AMONG such books my youth was passed. All the seeds of Christianity--of
superstition, were sown in my mind and cultivated with great diligence
and care.
All that time I knew nothing of any science--nothing about the other
side--nothing of the objections that had been urged against the blessed
Scriptures, or against the perfect Congregational creed. Of course I
had heard the ministers speak of blasphemers, of infidel wretches,
of scoffers who laughed at holy things. They did not answer their
arguments, but they tore their characters into shreds and demonstrated
by the fury of assertion that they had done the Devil's work. And yet in
spite of all I heard--of all I read, I could not quite believe. My brain
and heart said No.
For a time I left the dreams, the insanities, the illusions and
delusions, the nightmares of theology. I studied astronomy, just a
little--I examined maps of the heavens--learned the names of some of the
constellations--of some of the stars--found something of their size and
the velocity with which they wheeled in their orbits--obtained a faint
conception of astronomical spaces--found that some of the known stars
were so far away in the depths of space that their light, traveling at
the rate of nearly two hundred thousand miles a second, required many
years to reach this little world--found that, compared with the great
stars, our earth was but a grain of sand--an atom--found that the old
belief that all the hosts of heaven had been created for the benefit of
man, was infinitely absurd.
I compared what was really known about the stars with the account of
creation as told in Genesis. I found that the writer of the inspired
book had no knowledge of astronomy--that he was as ignorant as a Choctaw
chief--as an Eskimo driver of dogs. Does any one imagine that the author
of Genesis knew anything about the sun--its size? that he was acquainted
with Sirius, the North Star, with Capella, or that he knew anything of
the clusters of stars so far away that their light, now visiting our
eyes, has been traveling for two million years?
If he had known these facts would he have said that Jehovah worked
nearly six days to make this world, and only a part of the afternoon of
the fourth day to make the sun and moon and all the stars?
Yet millions of people insist that the writer of Genesis was inspired by
the Creator of all worlds.
Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains have not been
paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of creation was written by
an ignorant savage. The story is inconsistent with all known facts,
and every star shining in the heavens testifies that its author was an
uninspired barbarian.
I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote what he
believed to be true--that he did the best he could. He did not claim
to be inspired--did not pretend that the story had been told to him by
Jehovah. He simply stated the "facts" as he understood them.
After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that this
writer, this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and legend, and
that he knew no more about creation than the average theologian of my
day. In other words, that he knew absolutely nothing.
And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering me are
turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend gentlemen
should attack the astronomers. They should malign and vilify Kepler,
Copernicus, Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men were the real
destroyers of the sacred story. Then, after having disposed of them,
they can wage a war against the stars, and against Jehovah himself for
having furnished evidence against the truthfulness of his book.
Then I studied geology--not much, just a little--just enough to find in
a general way the principal facts that had been discovered, and some of
the conclusions that had been reached. I learned something of the action
of fire--of water--of the formation of islands and continents--of
the sedimentary and igneous rocks--of the coal measures--of the chalk
cliffs, something about coral reefs--about the deposits made by rivers,
the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding
sea--just enough to know that the Laurentian rocks were millions of ages
older than the grass beneath my feet--just enough to feel certain that
this world had been pursuing its flight about the sun, wheeling in light
and shade, for hundreds of millions of years--just enough to know that
the "inspired" writer knew nothing of the history of the earth--nothing
of the great forces of nature--of wind and wave and fire--forces that
have destroyed and built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless
years.
And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste their
time in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They should
deny the facts that have been discovered. They should launch their
curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against the infidel
rocks.
Then I studied biology--not much--just enough to know something of
animal forms, enough to know that life existed when the Laurentian rocks
were made--just enough to know that implements of stone, implements that
had been formed by human hands, had been found mingled with the bones
of extinct animals, bones that had been split with these implements, and
that these animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years
before the manufacture of Adam and Eve.
Then I felt sure that the "inspired" record was false--that many
millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been taught
about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I felt that I
knew that the Old Testament was the work of ignorant men--that it was a
mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and foolishness, of cruelty and
kindness, of philosophy and absurdity--that it contained some
elevated thoughts, some poetry,---a good deal of the solemn and
commonplace,--some hysterical, some tender, some wicked prayers, some
insane predictions, some delusions, and some chaotic dreams.
Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the geologists, the
scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred Scriptures. They mistook
the bones of the mastodon for those of human beings, and by them proudly
proved that "there were giants in those days." They accounted for the
fossils by saying that God had made them to try our faith, or that the
Devil had imitated the works of the Creator.
They answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in Genesis were
long periods of time, and that after all the flood might have been
local. They told the astronomers that the sun and moon were not
actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the appearance was
produced by the reflection and refraction of light.
They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder upheld
in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so degraded that
Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance and prejudice.
In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge the truth,
to preserve the creed.
At first they flatly denied the facts--then they belittled them--then
they harmonized them--then they denied that they had denied them. Then
they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book to fit the facts.
At first they said that if the facts, as claimed, were true, the Bible
was false and Christianity itself a superstition. Afterward they said
the facts, as claimed, were true and that they established beyond all
doubt the inspiration of the Bible and the divine origin of orthodox
religion.
Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed, and anything they could
not swallow, they dodged.
I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its absurdities,
its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New because it vouched
for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on account of its miracles,
its contradictions, because Christ and his disciples believed in the
existence of devils--talked and made bargains with them, expelled them
from people and animals.
This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that devils do
not exist--that Christ never cast them out, and that if he pretended to,
he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane. These stories about devils
demonstrate the human, the ignorant origin of the New Testament. I gave
up the New Testament because it rewards credulity, and curses brave and
honest men, and because it teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain.