temple of King Piyadasi,\n     the friend of the Devas, many hundred thousand animals were\n     daily sacrificed for the sake of food meat... but now the\n     joyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward not\n     a single animal shall be put to death.\n\nThe Second Edict has:\n\n     In committing the least possible harm, in doing abundance of\n     good, in the practice of pity, love, truth, and likewise purity\n     of life, religion consists.\n\nThe Ninth Edict has:\n\n     Not superstitious rites, but kindness to slaves and servants,\n     reverence towards venerable persons, self-control with respect\n     to living creatures... these and similar virtuous actions\n     are the rites which ought indeed to be performed.\n\nThe Eighth Edict has:\n\n     The acts and the practice of religion, to wit, sympathy,\n     charity, truthfulness, purity, gentleness, kindness.\n\nThe Sixth Edict has:\n\n     I consider the welfare of all people as something for which\n     I must work.\n\nThe Dhauli Edict has:\n\n     If a man is subject to slavery and ill-treatment, from this\n     moment he shall be delivered by the king from this and other\n     captivity.  Many men in this country suffer in captivity,\n     therefore the stupa containing the commands of the king has\n     been a great want.\n\nIs it reasonable to suppose that a people possessing so much wisdom,\nmercy, and purity two centuries before Christ was born could need to\nborrow from the Christian ethics?\n\nMr. Lillie says of King Asoka:\n\n     He antedates Wilberforce in the matter of slavery.  He antedates\n     Howard in his humanity towards prisoners.  He antedates Tolstoy\n     in his desire to turn the sword into a pruning-hook.  He antedates\n     Rousseau, St. Martin, Fichte in their wish to make interior\n     religion the all in all.\n\nKing Asoka abolished slavery, denounced war, taught spiritual religion\nand purity of life, founded hospitals, forbade blood sacrifices, and\ninculcated religious toleration, two centuries before the birth of\nChrist.\n\nCenturies before King Asoka the Buddhists sent out missionaries all over\nthe world.\n\nWhich religion was the borrower from the other--Buddhism or\nChristianity?\n\nTwo centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon the rocks these\nwords:\n\n     I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with\n     me in creed, that they, following after my example, may with\n     me attain unto eternal salvation.  And whoso doeth this is\n     blessed of the inhabitants of this world; and in the next\n     world endless moral merit resulteth from such religious charity\n     --_Edict XI_.\n\nHow many centuries did it take the Christians to rise to that level of\nwisdom and charity? How many Christians have reached it yet?\n\nBut the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, for it existed\namong forms of life very much earlier and lower than the human, and has,\nindeed, been a powerful factor in evolution.\n\nSpeaking of \"The Golden Rule\" in his _Confessions of Faith of a Man of\nScience_, Haeckel says:\n\n     In the human family this maxim has always been accepted as\n     self-evident; as ethical instinct it was an inheritance\n     derived from our animal ancestors.  It had already found a\n     place among the herds of apes and other social mammals; in a\n     similar manner, but with wider scope, it was already present\n     in the most primitive communities and among the hordes of the\n     least advanced savages.  Brotherly love--mutual support,\n     succour, protection, and the like--had already made its\n     appearance among gregarious animals as a social duty; for\n     without it the continued existence of such societies is\n     impossible.  Although at a later period, in the case of man,\n     these moral foundations of society came to be much more highly\n     developed, their oldest prehistoric source, as Darwin has shown,\n     is to be sought in the social instincts of animals.  Among the\n     higher vertebrates (dogs, horses, elephants, etc.), as among\n     the higher articulates (ants, bees, termites, etc.), also, the\n     development of social relations and duties is the indispensable\n     condition of their living together in orderly societies.  Such\n     societies have for man also been the most important instrument\n     of intellectual and moral progress.\n\nIt is not to revelation that we owe the ideal of human brotherhood, but\nto evolution. It is because altruism is better than selfishness that it\nhas survived. It is because love is stronger and sweeter than greed that\nits influence has deepened and spread. From the love of the animal for\nits mate, from the love of parents for their young, sprang the ties of\nkindred and the loyalty of friendship; and these in time developed\ninto tribal, and thence into national patriotism. And these stages of\naltruistic evolution may be seen among the brutes. It remained for Man\nto take the grand step of embracing all humanity as one brotherhood and\none nation.\n\nBut the root idea of fraternity and mutual loyalty was not planted by\nany priest or prophet. For countless ages universal brotherhood has\nexisted among the bison, the swallow, and the deer, in a perfection to\nwhich humanity has not yet attained.\n\nFor a fuller account of this animal origin of fraternity I recommend the\nreader to two excellent books, _The Martyrdom of Man_, by Winwood Reade\n(Kegan Paul), and _Mutual Aid_, by Prince Kropotkin (Heinemann).\n\nBut the Christian claims that Christ taught a new gospel of love, and\nmercy, and goodwill to men. That is a great mistake. Christ did not\noriginate one single new ethic.\n\nThe Golden Rule was old. The Lord's Prayer was old. The Sermon on\nthe Mount was old. With the latter I will deal briefly. For a fuller\nstatement, please see the R.P.A. sixpenny edition of Huxley's _Lectures\nand Essays_, and _Christianity and Mythology_, by J. M. Robertson.\n\nShortly stated, Huxley's argument was to the following effect:\n\nThat Mark's Gospel is the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, and that\nMark's Gospel does not contain, nor even mention, the Sermon on the\nMount. That Luke gives no Sermon on the Mount, but gives what may be\ncalled a \"Sermon on the Plain.\" That Luke's sermon differs materially\nfrom the sermon given by Matthew. That the Matthew version contains one\nhundred and seven verses, and the Luke version twenty-nine verses.\n\nHuxley's conclusion is as follows:\n\n     \"Matthew,\" having a _cento_ of sayings attributed--rightly or\n     wrongly it is impossible to say--to Jesus among his materials,\n     thought they were, or might be, records of a continuous discourse\n     and put them in a place he thought likeliest.  Ancient historians\n     of the highest character saw no harm in composing long speeches\n     which never were spoken, and putting them into the mouths of\n     statesmen and warriors; and I presume that whoever is represented\n     by \"Matthew\" would have been grievously astonished to find that\n     any one objected to his following the example of the best models\n     accessible to him.\n\nBut since Huxley wrote those words more evidence has been produced. From\nthe Old Testament, from the Talmud, and from the recently-discovered\n_Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_ (a pre-Christian work) the origins of\nthe Sermon on the Mount have been fully traced.\n\nAgnostic criticism now takes an attitude towards this sermon which may\nbe thus expressed:\n\n   1. The sermon never was preached at all. It is a written compilation.\n\n   2. The story of the mount is a myth. The name of the mount is not\n      given.  It is not reasonable to suppose that Jesus would lead a\n      multitude up a mountain to speak to them for a few minutes.  The\n      mountain is an old sun-myth of the Sun God on his hill, and the\n      twelve apostles are another sun-myth, and represent the signs of\n      the Zodiac.\n\n   3. There is nothing in the alleged sermon that was new at the time\n      of its alleged utterance.\n\nOf course, it may be claimed that the arrangement of old texts in a new\nform constitutes a kind of originality; as one might say that he who\ntook flowers from a score of gardens and arranged them into one bouquet\nproduced a new effect of harmony and beauty. But this credit must be\ngiven to the compilers of the gospels' version of the Sermon on the\nMount.\n\nLet us take a few pre-Christian morals.\n\nSextus said: \"What you wish your neighbours to be to you, such be also\nto them.\"\n\nIsocrates said: \"Act towards others as you desire others to act towards\nyou.\"\n\nLao-tze said: \"The good I would meet with goodness, the not-good I would\nalso meet with goodness.\"\n\nBuddha said: \"Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases\nby love.\"\n\nAnd again: \"Let us live happily, not hating those who hate us.\"\n\nIn the Talmud occur the following Jewish anticipations of Christian\nmorals:\n\n     Love peace, and seek it at any price.\n\n     Remember that it is better to be persecuted than persecutor.