Chapter XV: Part 15

"The first miracle which Jesus performed was to convert six pots of water into wine! And this feat convinced his disciples of his supernatural origin and powers! And he did this to manifest forth his glory! Either this is true or the Bible is false. Whether true or not, it has been a most powerful argument against abstinence; it has resulted directly in making drunkards, as it has indirectly in making hypocrites and Jesuitical sophists. I of course mean by this last sentence that the seeming necessity to prove the Bible a temperance work has made any number of Christian apologists resort to all kinds of specious arguments and make any number of false claims in order to make good their assertions. The assumption that this wine was not of an intoxicating nature is purely gratuitous. There is not even the ghost of a fact to be found in support of it. Hundreds of passages, which I have quoted under their appropriate heads, prove beyond a doubt that the wine so often mentioned in the Bible was intoxicating; the words of the governor prove that this miraculously produced portion of it certainly was of the very best, for it is against all reason to suppose that men accustomed to the taste and effects of wine would pronounce simple grape-juice to be better than all that had already been served to them at the feast; and, finally, the declaration that this act of Jesus was a miracle and that it made his disciples to 'believe on him,' gives the last stroke to the already nearly dead 'non-intoxicating' theory.

"Col. 2 : 16: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.'

"In other words, judge for yourselves in all these matters, submit to no dictation from without. How does that strike you, Messrs. Bible Prohibitionists?

"1 Tim. 5 : 23: 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.'

"It is probable that this short verse has led to the consumption of more wine and caused more intemperance than any other equal number of words in any language or contained in any book. It has had more potent effect upon the mind of the Christian believer than have twenty passages which have in a hesitating, half-hearted, uncertain way caution against the use of much wine.

"Comparing this class of passages with those grouped under 'A,' we find that the Bible pleas for temperance are out voted more than five to one by those in favor of the use of intoxicants. The record is an astonishingly bad one for the Bible as a total abstinence and Prohibition work, and should put to the blush all of its worshipers and apologists who have been so foolish or unscrupulous as to claim that it is indispensable to the temperance cause and in the education of our children. Both claims are absurd." (E. C. Walker's "Bible Temperance.")

The Inconsistency of Agnosticism.

"It seems to me as irrational to say there is no God as to say
there is a God."--Editor Twentieth Century.

"But pray, why? Does not that proposition tacitly concede that it is irrational to say there is a God? If so, how can it be irrational to deny an irrational proposition or absurdity? Are not the two propositions antithetical? If so, one or the other is, of necessity, false. Conceding then, as he does, the absurdity of the God idea, why will Mr. Pentecost persist, inconsistently, in maintaining that there is no difference between the rationality of Theism and Materialism, with its incidental Atheism?

"Will he kindly tell us the difference in degree of rationality between the position that there is a personal Devil and that there is a God? Are not both notions of the same origin and equally absurd? Are not both transmitted to us from the dark ages, from the same book, and must not both stand or fall together? Yet Mr. Pentecost would not, from pure deference and respect for our poor, non-evolved pious friends, assume an Agnostic's attitude and concede that 'it is as irrational to say there is no Devil as to say there is a Devil.' Of course not. He simply denies the existence of His Satanic Majesty without equivocation, and the proof of his existence not being forthcoming his denial is equivalent to proof that such a being does not exist.

"In law and equity the affirmative is obliged to prove its case. If then a proposition is self-evidently absurd, unnatural and absolutely impossible, why concede to those affirming, without a shadow of proof, that their belief is equally rational with our unbelief, that 'it may be so,' 'I don't know,' etc.

"Having discarded as authoritative ancient traditions, there is absolutely no logic, no reason, no science, no analogy that will sustain or demonstrate the existence of a God. And in view of this fact a simple denial is all-sufficient to prove the negative. As the plea of the prisoner at the bar of 'not guilty' is equivalent to proof of his innocence and bound to be respected by court and juror, unless, indeed, the affirmative, beyond a shadow of a doubt, establishes his guilt, so the Atheist's fearless denial, nowadays, must demand profound respect, and is equivalent to proof, unless, indeed, the Church brings proof, outside of a discarded Bible, of the truth of its basic idea.

