NE great objection to the Old Testament is the cruelty said to have been
commanded by God. All these cruelties ceased with death. The vengeance
of Jehovah stopped at the tomb. He never threatened to punish the dead;
and there is not one word, from the first mistake in Genesis to the last
curse of Malachi, containing the slightest intimation that God will take
his revenge in another world. It was reserved for the New Testament
to make known the doctrine of eternal pain. The teacher of universal
benevolence rent the veil between time and eternity, and fixed the
horrified gaze of man upon the lurid gulf of hell. Within the breast of
non-resistance coiled the worm that never dies. Compared with this,
the doctrine of slavery, the wars of extermination, the curses, the
punishments of the Old Testament were all merciful and just.
There is no time to speak of the conflicting statements in the various
books composing the New Testament--no time to give the history of the
manuscripts, the errors in translation, the interpolations made by the
fathers and by their successors, the priests, and only time to speak of
a few objections, including some absurdities and some contradictions.
Where several witnesses testify to the same transaction, no matter how
honest they may be, they will disagree upon minor matters, and such
testimony is generally considered as evidence that the witnesses
have not conspired among themselves. The differences in statement are
accounted for from the facts that all do not see alike, and that all
have not equally good memories; but when we claim that the witnesses are
inspired, we must admit that he who inspired them did know exactly what
occurred, and consequently there should be no disagreement, even in the
minutest detail. The accounts should not only be substantially, but they
should be actually, the same. The differences and contradictions can be
accounted for by the weaknesses of human nature, but these weaknesses
cannot be predicated of divine wisdom.
And here let me ask: Why should there have been more than one correct
account of what really happened? Why were four gospels necessary? It
seems to me that one inspired gospel, containing all that happened, was
enough. Copies of the one correct one could have been furnished to any
extent. According to Doctor Davidson, Irenaeus argues that the gospels
were four in number, because there are four universal winds, four
corners of the globe. Others have said, because there are four seasons;
and these gentlemen might have added, because a donkey has four legs.
For my part, I cannot even conceive of a reason for more than one
gospel.
According to one of these gospels, and according to the prevalent
Christian belief, the Christian religion rests upon the doctrine of the
atonement. If this doctrine is without foundation, the fabric falls; and
it is without foundation, for it is repugnant to justice and mercy.
The church tells us that the first man committed a crime for which all
others are responsible. This absurdity was the father and mother of
another--that a man can be rewarded for the good action of another. We
are told that God made a law, with the penalty of eternal death. All
men, they tell us, have broken this law. The law had to be vindicated.
This could be done by damning everybody, but through what is known as
the atonement the salvation of a few was made possible. They insist that
the law demands the extreme penalty, that justice calls for its victim,
that mercy ceases to plead, and that God by allowing the innocent to
suffer in the place of the guilty settled satisfactory with the law. To
carry out this scheme God was born as a babe, grew in stature, increased
in knowledge, and at the age of thirty-three years having lived a life
filled with kindness, having practiced every virtue, he was sacrificed
as an atonement for man. It is claimed that he took our place, bore our
sins, our guilt, and in this way satisfied the justice of God.
Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no remission of sin except
through the shedding of blood. When a man sinned he must bring to the
priest a lamb, a bullock, a goat, or a pair of turtle-doves.
The priest would lay his hand upon the animal and the sin of the man
would be transferred to the beast. Then the animal would be killed in
place of the sinner, and the blood thus shed would be sprinkled upon
the altar. In this way Jehovah was satisfied. The greater the crime, the
greater the sacrifice. There was a ratio between the value of the animal
and the enormity of the sin.
The most minute directions were given as to the killing of
these animals. Every priest became a butcher, every synagogue a
slaughter-house. Nothing could be more utterly shocking to a refined
soul, nothing better calculated to harden the heart, than the continual
shedding of innocent blood. This terrible system culminated in the
sacrifice of Christ. His blood took the place of all other. It is not
necessary to shed any more. The law at last is satisfied, satiated,
surfeited.
The idea that God wants blood is at the bottom of the atonement, and
rests upon the most fearful savagery; and yet the Mosaic dispensation
was better adapted to prevent the commission of sin than the Christian
system. Under that dispensation, if you committed a sin, you had
to bring a sacrifice--dove, sheep, or bullock, now, when a sin is
committed, the Christian says, "Charge it," "Put it on the slate, If
I don't pay it the Savior will." In this way, rascality is sold on a
credit, and the credit system of religion breeds extravagance in sin.
The Mosaic dispensation was based upon far better business principles.
