The savage is certain of those things that cannot be known. He is
acquainted with origin and destiny, and knows everything except that
which is useful. The civilized man, having outgrown the ignorance, the
arrogance, and the provincialism of savagery, abandons the vain search
for final causes, for the nature and origin of things.
In nearly every department of science man is allowed to investigate, and
the discovery of a new fact is welcomed, unless it threatens some creed.
Of course there can be no advance in a religion established by infinite
wisdom. The only progress possible is in the comprehension of this
religion.
For many generations, what is known under a vast number of disguises
and behind many masks as the Christian religion, has been propagated
and preserved by the sword and bayonet--that is to say, by force. The
credulity of man has been bribed and his reason punished. Those who
believed without the slightest question, and whose faith held evidence
in contempt, were saints; those who investigated were dangerous, and
those who denied were destroyed.
Every attack upon this religion has been made in the shadow of human and
divine hatred--in defiance of earth and heaven. At one time Christendom
was beneath the ignorant feet of one man, and those who denied his
infallibility were heretics and Atheists. At last, a protest was
uttered. The right of conscience was proclaimed, to the extent of making
a choice between the infallible man and the infallible book. Those
who rejected the man and accepted the book became in their turn
as merciless, as tyrannical and heartless, as the followers of the
infallible man. The Protestants insisted that an infinitely wise and
good God would not allow criminals and wretches to act as his infallible
agents.
Afterward, a few protested against the infallibility of the book, using
the same arguments against the book that had formerly been used against
the pope. They said that an infinitely wise and good God could not be
the author of a cruel and ignorant book. But those who protested against
the book fell into substantially the same error that had been fallen
into by those who had protested against the man. While they denounced
the book, and insisted that an infinitely wise and good being could not
have been its author, they took the ground that an infinitely wise and
good being was the creator and governor of the world.
Then was used against them the same argument that had been used by the
Protestants against the pope and by the Deists against the Protestants.
Attention was called to the fact that Nature is as cruel as any pope or
any book--that it is just as easy to account for the destruction of the
Canaanites consistently with the goodness of Jehovah as to account for
pestilence, earthquake, and flood consistently with the goodness of the
God of Nature.
The Protestant and Deist both used arguments against the Catholic that
could in turn be used with equal force against themselves. So that there
is no question among intelligent people as to the infallibility of the
pope, as to the inspiration of the book, or as to the existence of the
Christian's God--for the conclusion has been reached that the human mind
is incapable of deciding as to the origin and destiny of the universe.
For many generations the mind of man has been traveling in a circle. It
accepted without question the dogma of a First Cause--of the existence
of a Creator--of an Infinite Mind back of matter, and sought in many
ways to define its ignorance in this behalf. The most sincere worshipers
have declared that this being is incomprehensible,--that he is "without
body, parts, or passions"--that he is infinitely beyond their grasp, and
at the same time have insisted that it was necessary for man not only
to believe in the existence of this being, but to love him with all his
heart.
Christianity having always been in partnership with the state,--having
controlled kings and nobles, judges and legislators--having been
in partnership with armies and with every form of organized
destruction,--it was dangerous to discuss the foundation of its
authority. To speak lightly of any dogma was a crime punishable by
death. Every absurdity has been bastioned and barricaded by the power of
the state. It has been protected by fist, by club, by sword and cannon.
For many years Christianity succeeded in substantially closing the
mouths of its enemies, and lived and flourished only where investigation
and discussion were prevented by hypocrisy and bigotry. The church still
talks about "evidence," about "reason," about "freedom of conscience"
and the "liberty of speech," and yet denounces those who ask for
evidence, who appeal to reason, and who honestly express their thoughts.
To-day we know that the miracles of Christianity are as puerile and
false as those ascribed to the medicine-men of Central Africa or the
Fiji Islanders, and that the "sacred Scriptures" have the same claim to
inspiration that the Koran has, or the Book of Mormon--no less, no more.
These questions have been settled and laid aside by free and intelligent
people. They have ceased to excite interest; and the man who now really
believes in the truth of the Old Testament is regarded with a smile--
looked upon as an aged child--still satisfied with the lullabys and toys
of the cradle.