"Now, though unnecessary to prove a negative, and the God-idea not having been established by history, revelation, science, or reason, yet alleged arguments being continually advanced in the vain endeavor to resuscitate a vanishing religion, a few propositions are here advanced which prove there is no God.

"There is a universe. This proves there is no God.

"The universe is infinite. This excludes anything else of like character--two infinities being an absurdity.

"The universe (nature) is here and there and everywhere. This proves that God cannot be here and there and everywhere.

"Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Matter (implying energy and force) monopolizing every point of space, nothing else can occupy it in addition.

"The universe exists now. Something cannot come from nothing, therefore the universe has always existed.

"Being eternal and infinite, this excludes anything anterior, exterior, or superior to it.

"Is God in the universe or the universe in God? If there is a God, either of these propositions must be true, yet both are glaringly absurd.

"Can an engineer drive a locomotive and be a locomotive at the same time? If not, how can a God manipulate an infinite universe and be infinite 'Himself?'

"Yet the universe, outside of a God, is an absolute reality, as much so as a locomotive is a reality outside of the engineer. The world is a reality, our planets, the sun, all the countless millions of stars within reach of our telescopes and the infinitude of stars and systems beyond the reach of our strongest lenses, which science infers to exist, all these are a reality and all these, yes, every object of knowledge is a reality, and all these are not God! How then, in the name of reason I ask, can a God, of whom we know absolutely nothing, be infinite, when an infinite number of material objects--not God--fill all space?

"But does the universe exist in God? If we but imagine for a moment the aspect of the universe to resemble a huge machine of infinite proportions, eternally active in all its vast proportions, the idea of the universe existing within a God will appear equally childish and simple.

"All phenomena are the results of energy co-existent and inseparable from matter. All cosmic motion, change, and life may be traced to this physical and chemical energy pervading all nature--never to a God.

"Mind--the so-called infinite as well as finite--implies limit, localization, conditions, etc. This fact tends to prove that while God, perchance, might concentrate his mind on the world or some particular sect or individual, considering their exhortations, the rest of the world and the universe for the time being would be Godless!

"From a late scientific authority I quote in proof: 'It is impossible for a person's mind to be in two places at the same time.' Noted chess players may play twenty games simultaneously, but it is done by speedy transfer of thoughts from one game to another and not by considering two moves at once.

"Thus 'Omniscience' is impossible.

"Again; mind implies limit and necessitates organism, brain, nervous force, etc. This again makes impossible a God. Let the Church demonstrate how a God without a brain can be a God and all it implies, or how a God with a brain can be infinite, and I will kneel down and worship with them.

"Is this dogmatism? The 'dogmatism of the Infidel' we hear so much about? If it is, then asserting that twice two is four is dogmatism. Then we state all the facts of mathematics, all the truths of history is dogmatism. We simply confine ourselves to fact, to knowledge and demonstrated truth. There we stop and refuse to accept the crude notions transmitted from our ignorant ancestors, which, it is dogmatically asserted, are true in spite of our knowledge and reason.

"I protest against being accused of dogmatism, I studiously endeavor to be fair and make no pretensions to scholarship and learning. But I emphatically protest against the dogmatism of others who, assuming a superior air of knowledge assert notions contrary to fact. Supposing some one should affirm that twice two is five, would it be dogmatism, to deny the proposition, and would thinking minds be justified to assume the attitude of Agnostics and concede that while in their opinion twice two is four, yet twice two may be five, 'I don't know,' 'one proposition is as irrational as the other,' etc.?

"We know a universe exists. Existing now proves it is eternal. This simple fact absolutely makes impossible, yes, needless, a God.

"I simply assert that twice two is four and cannot possibly be five. That the universe filling all space nothing else can fill it in addition. If this be dogmatism all knowledge is a farce."--Wettstein.

God Responsible for the Ills Man Suffers.