The debt had to be paid, and by the man who owed it. We are told that
the sinner is in debt to God, and that the obligation is discharged by
the Savior. The best that can be said of such a transaction is that the
debt is transferred, not paid. As a matter of fact, the sinner is in
debt to the person he has injured. If you injure a man, it is not enough
to get the forgiveness of God--you must get the man's forgiveness, you
must get your own. If a man puts his hand in the fire and God forgives
him, his hand will smart just as badly. You must reap what you sow. No
God can give you wheat when you sow tares, and no Devil can give you
tares when you sow wheat. We must remember that in nature there are
neither rewards nor punishments--there are consequences. The life and
death of Christ do not constitute an atonement. They are worth the
example, the moral force, the heroism of benevolence, and in so far as
the life of Christ produces emulation in the direction of goodness, it
has been of value to mankind.
To make innocence suffer is the greatest sin, and it may be the only
sin. How, then, is it possible to make the consequences of sin an
atonement for sin, when the consequences of sin are to be borne by one
who has not sinned, and the one who has sinned is to reap the reward of
virtue? No honorable man should be willing that another should suffer
for him. No good law can accept the sufferings of innocence as an
atonement for the guilty; and besides, if there was no atonement until
the crucifixion of Christ, what became of the countless millions who
died before that time? We must remember that the Jews did not kill
animals for the Gentiles. Jehovah hated foreigners. There was no way
provided for the forgiveness of a heathen. What has become of the
millions who have died since, without having heard of the atonement?
What becomes of those who hear and do not believe? Can there be a law
that demands that the guilty be rewarded. And yet, to reward the guilty
is far nearer justice than to punish the innocent. If the doctrine of
the atonement is true, there would have been no heaven had no atonement
been made.
If Judas had understood the Christian system, if he knew that Christ
must be betrayed, and that God was depending on him to betray him, and
that without the betrayal no human soul could be saved, what should
Judas have done?
Jehovah took special charge of the Jewish people. He did this for the
purpose of civilizing them. If he had succeeded in civilizing them,
he would have made the damnation of the entire human race a certainty;
because if the Jews had been a civilized people when Christ appeared--a
people who had not been hardened by the laws of Jehovah--they would not
have crucified Christ, and as a consequence, the world would have been
lost. If the Jews had believed in religious freedom, in the rights of
thought and speech, if the Christian religion is true, not a human soul
ever could have been saved. If, when Christ was on his way to Calvary,
some brave soul had rescued him from the pious mob, he would not only
have been damned for his pains, but would have rendered impossible the
salvation of any human being.
The Christian world has been trying for nearly two thousand years to
explain the atonement, and every effort has ended in an admission that
it cannot be understood, and a declaration that it must be believed. Has
the promise and hope of forgiveness ever prevented the commission of
a sin? Can men be made better by being taught that sin gives happiness
here; that to live a virtuous life is to bear a cross; that men can
repent between the last sin and the last breath; and that repentance
washes every stain of the soul away? Is it good to teach that the
serpent of regret will not hiss in the ear of memory; that the saved
will not even pity the victims of their crimes; and that sins forgiven
cease to affect the unhappy wretches sinned against?
Another objection is, that a certain belief is necessary to save the
soul. This doctrine, I admit, is taught in the gospel according to John,
and in many of the epistles; I deny that it is taught in Matthew, Mark,
or Luke. It is, however, asserted by the church that to believe is the
only safe way. To this, I reply: Belief is not a voluntary thing. A man
believes or disbelieves in spite of himself. They tell us that to
believe is the safe way; but I say, the safe way is to be honest.
Nothing can be safer than that. No man in the hour of death ever
regretted having been honest. No man when the shadows of the last day
were gathering about the pillow of death, ever regretted that he had
given to his fellow-man his honest thought. No man, in the presence of
eternity, ever wished that he had been a hypocrite. No man ever then
regretted that he did not throw away his reason. It certainly cannot be
necessary to throw away your reason to save your soul, because after
that, your soul is not worth saving. The soul has a right to defend
itself. My brain is my castle; and when I waive the right to defend it,
I become an intellectual serf and slave.
I do not admit that a man by doing me an injury can place me under
obligations to do him a service. To render benefits for injuries is
to ignore all distinctions between actions. He who treats friends and
enemies alike has neither love nor justice. The idea of non-resistance
never occurred to a man with power to defend himself. The mother of this
doctrine was weakness. To allow a crime to be committed, even against
yourself, when you can prevent it, is next to committing the crime
yourself. The church has preached the doctrine of non-resistance, and
under that banner has shed the blood of millions. In the folds of
her sacred vestments have gleamed for centuries the daggers of
assassination. With her cunning hands she wove the purple for hypocrisy
and placed the crown upon the brow of crime. For more than a thousand
years larceny held the scales of justice, hypocrisy wore the mitre and
tiara, while beggars scorned the royal sons of toil, and ignorant fear
denounced the liberty of thought.