\n\n     To whom does God pardon sins?--To him who himself forgives injuries.\n\n     Those who undergo injuries without returning it, those who\n     hear themselves vilified and do not reply, who have no motive\n     but love, who accept evils with joy; it is of them that the\n     prophet speaks when he says the friends of God shall shine\n     one day as the sun in all his splendour.\n\n     It is not the wicked we should hate, but wickedness.\n\n     Be like God, compassionate, merciful.\n\n     Judge not your neighbour when you have not been in his place.\n\n     He who charitably judges his neighbour shall be charitably judged\n     by God.\n\n     Do not unto others that which it would be disagreeable to you\n     to suffer yourself, that is the main part of the law; all the\n     rest is only commentary.\n\nFrom the Old Testament come such morals as:\n\n     Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him (Lam. iii. 30).\n\n     Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev. xix. 18).\n\n     He that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honour (Prov. xxix. 23)\n\n     The meek shall inherit the land (Ps. xxxvii 11).\n\nHistory and ancient literature prove that Christianity did not bring\na new moral code, did not inaugurate peace, nor purity, nor universal\nbrotherhood, did not originate the ideal human character: but checked\ncivilisation, resisted all enlightenment, and deluged the earth with\ninnocent blood in the endeavour to compel mankind to drink old moral\nwine out of new theological bottles.\n\nThree of the greatest blessings men can have are freedom, liberty of\nconscience, and knowledge. These blessings Christianity has not given,\nbut has opposed.\n\nIt is largely to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Arabs and\nthe Indians, to patriots, heroes, statesmen, scholars, scientists,\ntravellers, inventors, discoverers, authors, poets, philanthropists,\nrebels, sceptics, and reformers that the world owes such advance as it\nhas made towards liberty and happiness and universal loving-kindness.\n\nThis advance has been made in defiance of Christian envy, hatred, and\nmalice, and in defiance of Christian tyranny and persecution. After\nfighting fiercely to defeat the advance of humanity, after slaying\nand cursing the noblest sons and daughters of the ages, the defeated\nChristians now claim to have conquered the fields they have lost,\nto have bestowed the benefits they have denied, to have evolved the\ncivilisation they have maimed and damned.\n\nAs a Democrat, a Humanist, and a Socialist, I join my voice to the\nindignant chorus which denies those claims.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nWe are told that the divine origin and truth of Christianity are proved\nby the marvellous success of that religion. But it seems to me that the\nreverse is proved by its failure.\n\nChristianity owed its magnificent opportunities (which it has wasted) to\nseveral accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made\npossible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion\nof his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible\nby the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State\nreligion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.\n\nChristianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a\nnew religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling\npowers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven\nin one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older\nreligions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to\nconjure with.\n\nChristianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who\nresisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge,\nand putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by\nrewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It\nheld its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and\nthe sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.\n\nNor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of\n\"Heretics\" and \"Infidels\" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley,\nthe American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years'\ncommand of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive,\nand punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of\nproperty, or perpetual imprisonment.\n\nTo be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a \"wizard,\" a sceptic, a heretic was\nto merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to\ndeath as \"heretics\" _the entire population of the Netherlands_. Wherever\nthe Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the\ndevilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries\nthe Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the\nterm \"free thought\" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical\npriest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights\nus. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous\ncasuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of\nsteel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge\nhe feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it\nought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.\n\nAnd, yes, there were other factors in the \"success\" of Christianity. The\nstory of the herald angels, the wise men from the east, the manger,\nthe child God, the cross, and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and\nof universal brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of\na Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love--this story, possessed a\ncertain homely beauty and sentimental glamour which won the allegiance\nof many golden-hearted and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely\nnatures assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes called\nthe Christian religion all that was pure, and rejected all that was\nfoul. It was the light of such sovereign souls as Joan of Arc and\nFrancis of Assisi that saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and\nhow much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and Tyndale, of\nMilton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and\nRafael, and the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer?\n\nThere are good men and good women by millions in the Christian ranks\nto-day, and it is their virtue, and their zeal, and their illumination\nof its better qualities, and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies\nand its crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive.\n\nChristianity has been for fifteen hundred years the religion of the\nbrilliant, brave, and strenuous races in the world. And what has it\naccomplished? And how does it stand to-day?\n\nIs Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? Are the masses\nof people who accept it peaceful, virtuous, chaste, spiritually minded,\nprosperous, happy? Are their national laws based on its ethics? Are\ntheir international politics guided by the Sermon on the Mount? Are\ntheir noblest and most Christlike men and women most revered and\nhonoured? Is the Christian religion loved and respected by those outside\nits pale? Are London and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin,\nVienna, Brussels, and Rome centres of holiness and of sweetness and\nlight? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, from Bombay to San Francisco is God\nor Mammon king?\n\nIf a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian religion has small\nright to boast of its success.\n\nBut the Christian will say, \"This is not Christianity, but its\ncaricature.\" Where, then, is the saving grace, the compelling power,\nof this divine religion, which, planted by God Himself, is found after\nnineteen centuries to yield nothing but leaves?\n\nAfter all these sad ages of heroism and crime, of war and massacre,\nof preaching and praying, of blustering and trimming; after all this\nprodigal waste of blood and tears, and labour and treasure, and genius\nand sacrifice, we have nothing better to show for Christianity than\nEuropean and American Society to-day.\n\nAnd this ghastly heart-breaking failure proves the Christian religion to\nbe the Divine Revelation of God!\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROPHECIES\n\n\nAnother alleged proof of the divine verity of the Christian religion\nis the Prophecies. Hundreds of books--perhaps I might say thousands\nof books--have been written upon these prophecies. Wonderful books,\nwonderful prophecies, wonderful religion, wonderful people.\n\nIf religious folk did not think by moonlight those books on the\nprophecies would never have been written. There are the prophecies of\nChrist's coming which are pointed out in the Old Testament. That the\nJews had many prophecies of a Jewish Messiah is certain. But these are\nindefinite. There is not one of them which unmistakably applies to Jesus\nChrist; and the Jews, who should surely understand their own prophets\nand their own Scriptures, deny that Christ was the Messiah whose coming\nthe Scriptures foretold.