The man who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were, try to save
his soul, must be grossly selfish. To do that which shall redound to one’s
own advantage or profit, without care or consideration of another, shows
little humanity. The finer feeling is that which looks after others rather
than one’s self. It can only increase selfishness to seek salvation.
When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes to work to
save it, the things that he will do in order to insure its salvation tend
to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks his soul is saved it is
generally not worth saving. The more willing we are to be lost, the more
chance there is that we will not be.
The cheapest method of saving one’s soul is by believing something. This
requires but little effort and no brains. Christianity is organized
gullibility. It tells people to believe what it teaches and it will save
their souls. It remains to be seen whether Christianity fulfils its part
of the contract.
It occurs to us that before we try to save our soul we ought to know that
we have a soul and that it needs saving. We fail to see any necessity for
anxiety on account of our soul. We do not care to go into the salvation
business and let the priest get all the dividends. Any person who can
seriously talk about “saving his soul” ought to have a guardian.