"These included the prisons of Iowa, Michigan, Tennessee, New York,
Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Canada."
Present these two tables to those who assure you that crime follows in
the wake of Infidelity, and you will have time to take a comfortable nap
before your Christian friend returns to the attack or braces up after
the shock sustained by his sentiments and inflicted by these two small
but truly suggestive tables.
One cold fact like this will inoculate one of the faithful with more
modesty than an hour of usual argument based upon the assumptions of the
clergy and the ignorance of his hearers.
Infidels are not perfect. Many of them need reconstruction sadly, but
the above data seem to indicate that they compare rather favorably with
their fellow-men in the matter of good citizenship.
Appendix T.
"Moreover, as Goethe has already shown, the celebrated Mosaic moral
precepts, the so-called Ten Commandments, were _not_ upon the tables
upon which Moses wrote the laws of the covenant which God made with his
people.
"Even the extraordinary diversity of the many religions diffused over
the surface of the earth suffices to show that they can stand in no
necessary connection with morals, as it is well known that wherever
tolerably well-ordered political and social conditions exist, the moral
precepts in their essential principles are the same, whilst when such
conditions are wanting, a wild and irregular confusion, or even an
entire deficiency of moral notions is met with.* History also shows
incontrovertibly that religion and morality have by no means gone hand
in hand in strength and development, but that even contrariwise the
most religious times and countries have produced the greatest number
of crimes and sins against the laws of morality, and indeed, as daily
experience teaches, still produce them. The history of nearly all
religions is filled with such horrible abominations, massacres, and
boundless wickednesses of every kind that at the mere recollection of
them the heart of a philanthropist seems to stand still, and we turn
with disgust and horror from a mental aberration which could produce
such deeds. If it is urged in vindication of religion that it has
advanced and elevated human civilization, even this merit appears very
doubtful in presence of the facts of history, and at least as very
rarely or isolatedly the case. In general, however, it cannot be denied
that most systems of religion have proved rather inimical than friendly
to civilization. For religion, as already stated, tolerates no doubt, no
discussion, no contradiction, no investigations, those eternal pioneers
of the future of science and intellect! Even the simple circumstance
that our present state of culture has already long since left far
behind it all and even the highest intellectual ideals established and
elaborated by former religions may show how little intellectual progress
is influenced by religion. Mankind is perpetually being thrown to and
fro between science, and religion, but it advances moro intellectually,
morally and physically in proportion as it turns away from religion and
to science.
* "In China, where people are, as is well-known, very
indifferent or tolerant in religious matters, this fine
proverb is current: Religions are various, but reason is
one, and we are all brothers.'"
"It is therefore clear that for our present age and for the future a
foundation must be sought and found for culture and morality, different
from that which can be furnished to us by religion. It is not the fear
of God that acts amelioratingly or ennoblingly upon manners, of which
the middle ages furnish us with a striking proof; but the ennobling of
the conception of the world in general which goes hand in hand with
the advance of civilization. Let us then give up making a show of the
profession of hypocritical words of faith, the only purpose of which
seems to be that they may be continually shown to be lies by the actions
and deeds of their professors! The man of the future will feel far more
happy and contented when he has not to contend at every step of his
intellectual forward development with those tormenting contradictions
between knowledge and faith which plague his youth, and occupy his
mature age unnecessarily with the slow renunciation of the notions which
he imbibed in his youth. What we sacrifice to God, we take away from
mankind, and absorb a great part of his best intellectual powers in
the pursuit of an unattainable goal. At any rate, the least that we can
expect in this respect from the state and society of the future is a
complete separation between ecclesiastical and worldly affairs, or
an absolute emancipation of the state and the school from every
ecclesiastical influence.
"Education must be founded upon _knowledge_, not upon _faith_; and
religion itself should be taught in the public schools only as religious
history and as an objective or scientific exposition of the different
religious systems prevailing among mankind. Any one who, after such an
education, still experiences the need of a definite law or rule of faith
may then attach himself to any religious sect that may seem good to him,
but cannot claim that the community should bear the cost of this special
fancy!