\n\nThen, we have the explicit prophecy of Christ Himself as to His second\ncoming. That prophecy at least is definite; and that has never been\nfulfilled.\n\nFor Christ declared in the plainest and most solemn manner that He would\nreturn from Heaven with power and glory within the lifetime of those to\nwhom He spoke:\n\n     Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till\n     all these things be fulfilled.\n\nThese prophecies by Christ of His return to earth may be read in the\nGospels of Matthew and Luke. They are distinct, and definite, and\nsolemn, and--untrue.\n\nI could fill many pages with unfulfilled prophecies from the Old and New\nTestaments. I think the one I give is enough.\n\nJesus Christ distinctly says that He will come in glory with all His\nangels before \"this generation\" all have passed away.\n\nThis is the year 1903. Christ uttered His prophecy about the year 31.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF\n\n\nChristians declare the religious sentiment to be universal. Even if it\nwere so, that would show a universal spiritual hunger; but would not\nprove the Christian religion to be its only food.\n\nBut the religious sentiment is not universal. I know many young people\nwho have never been taught religion of any kind, who have never read\nBible nor Gospel, who never attended any place of worship; and they are\nvirtuous and courteous and compassionate and happy, and feel no more\nneed of spiritual comfort or religious consolation than I do.\n\nThey are as gentle, sweet, and merry, and do their duty as faithfully as\nany Christian, yet to them Heaven and Hell are meaningless abstractions;\nGod and the soul are problems they, with quiet cheerfulness, leave time\nto solve.\n\nIf the craving for religion were universal these young folk would not\nbe free from spiritual hunger. As they are free from spiritual hunger,\nI conclude that the craving for religion is not born in us, but must be\ninculcated.\n\nMany good men and women will look blank at such heresy. \"What!\" they\nwill exclaim, \"take away the belief in the Bible, and the service of\nGod? Why, our lives would be empty. What would you give us in exchange?\"\n\nTo which I answer, \"The belief in yourselves, and the belief in your\nfellow-creatures, and the service of Man.\"\n\nSuch belief and such service will certainly increase the sum of\nhappiness on earth. And as for the Hereafter--no man knoweth. _No_ man\nknoweth. IS CHRISTIANITY THE ONLY HOPE?\n\n\nChristians tell us that their religion is our only refuge, that Christ\nis our only saviour. From the wild Salvation Army captain, thundering\nand beseeching under his banner of blood and fire, to the academic\nBishop reconciling science and transfiguring crude translations in the\ndim religious light of a cathedral, all the apostles of the Nazarene\ncarpenter insist that He is the only way. In this the Christian\nresembles the Hindu, the Parsee, the Buddhist, and the Mohammedan. There\nis but one true religion, and it is his.\n\nThe Rationalist locks on with a rueful smile, and wonders. He\nsees nothing in any one of these religions to justify its claim to\ninfallibility or pre-eminence. It seems to him unreasonable to assert\nthat any theology or any saviour is indispensable. He realises that\na man may be good and happy in any church, or outside any church. He\ncannot admit that only those who follow Jesus, or Buddha, or Mahomet,\nor Moses can be \"saved,\" nor that all those who fail to believe in the\ndivine mission of one, or all of these will be lost.\n\nLet us consider the Christian claim. If the Christian claim be valid,\nmen cannot be good, nor happy, cannot be saved, except through Christ.\nIs this position supported by the facts?\n\nOne Christian tells me that \"It is in the solemn realities of life that\none gets his final evidence that Christianity is true.\" Another tells me\nthat \"In Christ alone is peace\"; another, that \"Without Christ there is\nneither health nor holiness.\"\n\nIf these statements mean anything, they mean that none but true\nChristians can live well, nor die well, nor bear sorrow and pain with\nfortitude, do their whole duty manfully, nor find happiness here and\nbliss hereafter.\n\nBut I submit that Christianity does not make men lead better lives\nthan others lead who are not Christians, and there are none so abjectly\nafraid of death as Christians are. The Pagan, the Buddhist, the\nMohammedan, and the Agnostic do not fear death nearly so much as do the\nChristians.\n\nThe words of many of the greatest Christians are gloomy with the fears\nof death, of Hell, and of the wrath of God.\n\nThe Roman soldier, the Spartan soldier, the Mohammedan soldier did not\nfear death. The Greek, the Buddhist, the Moslem, the Viking went to\ndeath as to a reward, or as to the arms of a bride. Compare the writings\nof Marcus Aurelius and of Jeremy Taylor, of Epictetus and John Bunyan,\nand then ask yourself whether the Christian religion makes it easier for\nmen to die.\n\nThere are millions of Europeans--not to speak of Buddhists and\nJews--there are millions of men and women to-day who are not Christians.\nDo they live worse or die worse, or bear trouble worse, than those who\naccept the Christian faith?\n\nSome of us have come through \"the solemn realities of life,\" and have\n_not_ realised that Christianity is true. We do not believe the Bible;\nwe do not believe in the divinity of Christ; we do not pray, nor feel\nthe need of prayer; we do not fear God, nor Hell, nor death. We are as\nhappy as our even Christian; we are as good as our even Christian; we\nare as benevolent as our even Christian: what has Christianity to offer\nus?\n\nThere are in the world some four hundred and fifty millions of\nBuddhists. How do they bear themselves in \"the solemn realities of\nlife\"?\n\nI suggest that consolation, and fortitude, and cheerfulness, and\nloving-kindness are not in the exclusive gift of the Christian religion,\nbut may be found by good men in _all_ religions.\n\nAs to the effects of Christianity on life. Did Buddha, and King Asoka,\nand Socrates, and Aristides lead happy, and pure, and useful lives? Were\nthere no virtuous, nor happy, nor noble men and women during all the\nmillions of years before the Crucifixion? Was there neither love, nor\nhonour, nor wisdom, nor valour, nor peace in the world until Paul turned\nChristian? History tells us no such gloomy story.\n\nAre there no good, nor happy, nor worthy men and women to-day outside\nthe pale of the Christian churches? Amongst the eight hundred millions\nof human beings who do not know or do not follow Christ, are there none\nas happy and as worthy as any who follow Him?\n\nAre we Rationalists so wicked, so miserable, so useless in the world,\nso terrified of the shadow of death? I beg to say we are nothing of\nthe kind. We are quite easy and contented. There is no despair in our\nhearts. We are not afraid of bogeys, nor do we dread the silence and the\ndark.\n\nFriend Christian, you are deceived in this matter. When you say that\nChrist is the _only_ true teacher, that He is the _only_ hope of\nmankind, that He is the _only_ Saviour, I must answer sharply that I do\nnot believe that, and I do not think you believe it deep down in your\nheart. For if Christ is the only Saviour, then thousands of millions of\nBuddhists have died unsaved, and you know you do not believe that.\n\nJeremy Taylor believed that; but you know better.\n\nDo you not _know_, as a matter of fact, that it is as well in this\nworld, and shall be as well hereafter, with a good Buddhist, or Jew, or\nAgnostic, as with a good Christian?\n\nDo you deny that? If you deny it, tell me what punishment you think\nwill be inflicted, here or hereafter on a good man who does not accept\nChristianity.\n\nIf you do not deny it, then on what grounds do you claim that Christ\nis _the_ Saviour of all mankind, and that \"only in Christ we are made\nwhole\"?\n\nYou speak of the spiritual value of your religion. What can it give you\nmore than Socrates or Buddha possessed? These men had wisdom, courage,\nmorality, fortitude, love, mercy. Can you find in all the world to-day\ntwo men as wise, as good, as gentle, as happy? Yet these men died\ncenturies before Christ was born.\n\nIf you believe that none but Christians can be happy or good; or if you\nbelieve that none but Christians can escape extinction or punishment,\nthen there is some logic in your belief that Christ is our only Saviour.\nBut that is to believe that there never was a good man before Christ\ndied, and that Socrates and Buddha, and many thousands of millions of\nmen, and women, and children, before Christ and after, have been _lost_.\n\nSuch a belief is monstrous and absurd.\n\nBut I see no escape from the dilemma it places us in. If only Christ\ncan save, about twelve hundred millions of our fellow-creatures will be\nlost.\n\nIf men can be saved without Christ, then Christ is not our only Saviour.