"If God foreknew whatever was to come to pass, he must have been perfectly well aware that his whole creation, including the scheme of redemption, would be the most stupendous failure imaginable,--as it certainly has been if the Christian religion be true. For what rational or humane man would raise a family of children, if he knew beforehand that they would all be vagabonds and criminals, ending their days in prison or on the scaffold? What prudent farmer would intentionally sow wheat on land certain to produce a bad crop? What sensible business man would knowingly embark in an enterprise sure to prove disastrous, and to involve himself and his family in irretrievable ruin? And yet such conduct on the part of men would be far less irrational and criminal than that of which the Creator is guilty, if the doctrine of his foreknowledge and omnipotence be true. For, according to this doctrine, he alone is responsible for whatever has occurred and will occur, and for all the suffering in the world, since he had full power to prevent it but did not, and does not; and the conclusion to be drawn from this fact is, that he intended all things to be just as they have been in the past, are now and are to be in the future. For, if he possessed absolute power, he might have placed man under entirely different circumstances, and surrounded him by influences which would have led him into the path of perfect rectitude, but did not choose to do so; and we fail to understand how man can be justly held responsible either for his own creation, for the nature with which he is endowed, or for the environment which determines his conduct." (J. W. Stillman's "God and the Universe.")

The Idea of God Must Go.

"I think it is not a good thing for people to believe in God. I think it is a bad thing for them to do so. I think the belief in God is one of the things that is helping very strongly to keep knaves in power and honest people in weakness; it is one of the things that is preventing the people from thinking for themselves and helping themselves. The human mind will never be perfectly free, and peasants and mechanics and day laborers will never be perfectly fairly treated in this world, until the church is utterly destroyed. I do not want to see the church reformed. I want to see her utterly destroyed, because as long as she exists the ruling classes in society will always have in her a faithful ally to help them carry on their infernal schemes of pillage. I do not want people to have a better idea of God or an idea of a better God. I want the idea of God entirely rooted out of the mind, because I know that as long as any idea of God remains in the mind, the priest and the politician will have something to work upon, and this world will never be free and happy until the priest and the politician are gone.

"One man will tell you that God is a Roman Catholic, another that he is a Presbyterian, another that he is a Baptist, and so on. One man will say that he is a Republican, another that he is a single taxer, another that he is a Socialist, and so on. What we must come to see is, that nothing is done in human society that is not done by men. Poverty must be destroyed, not because it is God's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. And general wealth must be achieved, not because it is God's will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should be. Beware of those men who tell you what is or what is not the will of God. In every case you will find a person who is intellectually asleep, or half asleep, or mentally dishonest, or else you will find--and this is more likely--a priest or a politician, a person who wants to get you to not think about what he is teaching you. We have been dragged through enough mire and blood and darkness doing things according to the will of God. It is now time we began to think things out for ourselves."--Pentecost.

"Mr. Barnum said that Christians had a different way of thinking about God now from that of fifty years ago. 'When I first heard of the doctrine of the Universalists,' said he, 'I felt so utterly astonished that I thought I'd drop dead in my boots. The orthodox faith painted God as so revengeful a being that you could hardly distinguish the difference between God and the Devil. If I had almighty power and could take a pebble and give it life, knowing beforehand that fifty-nine seconds out of every sixty would be extreme misery, I would be a monster. Yet this is how God was described, and people talk about loving such a being.'" (Newspaper clipping.)

Atheism.

1. Something (substance) must have always been, or anything could not now be.

2. Then this something was eternal, and hence self-existent.

3. Since self-existent and eternal, it must have been infinite, and hence was everything existing everywhere.

4. Therefore, all that is, has always been; that is, everything has eternally existed everywhere.

But will you say that this something, this self-existent, eternal everything, is God? Very well. Then nothing but God could be. Then he must be the all of everything existing everywhere. Then where is your universe? You see you cannot have a universe if you have a God. We have the universe; hence you cannot have a God. "But he created the universe," you say. Very well; from what did he create it? Nothing? Omnipresent God alone extending on, and on, and forever on through all the everywheres, cramming all the immensities full of his essential self. He could not have created the universe beyond himself, since there was no beyond. There could have been no place in which to put it outside of himself when created, since there was no outside. If created, it must have been from his own essence; and then it would not have been a creation of anything, but a changing of himself into something different; and that was not possible, since he was self-existent, and must necessarily exist the same forever, since he was eternal, and must exist unchangeable. So the universe could not have been made from nothing, since all the spaces everywhere were crammed completely full of everything, and hence there was no unoccupied premises where the raw material could have been stored away. It could not have been created from God-substance, since that already was; it could not have been formed from God's pre-existing self, since that would have been to change the eternally unchangeable into something else--to annihilate himself as God by working himself over into the universe. You see that there can be but one Eternal All. You cannot have both--a God and the universe. And since we have the universe, that is, everything eternally existing everywhere, we need no God, there is no room for a God, and there has never been anything for a God to do. Therefore, there is no God.