"As regards Christianity, or the _Paulinism_ which is falsely called
Christianity, it stands, by its dogmatic portion or contents, in such
striking and irreconcilable, nay absolutely absurd contradiction with
all the acquisitions and principles of modern science that its future
tragical fate can only be a question of time. But even its ethical
contents or its moral principles are in no way essentially distinguished
above those of other peoples, and were equally well and in part better
known to mankind even _before_ its appearance. Not only in this respect,
but also in its supposed character as the _world-religion_, it is
excelled by the much older and probably most widely diffused religious
system in the world, the celebrated _Buddhism_, which recognizes
neither the idea of a personal God, nor that of a personal duration,
and nevertheless teaches an extremely pure, amiable, and even ascetic
morality. The doctrine of Zoroaster or Zarathrustra also, 1800 years
B. C, taught the principles of humanity and toleration for those of
different modes of thinking in a manner and purity which were unknown
to the Semitic religions and especially to Christianity. Christianity
originated and spread, as is well-known, at a time of general decline
of manners, and of very great moral and national corruption; and its
extraordinary success must be partly explained by the prevalence of a
sort of intellectual and moral disease which had overpowered the
spirits of men after the fall of the ancient civilization and under
the demoralizing influence of the gradual collapse of the great Roman
empire. But even at that time those who stood intellectually high and
looked deeply into things recognized the whole danger of this new turn
of mind, and it is very remarkable that the best and most benevolent of
the Roman emperors, such as Marcus Aurelius, Julian, etc., were the most
zealous persecutors of Christianity, whilst it was tolerated by the
bad ones, such as Commodus, Heliogabalus, etc. When it had gradually
attained the superiority, one of its first sins against intellectual
progress consisted in the destruction by Christian fanaticism of the
celebrated Library of Alexandria, which contained all the intellectual
treasures of antiquity--an incalculable loss to science, which can never
be replaced. It is usually asserted in praise of Christianity that in
the middle ages the Christian monasteries were the preservers of science
and literature, but even this is correct only in a very limited sense,
since boundless ignorance and rudeness generally prevailed in the
monasteries, and innumerable ecclesiastics could not even read. Valuable
literary treasures on parchment contained in the libraries of the
monasteries were destroyed, the monks when they wanted money selling the
books as parchment, or tearing out the leaves and writing psalms upon
them. Frequently they entirely effaced the ancient classics, to make
room for their foolish legends and homilies; nay, the reading of the
classics, such as Aristotle for example, was directly forbidden by papal
decrees.
"In New Spain Christian fanaticism immediately destroyed whatever of
arts and civilization existed among the natives, and that this was not
inconsiderable is shown by the numerous monuments now in ruins which
place beyond a doubt the former existence of a tolerably high degree of
culture. But in the place of this not a trace of Christian civilization
is now to be observed among the existing Indians, and the resident
Catholic clergy keep the Indians purposely in a state of the greatest
ignorance and stupidity (see Richthofen, Die Zustande der Republic
Mexico, Berlin, 1854).
"Thus Christianity has always acted consistently in accordance with the
principles of one of the fathers of the Church, Tertullian, who says:
'_Desire of knowledge is no longer necessary since Jesus Christ, nor is
investigation necessary since the Gospel._' If the civilization of the
European and especially of Christian Nations has notwithstanding made
such enormous progress in the course of centuries, an unprejudiced
consideration of history can only tell us that this has taken place not
by means of Christianity, but in spite of it. And this is a sufficient
indication to what an extent this civilization must still be capable
of development when once it shall be completely freed from the narrow
bounds of old superstitious and religious embarrassments!"
"We must therefore endeavor to form convictions which are not to stand
once and for all, as philosophers and theologians usually do, but such
as may change and become improved with the advance of knowledge. Whoever
does not recognize this and gives himself up once for all to a belief
which he regards as final truth, whether it be of a theological or
philosophical kind, is of course incapable of accepting a conviction
supported upon scientific grounds. Unfortunately our whole education is
founded upon an early systematic curbing and fettering of the intellect
in the direction of dogmatic (philosophical or theological) doctrines of
faith, and only a comparatively small number of strong minds succeed
in after years in freeing themselves by their own powers from these
fetters, whilst the majority remain captive in the accustomed bonds and
form their judgment in accordance with the celebrated saying of Bishop
Berkeley: 'Few men think; but all will have opinions.'"--Buchner, "Man
in the Past, Present, and Future."
Appendix U.
"And here it may be remarked, once for all, that no man who has
subscribed to creeds and formulas, whether in theology or philosophy,
can be an unbiased investigator of the truth or an unprejudiced judge
of the opinions of others. His sworn preconceptions warping his
discernment, adherence to his sect or party engenders intolerance to the
honest convictions of other inquirer? Beliefs we may and must have,
but a belief to be changed with new and advancing knowledge impedes no
progress, while a creed subscribed to as _ultimate truth, and sworn
to be defended_, not only puts a bar to further research, but as a
consequence throws the odium of distrust on all that may seem to oppose
it.
"Even when such odium cannot deter, it annoys and irritates; hence the
frequent unwillingness of men of science to come prominently forward
with the avowal of their beliefs.
"It is time this delicacy were thrown aside, and such theologians
plainly told that the skepticism and Infidelity--if skepticism and
Infidelity there be--lies all on their own side.
"There is no skepticism so offensive as that which doubts the facts of
honest and careful observation; no Infidelity so gross as that which
disbelieves the deductions of competent and unbiased judgments."--David
Page, "Man," etc., Edinburgh, 1867.
Appendix V.
Since I have recorded this incident of my lecture in Chicago, it is
peculiarly fitting and pleasant to be able to give the following
extract from the review of the first edition of this book printed in the
_Chicago Times_. No great daily paper would have dared to print such a
comment a few years ago. To-day it is stated as a matter quite beyond
controversy:
"She takes considerable pains to show _what one would think
need scarcely be insisted upon in our day_, that the morals of
civilization--morals in general, indeed--are not at all based in or
dependent upon religion, certainly not on Christianity, since the
so-called 'golden rule' the highest principle of morality, antedates
Christianity a thousand years."