\n\nChristianity seems to be a composite religion, made up of fragments of\nreligions of far greater antiquity. It is alleged to have originated\nsome two thousand years ago. It has never been the religion of more than\none-third of the human race, and of those professing it only ten per\ncent at any time have thoroughly understood, or sincerely followed,\nits teachings. It was not indispensable to the human race during the\nthousands (I say millions) of years before its advent. It is not now\nindispensable to some eight hundred millions of human beings. It had no\nplace in the ancient civilisations of Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. It was\nunknown to Socrates, to Epicurus, to Aristides, to Marcus Aurelius, to\nKing Asoka, and to Buddha. It has opposed science and liberty almost\nfrom the first. It has committed the most awful crimes and atrocities.\nIt has upheld the grossest errors and the most fiendish theories as\nthe special revelations of God. It has been defeated in argument and\nconfounded by facts over and over again, and has been steadily driven\nback and back, abandoning one essential position after another, until\nthere is hardly anything left of its original pretensions. It is losing\nmore and more every day its hold upon the obedience and confidence\nof the masses, and has only retained the suffrages of a minority of\neducated minds by accepting as truths the very theories which in the\npast it punished as deadly sins. Are these the signs of a triumphant\nand indispensable religion? One would think, to read the Christian\napologists, that before the advent of Christianity the world had neither\nvirtue nor wisdom. But the world very old. Civilisation is very old. The\nChristian religion is but a new thing, is a mere episode in the history\nof human development, and has passed the zenith of its power.\n\n\n\n\nSPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT\n\n\nChristians say that only those who are naturally religious can\nunderstand religion, or, as Archdeacon Wilson puts it, \"Spiritual truths\nmust be spiritually discerned.\" This seems to amount to a claim that\nreligious people possess an extra sense or faculty.\n\nWhen a man talks about \"spiritual discernment,\" he makes a tacit\nassertion which ought not to be allowed to pass unchallenged. What is\nthat assertion or implication? It is the implication that there is a\nspiritual discernment which is distinct from mental discernment. What\ndoes that mean? It means that man has other means of understanding\nbesides his reason.\n\nThis spiritual discernment is a metaphysical myth.\n\nMan feels, sees, and reasons with his brain. His brain may be more\nemotional or less emotional, more acute or less acute; but to invent a\nfaculty of reason distinct from reason, or to suggest that man can feel\nor think otherwise than with his brain, is to darken counsel with a\nmultitude of words.\n\nThere is no ground for the assertion that a spiritual faculty exists\napart from the reason. But the Christian first invents this faculty, and\nthen tells us that by this faculty religion is to be judged.\n\nSpiritual truths are to be spiritually discerned. What is a \"spiritual\ntruth\"? It is neither more nor less than a mental idea. It is an idea\noriginating in the brain, and it can only be \"discerned,\" or judged, or\nunderstood, by an act of reason performed by the brain.\n\nThe word \"spiritual,\" as used in this connection, is a mere affectation.\nIt implies that the idea (which Archdeacon Wilson calmly dubs a \"truth\")\nis so exalted, or so refined, that the reason is too gross to appreciate\nit.\n\nJohn says: \"I know that my Redeemer liveth.\" Thomas asks: \"How do you\nknow?\" John says: \"Because I _feel_ it.\" Thomas answers: \"But that is\nonly a rhapsodical expression of a woman's reason: 'I know because I\n_know_.' You say your religion is true because you feel it is true. I\nmight as well say it is not true because I feel that it is not true.\"\n\nThen John becomes mystical. He says: \"Spiritual truths must be\nspiritually discerned.\" Thomas, who believes that _all_ truths, and all\nerrors, must be tried by the reason, shrugs his shoulders irreverently,\nand departs.\n\nNow, this mystical jargon has always been a favourite weapon of\ntheologians, and it is a very effective weapon against weak-minded, or\nignorant, or superstitious, or very emotional men.\n\nWe must deal with this deception sternly. We must deny that the\nhuman reason, which we know to be a fact, is inferior to a postulated\n\"spiritual\" faculty which has no existence. We must insist that to\nmake the brain the slave of a brain-created idea is as foolish as to\nsubordinate the substance to the shadow.\n\nJohn declares that \"God is love.\" Thomas asks him how he _knows_. John\nreplies that it is a \"spiritual truth,\" which must be \"spiritually\ndiscerned.\" Thomas says: \"It is not spiritual, and it is not true. It\nis a mere figment of the brain.\" John replies: \"You are incapable of\njudging: you are spiritually blind.\" Thomas says: \"My friend, you are\nincapable of reasoning: you are mentally halt and lame.\" John says\nThomas is a \"fellow of no delicacy.\"\n\nI think there is much to be said in excuse for Thomas. I think it is\nrather cool of John to invent a faculty of \"spiritual discernment,\" and\nthen to tell Thomas that he (Thomas) does not possess that faculty.\n\nThat is how Archdeacon Wilson uses me. In a sermon at Rochdale he is\nreported to have spoken as follows:\n\n     As regards the first axiom, the archdeacon reaffirmed his\n     declaration as to Mr. Blatchford's disqualification for such\n     a controversy... Whether Mr. Blatchford recognised the fact\n     or not, it was true that there was a faculty among men which,\n     in its developed state, was as distinct, as unequally distributed,\n     as mysterious in its origin and in its distribution, as was\n     the faculty for pure mathematics, for music, for metaphysics,\n     or for research.  They might call it the devotional or religious\n     faculty.  Just as there were men whose faculties of insight\n     amounted to genius in other regions of mental activity, so\n     there were spiritual geniuses, geniuses in the region in which\n     man holds communion with God, and from this region these who\n     had never developed the faculty were debarred.  One who was\n     not devotional, not humble, not gentle in his treatment of\n     the beliefs of others, one who could lightly ridicule the\n     elementary forms of belief which had corresponded to the\n     lower stages of culture, past and present, was not likely\n     to do good in a religious controversy.\n\nHere is the tyranny of language, indeed! Here is a farrago of myths and\nsymbols. \"There is a faculty--we may call it the devotional or religious\nfaculty--there are geniuses in the region in which man holds communion\nwith God\"!\n\nWhy the good archdeacon talks of the \"region in which man holds\ncommunion with God\" as if he were talking of the telephone exchange.\nHe talks of God as if he were talking of the Postmaster-General. He\npostulates a God, and he postulates a region, and he postulates a\ncommunication, and then talks about all these postulates as if they were\nfacts. I protest against this mystical, transcendental rhetoric. It is\nnot argument.\n\nWho has seen God? Who has entered that \"region\"? Who has communicated\nwith God?\n\nThere is in most men a desire, in some men a passion, for what is good.\nIn some men this desire is weak, in others it is strong. In some it\ntakes the form of devotion to \"God,\" in others it takes the form of\ndevotion to men. In some it is coloured by imagination, or distorted\nby a love of the marvellous; in others it is lighted by reason, and\ndirected by love of truth. But whether a man devotes himself to God and\nto prayer, or devotes himself to man and to politics or science, he is\nactuated by the same impulse--by the desire for what is good.\n\nJohn says: \"I feel that there is a God, and I worship Him.\" Thomas says:\n\"I do not know whether or not there is a God, and if there is, He does\nnot need my adoration. But I know there are men in darkness and women in\ntrouble, and children in pain, and I know they _do_ need my love and my\nhelp. I therefore will not pray; but I will work.\"\n\nTo him says John: \"You are a fellow of no delicacy. You lack spiritual\ndiscernment. You are disqualified for the expression of any opinion\non spiritual truths.\" This is what John calls \"humility,\" and \"gentle\ntreatment of the beliefs of others.\" But Thomas calls it unconscious\nhumour.\n\nReally, Archdeacon Wilson's claim that only those possessing spiritual\ndiscernment can discern spiritual truths means no more than that those\nwho cannot believe in religion do not believe in religion, or that a man\nwhose reason tells him religion is not true is incapable of believing\nreligion is true. But what he means it to mean is that a man whose\nreason rejects religion is unfit to criticise religion, and that only\nthose who accept religion as true are qualified to express an opinion as\nto its truth. He might as well claim that the only person qualified\nto criticise the Tory Party is the person who has the faculty for\ndiscerning Tory truth.