WE must remember that the church was founded and has been protected by
God, that all the popes, and cardinals, all the bishops, priests and
monks, all the ministers and exhorters were selected and set apart--all
sanctified and enlightened by the infinite God--that the Holy Scriptures
were inspired by the same Being, and that all the orthodox creeds were
really made by him.
We know what these men--filled with the Holy Ghost--have done. We know
the part they have played. We know the souls they have saved and the
bodies they have destroyed. We know the consolation they have given and
the pain they have inflicted--the lies they have defended--the truths
they have denied. We know that they convinced millions that celibacy is
the greatest of all virtues--that women are perpetual temptations,
the enemies of true holiness--that monks and priests are nobler than
fathers, that nuns are purer than mothers. We know that they taught the
blessed absurdity of the Trinity--that God once worked at the trade
of a carpenter in Palestine. We know that they divided knowledge into
sacred and profane--taught that Revelation was sacred--that Reason was
blasphemous--that faith was holy and facts false. That the sin of Adam
and Eve brought disease and pain, vice and death into the world. We know
that they have taught the dogma of special providence--that all
events are ordered and regulated by God--that he crowns and uncrowns
kings--preserves and destroys--guards and kills--that it is the duty of
man to submit to the divine will, and that no matter how much evil
there may be--no matter how much suffering--how much pain and death, man
should pour out-his heart in thankfulness that it is no worse.
Let me be understood. I do not say and I do not think that the church
was dishonest, that the clergy were insincere. I admit that all
religions, all creeds, all priests, have been naturally produced. I
admit, and cheerfully admit, that the believers in the supernatural have
done some good--not because they believed in gods and devils--but in
spite of it.
I know that thousands and thousands of clergymen are honest,
self-denying and humane--that they are doing what they believe to be
their duty--doing what they can to induce men and women to live pure and
noble lives. This is not the result of their creeds--it is because they
are human.
What I say is that every honest teacher of the supernatural has been and
is an unconscious enemy of the human race.
What is the philosophy of the church--of those who believe in the
supernatural?
Back of all that is--back of all events--Christians put an infinite
Juggler who with a wish creates, preserves, destroys. The world is his
stage and mankind his puppets. He fills them with wants and desires,
with appetites and ambitions--with hopes and fears--with love and hate.
He touches the springs. He pulls the strings--baits the hooks, sets the
traps and digs the pits.
The play is a continuous performance.
He watches these puppets as they struggle and fail. Sees them outwit
each other and themselves--leads them to every crime, watches the
births and deaths--hears lullabies at cradles and the fall of
clods on coffins. He has no pity. He enjoys the tragedies--the
desperation--the despair--the suicides. He smiles at the murders, the
assassinations,--the seductions, the desertions--the abandoned babes of
shame. He sees the weak enslaved--mothers robbed of babes--the innocent
in dungeons--on scaffolds. He sees crime crowned and hypocrisy robed.
He withholds the rain and his puppets starve. He opens the earth and
they are devoured. He sends the flood and they are drowned. He empties
the volcano and they perish in fire. He sends the cyclone and they are
torn and mangled. With quick lightnings they are dashed to death.
He fills the air and water with the invisible enemies of life--the
messengers of pain, and watches the puppets as they breathe and
drink. He creates cancers to feed upon their flesh--their quivering
nerves--serpents, to fill their veins with venom,--beasts to crunch
their bones--to lap their blood.
Some of the poor puppets he makes insane--makes them struggle in the
darkness with imagined monsters with glaring eyes and dripping jaws, and
some are made without the flame of thought, to drool and drivel through
the darkened days. He sees all the agony, the injustice, the rags
of poverty, the withered hands of want--the motherless babes--the
deformed--the maimed--the leprous, knows the tears that flow--hears
the sobs and moans--sees the gleam of swords, hears the roar of the
guns--sees the fields reddened with blood--the white faces of the dead.
But he mocks when their fear cometh, and at their calamity he fills the
heavens with laughter. And the poor puppets who are left alive, fall on
their knees and thank the Juggler with all their hearts.
But after all, the gods have not supported the children of men, men have
supported the gods. They have built the temples. They have sacrificed
their babes, their lambs, their cattle. They have drenched the altars
with blood. They have given their silver, their gold, their gems. They
have fed and clothed their priests--but the gods have given nothing in
return. Hidden in the shadows they have answered no prayer--heard
no cry--given no sign--extended no hand--uttered no word. Unseen and
unheard they have sat on their thrones, deaf and dumb--paralyzed and
blind. In vain the steeples rise--in vain the prayers ascend.
And think what man has done to please the gods. He has renounced his
reason--extinguished the torch of his brain, he has believed without
evidence and against evidence. He has slandered and maligned himself.
He has fasted and starved. He has mutilated his body--scarred his
flesh--given his blood to vermin. He has persecuted, imprisoned and
destroyed his fellows. He has deserted wife and child. He has lived
alone in the desert. He has swung-censers and burned incense, counted
beads and sprinkled himself with holy water--shut his eyes, clasped his
hands--fallen upon his knees and groveled in the dust--but the gods have
been silent--silent as stones.
Have these cringings and crawlings--these cruelties and
absurdities--this faith and foolishness pleased the gods?
We do not know.
Has any disaster been averted--any blessing obtained? We do not know.
Shall we thank these gods?
Shall we thank the church's God?
Who and what is he?
They say that he is the creator and preserver of all that has been--of
all that is--of all that will be--that he is the father of angels and
devils, the architect of heaven and hell--that he made the earth--a
man and woman--that he made the serpent who tempted them, made his
own rival--gave victory to his enemy--that he repented of what he had
done--that he sent a flood and destroyed all of the children of men with
the exception of eight persons--that he tried to civilize the survivors
and their children--tried to do this with earthquakes and fiery serpents
--with pestilence and famine. But he failed. He intended to fail. Then
he was born into the world, preached for three years, and allowed some
savages to kill him. Then he rose from the dead and went back to heaven.
He knew that he would fail, knew that he would be killed. In fact he
arranged everything himself and brought everything to pass just as he
had predestined it an eternity before the world was. All who believe
these things will be saved and they who doubt or deny will be lost.
Has this God good sense?
Not always. He creates his own enemies and plots against himself.
Nothing lives, except in accordance with his will, and yet the devils do
not die.
What is the matter with this God? Well, sometimes he is
foolish--sometimes he is cruel and sometimes he is insane.
Does this God exist? Is there any intelligence back of Nature? Is there
any being anywhere among the stars who pities the suffering children of
men?
We do not know.
Shall we thank Nature?
Does Nature care for us more than for leaves, or grass, or flies?
Does Nature know that we exist? We do not know.
But we do know that Nature is going to murder us all.
Why should we thank Nature? If we thank God or Nature for the sunshine
and rain, for health and happiness, whom shall we curse for famine and
pestilence, for earthquake and cyclone--for disease and death?