As an infinite God must necessarily fill the entirety of space, there could be no room for aught else. God and man could not live together in the same universe. God would necessarily be everything; then the universe must be nothing. But we have the universe, and that is everything; therefore God is nothing--existing nowhere. A mote that is, is better than a God that is not. If we part with God and obtain a universe, we make a magnificent exchange. The issue has always been God versus matter. When people come to understand that matter has always been, that it eternally had the start of everything else, and hence needed no creation, it will be seen that there never has been any necessity for a God, and as the universe is ever governed by law, there is nothing for a God to do. Men must believe in matter, because it is everything, and does everything. Something is always better than nothing. If God is not matter he is not anything; and the idea of God is destined to become obsolete, and gradually pass into utter forgetfulness. The God-idea has been the center and foundation of all the superstitions of the world. When men have learned to dispense with it, their emancipation will be great indeed.--Sam Preston.

Jehovah a Failure.

1. He was unsuccessful in creation. He made Adam and Eve and the serpent; but all his plans were frustrated in a short time; and "it repented the Lord that he had made man."

2. In repeopling the world from Noah's family he decidedly failed again. How easy it would have been after drowning the whole world, to create a new man and woman of perfect character, and omit the Devil business.

3. In attempting to save the world through Jesus Christ he made another failure. It is not in the nature of things for this world to be saved. "To be saved" means too much, and it means too little. Man can not be saved entirely from his weakness, ignorance, and selfishness; and hence can never be perfect. Man can be made morally better, intellectually wiser, physically healthier, individually and socially happier; but his betterment cannot be achieved through preaching, Bible-reading, praying and other religious exercises. It must come through liberty. He must have equal rights with his fellow men. He must have justice established between man and man. The toiler must get the fruits of his toil. A good home has a more sacred influence over the hearts of men to make them kind and good, than all the preaching in the world. With a home of his own man has a little heaven of his own, and a truer and better love of his neighbor.

"The character of a god is the character of the people who have made him. When therefore I expose the crimes of Jehovah, I expose the defective morality of Israel; and when I criticise the God of modern Europe, I criticise the defective intellects of Europeans. The reader must endeavor to bear this in mind; for though he may think that his idea of the Creator is actually the Creator, that belief is not shared by me." (Winwood Reade, "Martyrdom of Man.")

ATONEMENT.

Atonement for Sin, an Immoral Doctrine.

1. The doctrine of the atonement is of heathen origin, and is predicated upon the assumption that no sin can be fully expiated without the shedding of blood. In the language of Paul, "Without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin." A barbarous and bloody doctrine truly! But this doctrine was almost universally prevalent amongst the orientals long before Paul's time.

2. Christians predicate the dogma of atonement for sin upon the assumption that Christ's death and sufferings were a substitute for Adam's death, incurred by the fall. But as Adam's sentence was death, and he suffered that penalty, this assumption cannot be true.

3. If the penalty for sin was death, as taught in Genesis 3, and Christ suffered that penalty for man, then man should not die; but, as he does, it makes the doctrine preposterous. It could not have meant spiritual death, as some argue, because a part of the penalty was that of being doomed to return to dust (Gen. 3 : 19).

4. If crucifixion was indispensably necessary as a penalty, then the punishment should have been inflicted either upon the instigator or perpetrator of the deed; either the serpent or Adam should have been nailed to the cross.

5. We are told in reply, that as an infinite sin was committed, it required an infinite sacrifice. But Adam, being a finite being, could not commit an infinite sin; and Christ's sacrifice and sufferings could not be infinite unless he had continued to suffer to all eternity. Therefore the assumption is false.

6. An all-wise God would not let things get into such a condition as to require the murder of his only son from any consideration whatever.

7. And no father, cherishing a proper regard and love for his son, could have required him to be, or consented to have him put to death in a cruel manner; for the claims of mercy and paternal affection are as imperative as justice.

8. To put an intelligent and innocent being to death, for any purpose is a violation of the moral law, and as great a sin as that for which he died. Hecatombs of victims cannot atone for the infraction of the moral law which is engraven upon our souls.

9. If it were necessary for Christ to be put to death, then Judas is entitled to one half the merit of it for inaugurating the act, as it could not have taken place without his aid; and no one who took part in it should be censured, but praised.

10. It is evident, that, if everybody had been Quakers no atonement would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed.

11. The atonement is either one God putting another to death or God putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science or reason can indorse.

12. Anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin.

13. The atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty, which is a twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. If a father should catch four of his children stealing and the fifth one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would commit a double crime: 1st, that of punishing an innocent child; 2d, that of exonerating and encouraging the four children in the commission of crime. The atonement involves the same principle.

14. No person with true moral manhood would consent to be be saved on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins, rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. And the man who would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward, with a soul not worth saving.

15. Who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through blood to get to the heavenly mansion. I want neither animals, men, nor Gods murdered to save my soul.

16. If there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first atonement--that of murdering an innocent being, "in whose mouth was no guile;" and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this atonement, and so on. And thus it would be atonement after atonement, murder after murder, ad infinitum. What shocking consequences and absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition!

17. It seems strange that any person can cherish the thought for a moment that the Infinite Father would require a sacrificial offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering "his only begotten son." Another monstrous absurdity!

18. The advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward his Creator in the relation of a debtor, and the atonement cancels the debt. To be sure! How does it do it?--Graves.

A MINORITY NOT A SECT.

"A Protestant minister of Oakland, California, in a recent address on the public school system of the United States, expressed himself as follows: 'In one of the schools of San Francisco Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics" was introduced as a text book of morals--as palpable a violation of the law forbidding sectarian instruction as the introduction of the Catholic or Methodist catechism; for Hebert Spencer belongs to a very small and narrow sect which promulgates the creed of Agnosticism.'

"If the reverend speaker had taken the ground that the 'Data of Ethics' was too abstruse to be placed in the hands of public school pupils we should have felt inclined to sustain his objection. But when he says that to introduce such a book is to give a sectarian character to the school in which it is used, we must enter a protest. Science is never sectarian; philosophy is never sectarian. Sectarian teaching begins when you ask a man or a child to assume what cannot be proved, for the sake of keeping within the dogmatic lines that fence round some particular creed. The followers of Mr. Spencer may be in a minority, but they are no more a sect than were the adherents of the Copernican system of astronomy, or than are the believers in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. Mr. Spencer makes no appeal to faith, but finds his premises in the common experience of mankind. A pupil who was being taught out of the 'Data of Ethics' would be quite at liberty to dispute either the premises or the arguments of the author; and he would not be silenced by the declaration that Mr. Spencer is infallible. But when catechisms are taught they are taught, not as containing matter for discussion, but as containing doctrines that must not be disputed, on pain of more or less disagreeable consequences. Similarly when the Bible is read in school it is read not as a fallible record of events, or a fallible guide in morals, but as something absolutely authoritative--the very voice of God. It is perfectly obvious then, where sectarianism in education begins; it begins just at the point where doctrines of any kind accepted on faith by a portion of the community and not discussible on grounds of reason, are made a part of public school instruction. Sectarianism comes in whenever the teacher is obliged to say, 'Hush' to the inquiring scholar who wants his reason satisfied before he will believe. There is no sectarianism, on the other hand, in making use of a book which lays no claim to any kind of privilege, and which, therefore, cannot force the belief of anyone. The followers of Mr. Spencer do not form a sect because they have no beliefs which they wish to exempt from criticism or discussion, and because they hold themselves at full liberty to pass beyond the bounds of Mr. Spencer's thought whenever they can see their way to doing so. Mr. Spencer's 'Data of Ethics' may not contain all the truth on the subject of morals, but the truth which it does contain lends itself to demonstration; and no one can be the worse for being taught demonstrable truths. Upon that foundation he can afterward build what he likes--hay, stubble, or what not; and after his superstructure has been tried by the fire of experience, as it is very likely to be, he will still have something solid left on which to rebuild in perchance wiser fashion. We do not advocate the introduction of the 'Data of Ethics' into the public schools: but we are convinced that it would be a very good thing for the rising generation if some of the ideas contained in that book could be brought home to their minds." (Popular Science Monthly, November 1889.)

NOTE

[1] Referring to the story of Moses receiving the two tables of commandments. See page 134.