\n\nMy claim is that ideas relating to spiritual things must be weighed by\nthe same faculties as ideas relating to material things. That is to\nsay, man can only judge in religious matters as he judges in all other\nmatters, by his reason.\n\nI do not say that all men have the same kind or quantity of reason.\nWhat I say is, that a man with a good intellect is a better judge on\nreligious matters than a man, with an inferior intellect; and that by\nreason, and by reason alone, can truth of any kind be discerned.\n\nThe archdeacon speaks of spiritual geniuses, \"geniuses in the region in\nwhich man holds communion with God.\" The Saints, for example. Well, if\nthe Saints were geniuses in matters religious, the Saints ought to have\nbeen better judges of spiritual truth than other men. But was it so? The\nSaints believed in angels, and devils, and witches, and hell-fire\nand Jonah, and the Flood; in demoniacal possession, in the working of\nmiracles by the bones of dead martyrs; the Saints accepted David and\nAbraham and Moses as men after God's own heart.\n\nMany of the most spiritually gifted Christians do not believe in these\nthings any longer. The Saints, then, were mistaken. They were mistaken\nabout these spiritual matters in which they are alleged to have been\nspecially gifted.\n\nWe do not believe in sorcerers, in witches, in miracle-working relics,\nin devils, and eternal fire and brimstone. Why? Because science has\nkilled those errors. What is science? It is reason applied to knowledge.\nThe faculty of reason, then, has excelled this boasted faculty of\nspiritual discernment in its own religious sphere.\n\nIt would be easy to multiply examples.\n\nJeremy Taylor was one of the most brilliant and spiritual of our\ndivines. But his spiritual perception, as evidenced in his works, was\nfearfully at fault. He believed in hell-fire, and in hell-fire for all\noutside the pale of the Christian Church. And he was afraid of God, and\nafraid of death.\n\nArchdeacon Wilson denies to us this faculty of spiritual perception.\nVery well. But I have enough mental acuteness to see that the religion\nof Jeremy Taylor was cowardly, and gloomy, and untrue.\n\nLuther and Wesley were spiritual geniuses. They both believed in\nwitchcraft. Luther believed in burning heretics. Wesley said if we gave\nup belief in witchcraft we must give up belief in the Bible.\n\nLuther and Wesley were mistaken: their spiritual discernment had led\nthem wrong. Their superstition and cruelty were condemned by humanity\nand common sense.\n\nTo me it appears that these men of \"spiritual discernment\" are really\nmen of abnormally credulous and emotional natures: men too weak to face\nthe facts.\n\nWe cannot allow the Christians to hold this position unchallenged. I\nregard the religious plane as a lower one than our own. I think\nthe Christian idea of God is even now, after two thousand years of\nevolution, a very mean and weak one.\n\nI cannot love nor revere a \"Heavenly Father\" whose children have to pray\nto Him for what they need, or for pardon for their sins. My children do\nnot need to pray to me for food or forgiveness; and I am a mere earthly\nfather. Yet Christ, who came direct from God--who _was_ God--to teach\nall men God's will, directed us to pray to God for our daily bread, for\nforgiveness of our trespasses against Him, and that He would not lead us\ninto temptation! Imagine a father leading his children into temptation!\n\nWhat is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a\nreligious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that\nsomething be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear.\nIs that so lofty and so noble?\n\nBut you will say: \"It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for\nlove: because he loves God.\" But is not this like sending flowers and\njewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many\npoor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's\nchildren are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.\n\nMr. Augustine Birrell, in his _Miscellanies_, quotes a passage from \"Lux\nMundi\"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to\nlose:\n\n     If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanation\n     of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the most\n     irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith.  It is\n     always shifting its intellectual defences.  It adopts this or\n     that fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is\n     shattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith,\n     probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position,\n     suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula,\n     just as if nothing had happened.  It discovers that the new\n     formula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact,\n     what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to\n     mention it.  So it goes on again and again; and no wonder that\n     the philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.\n\nThat passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim\nfor spiritual genius.\n\nBut, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many\nerrors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is\nno thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to\nreason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have\ngot rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of\nthe Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom,\npersecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the\ninfallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the\nChurch from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall\nhave demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has\ndefended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence\nof them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally\ndefeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been\ndriven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to\nbe persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are\nmentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has\nbeen beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in\nthe future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.\n\n\n\n\nSOME OTHER APOLOGIES\n\n\nChristianity, we are told, vastly improved the relations of rich and\npoor.\n\nHow comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by the rich is better\namongst Jews than amongst Christians? How did it fare with the poor all\nover Europe in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of its\npower? How is it we have twelve millions of Christians on the verge of\nstarvation in England to-day, with a Church rolling in wealth and an\naristocracy decadent from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that\nthe gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as New York,\nLondon, and Paris is so wide and deep?\n\nChristianity, we are told, first gave to mankind the gospel of peace.\nChristianity did not bring peace, but a sword. The Crusades were holy\nwars. The wars in the Netherlands were holy wars. The Spanish Armada was\na holy expedition. Some of these holy wars lasted for centuries and\ncost millions of human lives. Most of them were remarkable for the\nbarbarities and cruelties of the Christian priests and soldiers.\n\nFrom the beginning of its power Christianity has been warlike, violent,\nand ruthless. To-day Europe is an armed camp, and it is not long since\nthe Christian Kaiser ordered his troops to give no quarter to the\nChinese.\n\nThere has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as the Indians and\nBurmese under Buddhism. It was King Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St.\nPaul, who first taught and first established a reign of national and\ninternational peace.\n\nTo-day the peace of the world is menaced, not by the Buddhists, the\nParsees, the Hindoos, or the Confucians, but by Christian hunger for\nterritory, Christian lust of conquest, Christian avarice for the opening\nup of \"new markets,\" Christian thirst for military glory, and jealousy,\nand envy amongst the Christian powers one of another.\n\nChristianity, we are told, originated the Christ-like type of character.\nThe answer stares us in the face. How can we account for King Asoka, how\ncan we account for Buddha?\n\nChristianity, we are told, originated hospitals.\n\nHospitals were founded two centuries before Christ by King Asoka in\nIndia.\n\nChristianity, we are told, first broke down the barrier between Jew and\nGentile.\n\nHow have Christians treated Jews for fifteen centuries? How are\nChristians treating Jews to-day in Holy Russia? How long is it since\nJews were granted full rights of citizenship in Christian England?\n\nAll this, the Christian will say, applies to the false and not to the\ntrue Christianity.\n\nLet us look, then, for an instant, at the truest and best form of\nChristianity, and ask what it is doing. It is preaching about Sin,\nSin, Sin. It is praying to God to do for Man what Man ought to do for\nhimself, what Man can do for himself, what Man must do for himself; for\nGod has never done it, and will never do it for him.\n\nAnd this fault in the Christian--the highest and truest\nChristian--attitude towards life does not lie in the Christians: it lies\nin the truest and best form of their religion.\n\nIt is the belief in Free Will, in Sin, and in a Heavenly Father, and\na future recompense that leads the Christian wrong, and causes him to\nmistake the shadow for the substance.\n\n\n\n\nCOUNSELS OF DESPAIR\n\n\n\"If you take from us our religion,\" say the Christians, \"what have you\nto offer but counsels of despair?\" This seems to me rather a commercial\nway of putting the case, and not a very moral one. Because a moral man\nwould not say: \"If I give up my religion, what will you pay me?\" He\nwould say: \"I will never give, up my religion unless I am convinced\nit is not _true_.\" To a moral man the truth would matter, but the cost\nwould not. To ask what one may _gain_ is to show an absence of all real\nreligious feeling.\n\nThe feeling of a truly religious man is the feeling that, cost what it\nmay, he must do _right_. A religiously-minded man _could_ not profess a\nreligion which he did not believe to be true. To him the vital question\nwould be, not \"What will you give me to desert my colours?\" but \"What is\nthe _truth_?\"\n\nBut, besides being immoral, the demand is unreasonable. If I say that\na religion is untrue, the believer has a perfect right to ask me for\nproofs of my assertion; but he has no right to ask me for a new promise.\nSuppose I say this thing is not true, and to believe anything which is\nuntrue is useless. Then, the believer may justly demand my reasons. But\nhe has no right to ask me for a new dream in place of the old one. I am\nnot a prophet, with promises of crowns and glories in my gift.\n\nBut yet I will answer this queer question as fully as I can.\n\nI do not say there is no God. I do not say there is no \"Heaven,\" nor\nthat the soul is not immortal. There is not enough evidence to justify\nme in making such assertions.\n\nI only say, on those subjects, that I do not _know_.\n\nI do not know about those things. There may be a God, there may be a\n\"Heaven,\" there may be an immortal soul. And a man might accept all I\nsay about religion without giving up any hope his faith may bid him hold\nas to a future life.\n\nAs to those \"counsels of despair\" the question puzzles me. Despair of\nwhat?\n\nLet me put the matter as I see it. I think sometimes, in a dubious\nway, that perhaps there may be a life beyond the grave. And that is\ninteresting. But I think my stronger, and deeper, and more permanent\nfeeling is that when we die we die finally, and for us there is no more\nlife at all. That is, I suppose, my real belief--or supposition. But do\nI despair? Why should I? The idea of immortality does not elate me very\nmuch. As I said just now, it is interesting. But I am not excited about\nit. If there is another innings, we will go in and play our best; and we\nhope we shall be very much better and kinder than we have been. But if\nit is sleep: well, sleep is rest, and as I feel that I have had a really\ngood time, on the whole, I should consider it greedy to cry because I\ncould not have it all over again. That is how I feel about it. Despair?\nI am one of the happiest old fogeys in all London. I have found life\nagreeable and amusing, and I'm glad I came. But I am not so infatuated\nwith life that I should care to go back and begin it all again. And\nthough a new start, in a new world, would be--yes, interesting--I am\nnot going to howl because old Daddy Death says it is bed-time. I think\nsomebody, or something, has been very good to allow me to come in and\nsee the fun, and stay so long, especially as I came in, so to speak \"on\nmy face.\" But to beg for another invitation would be cheeky. Some of you\nwant such a lot for nothing.\n\n\"But,\" you may say, \"the poor, the failures, the wretched--what of\nthem?\" And I answer: \"Ah! that is one of the weak points of _your_\nreligion, not of mine.\" Consider these unhappy ones, what do you offer\nthem? You offer them an everlasting bliss, not because they were starved\nor outraged here--not at all. For your religion admits the probability\nthat those who came into this world worst equipped, who have here been\nmost unfortunate, and to whom God and man have behaved most unjustly,\nwill stand a far greater chance of a future of woe than of happiness.\n\nNo. According to your religion, those of the poor or the weak who get\nto Heaven will get there, not because they have been wronged and must be\nrighted, but because they believe that Jesus Christ can save them.\n\nNow, contrast that awful muddle of unreason and injustice with what\nyou call my \"counsels of despair.\" I say there may be a future life and\nthere may not be a future life. If there is a future life, a man will\ndeserve it no less, and enjoy it no less, for having been happy here.\nIf there is no future life, he who has been unhappy here will have lost\nboth earthly happiness and heavenly hope.\n\nTherefore, I say, it is our duty to see that all our fellow-creatures\nare as happy here as we can make them.\n\nTherefore I say to my fellow-creatures, \"Do not consent to suffer, and\nto be wronged in this world, for it is immoral and weak so to submit;\nbut hold up your heads, and demand your rights, here and now, and leave\nthe rest to God, or to Fate.\"\n\nYou see, I am not trying to rob any man of his hope of Heaven; I am only\ntrying to inspire his hope on earth.\n\nBut I have been asked whether I think it right and wise to \"shake the\nfaith of the poor working man--the faith that has helped him so long.\"\n\nWhat has this faith helped him to do? To bear the ills and the wrongs\nof this life more patiently, in the hope of a future reward? Is that the\nidea? But I do not want the working man to endure patiently the ills and\nwrongs of this life. I want him, for his own sake, his wife's sake,\nhis children's sake, and for the sake of right and progress, to demand\njustice, and to help in the work of amending the conditions of life on\nearth.\n\nNo, I do not want to rob the working-man of his faith: I want to awaken\nhis faith--in himself.\n\nReligion promises us a future Heaven, where we shall meet once more\nthose \"whom we have loved long since and lost awhile,\" and that is the\nmost potent lure that could be offered to poor humanity.\n\nHow much of the so-called \"universal instinct of belief\" arises from\nthat pathetic human yearning for reunion with dear friends, sweet wives,\nor pretty children \"lost awhile\"? It is human love and natural longing\nfor the dead darlings, whose wish is father to the thought of Heaven.\nBefore that passionate sentiment reason itself would almost stand\nabashed: were reason antagonistic to the \"larger hope\"--which none can\nprove.\n\nFew of us can keep our emotions from overflowing the bounds of reason in\nsuch a case. The poor, tearful desire lays a pale hand on reason's lips\nand gazes wistfully into the mysterious abyss of the Great Silence.\n\nSo I say of that \"larger hope,\" cherish it if you can, and if you feel\nit necessary to your peace of mind. But do not mistake a hope for a\ncertainty. No priest, nor pope, nor prophet can tell you more about that\nmystery than you know. It is a riddle, and your guess or mine may be as\nnear as that of a genius. We can only guess. We do not know.\n\nIs it wise, then, to sell even a fraction of your liberty of thought or\ndeed for a paper promise which the Bank of Futurity may fail to honour?\nIs it wise, is it needful, to abandon a single right, to abate one just\ndemand, to neglect one possibility of happiness here and now, in order\nto fulfil the conditions laid down for the attainment of that promised\nHeaven by a crowd of contradictory theologians who know no more about\nGod or about the future than we know ourselves?\n\nDeath has dropped a curtain of mystery between us and those we love. No\ntheologian knows, nor ever did know, what is hidden behind that veil.\n\nLet us, then, do our duty here, try to be happy here, try to make others\nhappy here, and when the curtain lifts for us--we shall see.\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION THE PARTING OF THE WAYS\n\n\nI have been asked why I have \"gone out of my way to attack religion,\"\nwhy I do not \"confine myself to my own sphere and work for Socialism,\nand what good I expect to do by pulling down without building up.\"\n\nIn reply I beg to say:\n\n   1. That I have not \"gone out of my way\" to attack religion. It was\n      because I found religion _in_ my way that I attacked it.\n\n   2. That I am working for Socialism when I attack a religion which is\n      hindering Socialism.\n\n   3. That we must pull down before we can build up, and that I hope to\n      do a little building, if only on the foundation.\n\nBut these questions arose from a misconception of my position and\npurpose.\n\nI have been called an \"Infidel,\" a Socialist, and a Fatalist. Now, I\nam an Agnostic, or Rationalist, and I am a Determinist, and I am a\nSocialist. But if I were asked to describe myself in a single word, I\nshould call myself a Humanist.\n\nSocialism, Determinism, and Rationalism are factors in the sum; and the\nsum is Humanism.\n\nBriefly, my religion is to do the best I can for humanity. I am a\nSocialist, a Determinist, and a Rationalist because I believe that\nSocialism, Determinism, and Rationalism will be beneficial to mankind.\n\nI oppose the Christian religion because I do not think the Christian\nreligion is beneficial to mankind, and because I think it is an obstacle\nin the way of Humanism.\n\nI am rather surprised that men to whom my past work is well known should\nsuspect me of making a wanton and purposeless attack upon religion.\nMy attack is not wanton, but deliberate; not purposeless, but very\npurposeful and serious. I am not acting irreligiously, but religiously.\nI do not oppose Christianity because it is good, but because it is not\ngood enough.\n\nThere are two radical differences between Humanism and Christianity.\n\nChristianity concerns itself with God and Man, putting God first and Man\nlast.\n\nHumanism concerns itself solely with Man, so that Man is its first and\nlast care. That is one radical difference.\n\nThen, Christianity accepts the doctrine of Free Will, with its\nconsequent rewards and punishments; while Humanism embraces Determinist\ndoctrines, with their consequent theories of brotherhood and prevention.\nAnd that is another radical difference.\n\nBecause the Christian regards the hooligan, the thief, the wanton, and\nthe drunkard as men and women who have done wrong. But the Humanist\nregards them as men and women who have been wronged.\n\nThe Christian remedy is to punish crime and to preach repentance and\nsalvation to \"sinners.\" The Humanist remedy is to remove the causes\nwhich lead or drive men into crime, and so to prevent the manufacture of\n\"sinners.\"\n\nLet us consider the first difference. Christianity concerns itself with\nthe relations of Man to God, as well as with the relations between man\nand man. It concerns itself with the future life as well as with the\npresent life.\n\nNow, he who serves two causes cannot serve each or both of them as well\nas he could serve either of them alone.\n\nHe who serves God and Man will not serve Man as effectually as he who\ngives himself wholly to the service of Man.\n\nAs the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely with the good of\nhumanity, I claim that it is more beneficial to humanity than is the\nChristian religion, which divides its service and love between Man and\nGod.\n\nMoreover, this division is unequal. For Christians give a great deal\nmore attention to God than to Man.\n\nAnd on that point I have to object, first, that although they _believe_\nthere is a God, they do not _know_ there is a God, nor what He is like.\nWhereas they do know very well that there are men, and what they are\nlike. And, secondly, that if there be a God, that God does not need\ntheir love nor their service; whereas their fellow-creatures do need\ntheir love and their service very sorely.\n\nAnd, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in Heaven, He is likely\nto be better pleased by our loving and serving our fellow-creatures (His\nchildren) than by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers\nand sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in\ntrouble.\n\nI speak as a father myself when I say that I should not like to think\nthat one of my children would be so foolish and so unfeeling as to erect\na marble tomb to my memory while the others needed a friend or a meal.\nAnd I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a cathedral, and\nto spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly two\nthousand years ago, while women and men and little children are being\ncrucified in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and\nsentimentality, and a mockery of God.\n\nPlease note the words I use. I have selected them deliberately and\ncalmly, because I believe that they are true and that they are needed.\n\nChristians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus\nChrist, and Our Father which is in Heaven. I know nothing about gods and\nheavens. But I know a good deal about Manchester and London, and about\nmen and women; and if I did not feel the real shames and wrongs of the\nworld more keenly, and if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously\nto rescue my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and injustice\nthan most Christians do, I should blush to look death in the face or\ncall myself a man.\n\nI choose my words deliberately again when I say that to me the most\nbesotted and degraded outcast tramp or harlot matters more than all the\ngods and angels that humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination.\n\nThe Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question as to the need of\nChrist as a Saviour, uttered the following remarkable words:\n\n     But there is a holiness so transcendent that the angels veil\n     their faces in the presence of God.  I have known a good many\n     men who have rejected Christ, and men who are living without\n     Him, and, though God forbid that I should judge them, I do not\n     know one of them whom I would venture to take as my example if\n     I wished to appear in the presence of the holy God.  They do\n     not tremble for themselves, but I tremble for myself if my\n     holiness is not to exceed that of such Scribes and Pharisees.\n     Oh, my brothers, where Christ is talking of holiness He is\n     talking of such a goodness, such a purity, such a transcendent\n     and miraculous likeness of God in human form, that I believe\n     it is true to say that there is but one name, as there is but\n     one way, by which a man can be holy and come into the presence\n     of God; and I look, therefore, upon this word of Christ not\n     only as the way of salvation, but as the revelation of the\n     holiness which God demands.\n\n     I close these answers to the questions with a practical word\n     to everyone that is here.  It is my belief that you may be\n     good enough to pass through the grave and to wander in the\n     dark spaces of the world which is still earthly and sensual,\n     and you may be good enough to escape, as it were, the torments\n     of the hell which result from a life of debauchery and cruelty\n     and selfishness; but if you are to stand in the presence of God,\n     if you are ever to be pure, complete, and glad, \"all rapture\n     through and through in God's most holy sight,\" you must believe\n     in the name and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, the\n     only begotten son of God, who came into the world to save\n     sinners, and than whose no other name is given in heaven or\n     earth whereby we may be saved.\n\nSuch talk as that makes me feel ill. Here is a cultured, educated,\nearnest man rhapsodising about holiness and the glory of a God no mortal\neye has ever seen, and of whom no word has ever reached us across the\ngulf of death. And while he rhapsodised, with a congregation of honest\nbread-and-butter citizens under him, trying hard with their blinkered\neyes and blunted souls, to glimpse that imaginary glamour of ecstatic\n\"holiness,\" there surged and rolled around them the stunted, poisoned,\nand emaciated life of London.\n\nHoliness!--Holiness in the Strand, in Piccadilly, in Houndsditch, in\nWhitechapel, in Park Lane, in Somerstown, and the Mint.\n\nHoliness!--In Westminster, and in Fleet Street, and on 'Change.\n\nHoliness!--In a world given over to robbery, to conquest, to vanity, to\nignorance, to humbug, to the worship of the golden calf.\n\nHoliness!--With twelve millions of our workers on the verge of famine,\nwith rich fools and richer rogues lording it over nations of untaught\nand half-fed dupes and drudges.\n\nHoliness!--With a recognised establishment of manufactured paupers,\ncripples, criminals, idlers, dunces, and harlots.\n\nHoliness!--In a garden of weeds, a hotbed of lies, where hypnotised\nsaints sing psalms and worship ghosts, while dogs and horses are\npampered and groomed, and children are left to rot, to hunger, and to\nsink into crime, or shame, or the grave.\n\nHoliness! For shame. The word is obnoxious. It has stood so long for\ncraven fear, for exotistical inebriation, for selfish retirement from\nthe trials and buffets and dirty work of the world.\n\nWhat have we to do with such dreamy, self-centred, emotional holiness,\nhere and now in London?\n\nWhat we want is citizenship, human sympathy, public spirit, daring\nagitators, stern reformers, drains, houses, schoolmasters, clean water,\ntruth-speaking, soap--and Socialism.\n\nHoliness! The people are being robbed. The people are being cheated. The\npeople are being lied to. The people are being despised and neglected\nand ruined body and soul.\n\nYes. And you will find some of the greatest rascals and most impudent\nliars in the \"Synagogues and High Places\" of the cities.\n\nHoliness! Give us common sense, and common honesty, and a \"steady supply\nof men and women who can be trusted with small sums.\"\n\nYour Christians talk of saving sinners. But our duty is not to save\nsinners; but to prevent their regular manufacture: their systematic\nmanufacture in the interests of holy and respectable and successful and\nsuperior persons.\n\nHoliness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are rotten with dirty\npride, and dirty greed, and mean lying, and petty ambitions, and\nsickly sentimentality. Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at\nHeaven's gates and say I came from such a contemptible planet.\n\nHoliness! Your religion does not make it--its ethics are too weak, its\ntheories too unsound, its transcendentalism is too thin.\n\nTake as an example this much-admired passage from St. James:\n\n     Pure religion and undefiled is this before God and the Father,\n     to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and\n     to keep oneself unspotted from the world.\n\nThe widows and the fatherless are our brothers and sisters and our flesh\nand blood, and should be at home in our hearts and on our hearths. And\nwho that is a man will work to keep himself unspotted from the world if\nthe service of the world needs him to expose his flesh and his soul to\nrisk?\n\nI can fancy a Reverend Gentleman going to Heaven, unspotted from the\nworld, to face the awful eyes of a Heavenly Father whose gaze has been\non London.\n\nA good man mixes with the world in the rough-and-tumble, and takes his\nshare of the dangers, and the falls, and the temptations. His duty is\nto work and to help, and not to shirk and keep his hands white. His\nbusiness is not to be holy, but to be useful.\n\nIn such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no business reading\nthe Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine worship. He has not\n_time_. All the strength and pluck and wit he possesses are needed in\nthe work of real religion, of real salvation. The rest is all \"dreams\nout of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight.\"\n\nThere ought to be no such thing as poverty in the world. The earth is\nbounteous: the ingenuity of man is great. He who defends the claims of\nthe individual, or of a class, against the rights of the human race is a\ncriminal.\n\nA hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a destitute or degraded\nwoman, a beggar or pauper child is a reproach to Society and a witness\nagainst existing religion and civilisation.\n\nWar is a crime and a horror. No man is doing his duty when he is not\ntrying his best to abolish war.\n\nI have been asked why I \"interfered in things beyond my sphere,\" and why\nI made \"an unprovoked attack\" upon religion. I am trying to explain. My\nposition is as follows:\n\nRightly or wrongly, I am a Democrat. Rightly or wrongly, I am for the\nrights of the masses as against the privileges of the classes. Rightly\nor wrongly, I am opposed to Godship, Kingship, Lordship, Priestship.\nRightly or wrongly, I am opposed to Imperialism, Militarism, and\nConquest. Rightly or wrongly, I am for universal brotherhood and\nuniversal freedom. Rightly or wrongly, I am for union against disunion,\nfor collective ownership against private ownership. Rightly or wrongly,\nI am for reason against dogma, for evolution against revelation; for\nhumanity always; for earth, not Heaven; for the holiest Trinity of\nall--the Trinity of Man, Woman, and Child.\n\nThe greatest curse of humanity is ignorance. The only remedy is\nknowledge.\n\nReligion, being based on fixed authority, is naturally opposed to\nknowledge.\n\nA man may have a university education and be ignorant. A man may be a\ngenius, like Plato, or Shakespeare, or Darwin, and lack more knowledge.\nThe humblest of unlettered peasants can teach the highest genius\nsomething useful. The greatest scientific and philosophical achievements\nof the most brilliant age are imperfect, and can be added to and\nimproved by future generations.\n\nThere is no such thing as human infallibility. There is no finality\nin human knowledge and human progress. Fixed authority in matters of\nknowledge or belief is an insult to humanity.\n\nChristianity degrades and restrains humanity with the shackles of\n\"original sin.\" Man is not born in sin. There is no such thing as sin.\nMan is innately more prone to good than to evil; and the path of his\ndestiny is upward.\n\nI should be inclined to call him who denies the innate goodness of\nmankind an \"Infidel.\"\n\nHeredity breeds different kinds of men. But all are men whom it breeds.\nAnd all men are capable of good, and of yet more good. Environment can\nmove mountains. There is a limit to its power for good and for evil, but\nthat power is almost unimaginably great.\n\nThe object of life is to improve ourselves and our fellow-creatures, and\nto leave the world better and happier than we found it.\n\nThe great cause of crime and failure is ignorance. The great cause of\nunhappiness is selfishness. No man can be happy who loves or values\nhimself too much.\n\nAs all men are what heredity and environment have made them, no man\ndeserves punishment nor reward. As the sun shines alike upon the evil\nand the good, so in the eyes of justice the saint and the sinner are as\none. No man has a just excuse for pride, or anger, or scorn.\n\nSpiritual pride, intellectual pride, pride of pedigree, of caste, of\nrace are all contemptible and mean.\n\nThe superior person who wraps himself in a cloak of solemn affectations\nshould be laughed at until he learns to be honest.\n\nThe masterful man who puts on airs of command and leadership insults his\nfellow-creatures, and should be gently but firmly lifted down many pegs.\n\nGenius should not be regarded as a weapon, but as a tool. A man of\ngenius should not be allowed to command, but only to serve. The human\nrace would do well to watch jealously and restrain firmly all superior\npersons. Most kings, jockeys, generals, prize-fighters, priests,\nladies'-maids, millionaires, lords, tenor singers, authors,\nlion-comiques, artists, beauties, statesmen, and actors are spoiled\nchildren who sadly need to be taught their place. They should be treated\nkindly, but not allowed too many toys and sweetmeats, nor too much\nflattery. Such superior persons are like the clever minstrels, jesters,\nclerks, upholsterers, storytellers, horse-breakers, huntsmen, stewards,\nand officers about a court. They should be fed and praised when\nthey deserve it, but they cannot be too often reminded that they are\nretainers and servants, and that their Sovereign and Master is--\n\n\nThe People.\n\n\nIn a really humane and civilised nation:\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as poverty.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as ignorance.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as crime.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as idleness.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as war.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as slavery.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as hate.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as envy.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as pride.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as greed.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as gluttony.\n\nThere should be and need be no such thing as vice.\n\nBut this is not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while\nit accepts Christianity as its religion.\n\nThese are my reasons for opposing Christianity. If I have said anything\nto give pain to any Christian, I am sorry, and ask to be forgiven.\nI have tried to maintain \"towards all creatures a bounteous friendly\nfeeling.\"\n\nAs to what I said about holiness, I cannot take back a word. Dr. Horton\nsaid that without that form of holiness which only a belief in Christ\ncan give we shall only be good enough to barely escape Hell, and, \"after\npassing through the grave, to wander in the dark spaces of the world,\nwhich is still earthly and sensual.\"\n\nI say earnestly and deliberately that if I can only attain to Heaven and\nto holiness as one of a few, if I am to go to Heaven and leave millions\nof my brothers and sisters to ignorance and misery and crime, I will\nhope to be sent instead into those \"dark spaces of the world which is\nstill earthly and sensual\" and there to be permitted to fight with all\nmy strength against pain and error and injustice and human sorrow. I\nknow I shall be happier so. I think I was made for that kind of work,\nand I fervently wish that I may be allowed to do my duty as long as ever\nthere is a wrong in the world that I can help to right, a grief I can\nhelp to soothe, a truth I can help to tell.\n\nLet the Holy have their Heaven. I am a man, and an Infidel. And this is\nmy Apology.\n\nBesides, gentlemen, Christianity is not _true_.","title":"God and My Neighbour","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":64294}