THE BIBLE GOD.
The Bible, it is claimed, is the word of God--a revelation from God
to man. It was written or inspired by God, and deals chiefly with
God and his works.
Who and what is this God of the Bible? What is the nature and
character of this divine author? Is he omnipresent, or has he a local
habitation merely? Is he omnipotent, or is he limited in power? Is
he omniscient, or is his knowledge circumscribed? Is he immutable,
or is he a changeable being? Is he visible and comprehensible, or is
he invisible and unknowable? Is he the only God, or is he one of many
gods? Does he possess the form and attributes of man, or is he, as
Christians affirm, without body, parts, or passions? Let God through
his inspired penmen answer.
Is God Omnipresent?
Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord (Jer. xxiii, 24).
The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him (2 Ch. ii, 6).
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell,
behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me
(Ps. cxxxix, 8-10).
The Lord was not in the wind: ... the Lord was not in the earthquake
(1 Kings xix, 11).
And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the
land of Nod (Gen. iv, 16).
And he said unto Balak, Stand here by thy burnt offering, while I
meet the Lord yonder (Num. xxiii, 15).
Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to
gaze (Ex. xix, 21).
God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath
not been such a thing heretofore (1 Sam. iv, 7).
Is God Omnipotent?
With God all things are possible (Matt. xix, 26).
I know that thou canst do everything (Job xlii, 2).
There is nothing too hard for thee (Jer. xxxii, 17).
For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth (Rev. xix, 6).
And the Lord was with Judah, and he [the Lord] drove out the
inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants
of the valley, because they had chariots of iron (Jud. i, 19).
Is He Omniscient?
God ... knoweth all things (1 John iii, 20).
The eyes of the Lord are in every place (Prov. xv, 3).
He knoweth the secrets of the heart (Ps. xliv, 21).
No thought can be withholden from thee (Job xlii, 2).
The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, ... to
know what was in thine heart (Deut. viii, 2).
God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart
(2 Ch. xxxii, 31).
The Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,
and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see
whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which
is come unto me: and if not I will know (Gen. xviii, 20, 21).
Is He Immutable?
I am the Lord, I change not (Mal. iii, 6).
With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning (James i, 17).
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out
of my lips (Ps. lxxxix, 34).
He is not a man that he should repent (1 Sam. xv, 29).
I [God] am weary with repenting (Jer. xv, 6).
It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth (Gen. vi, 6).
The Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel (1 Sam. xv,
35).
And God repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them;
and he did it not (Jonah iii, 10).
The Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house and the
house of thy father should walk before me forever: but now the Lord
saith, Be it far from me (1 Sam. ii, 30).
Is He Visible and Comprehensible?
I have seen God face to face (Gen. xxxii, 30).
And they saw the God of Israel (Ex. xxiv, 10).
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead (Rom. i, 20).
No man hath seen God at any time (John i, 18).
Whom no man hath seen, nor can see (1 Tim. vi, 16).
There shall no man see me and live (Ex. xxxiii, 20).
God is great, and we know him not (Job xxxvi, 26).
Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out (Job xxxvii, 23).
Is There One God Only?
There is one God; and there is none other but he (Mark xii, 32).
Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me
(Is. xliii, 10).
I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God
(Is. xliv, 6).
Thou shalt not revile the gods (Ex. xxii, 28).
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us
(Gen. iii, 22).
Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? (Ex. xv, 11).
Among the gods, there is none like unto thee, O Lord (Ps. lxxxvi, 8).
The Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods (Ps. xcv, 3).
God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the
gods (Psalms lxxxii, 1?).
In What Form Does God Exist?
"There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body,
parts, or passions."--Thirty-nine Articles.
Compare the above conception of Deity with the anthropomorphic
character of God portrayed in the following one hundred passages:
God created man in his own image (Gen. i, 27).
The hair of his [God's] head (Dan. vii, 9).
Thou canst not see my [God's] face (Ex. xxxiii, 20).
The eyes of the Lord run to and fro (2 Ch. xvi, 9).
And his [God's] ears are open (1 Pet. iii, 12).
These are a smoke in my [God's] nose (Is. lxv, 5).
There went up a smoke out of his [God's] nostrils (2 Sam. xxii, 9).
That proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matt. iv, 4).
His [God's] lips are full of indignation (Is. xxx, 27).
And his [God's] tongue as a devouring fire (Ibid).
He shall dwell between his [God's] shoulders (Deut. xxxiii, 12).
Thou [God] hast a mighty arm (Ps. lxxxix, 13).
The right hand of the Lord (Ps. cxviii, 16).
This is the finger of God (Ex. viii, 19).
I [God] will show them the back (Jer. xviii, 17).
Out of thy [God's] bosom (Ps. lxxiv, 11).
My [God's] heart maketh a noise in me (Jer. iv, 19).
My [God's] bowels are troubled (Jer. xxxi, 20).
The appearance of his [God's] loins (Ezek. i, 27).
Darkness was under his [God's] feet (Ps. xviii, 9).
The mind of the Lord (Lev. xxiv, 12).
The breath of his [God's] nostrils (2 Sam. xxii, 16).
In the light of thy [God's] countenance (Ps. lxxxix, 15).
Thou God seest me (Gen. xvi, 13).
My God will hear me (Micah vii, 7).
The Lord smelled a sweet savour (Gen. viii, 21).
Will I [God] eat the flesh of bulls? (Ps. 1, 13.).
Will I [God] drink the blood of goats? (Ibid.)
The hand of God hath touched me (Job xix, 21).
We have heard his [God's] voice (Deut. v, 24).
God doth talk with man (Ibid).
The Lord shall laugh at him (Ps. xxxvii, 13).
Now will I [God] cry (Is. xlii, 14).
He [God] shall give a shout (Jer. xxv, 30).
Why sleepest thou, O Lord? (Ps. xliv, 23.)
Then the Lord awaked (Ps. lxxviii, 65).
God sitteth upon the throne (Ps. xlvii, 8).
God riseth up (Job xxxi, 14).
The Lord stood by him (Acts xxiii, 11).
I [God] will walk among you (Lev. xxvi, 12).
Thou [God] didst ride upon thine horses (Hab. iii, 8).
He [God] wrestled with him (Gen. xxxii, 25).
The Lord will work (1 Sam. xiv, 6).
I [God] am weary (Is. i, 14).
He [God] rested on the seventh day (Gen. ii, 2).
The Lord God planted a garden (Gen. ii, 8).
God is able to graft (Rom. xi, 23).
The Father is a husbandman (John xv, 1).
He [God] hath fenced up my way (Job xix, 8).
The Lord is my shepherd (Ps. xxiii, 1).
The Lord build the house (Ps. cxxvii, 1).
The tables were the work of God (Ex. xxxii, 16).
Thou [God] our potter (Is. lxiv, 8).
The Lord God made coats of skin (Gen. iii, 21).
And [I God] shod thee with badger's skin (Ezek. xvi, 10).
The Lord shave with a razor (Is. vii, 20).
I [God] will cure them (Jer. xxxiii, 6).
And he [God] buried him (Deut. xxxiv, 6).
Thy God which teacheth thee (Is. xlviii, 17).
Musical instruments of God (1 Ch. xvi, 42).
He [God] wrote upon the tables (Ex. xxxiv, 28).
Thy book which thou [God] hast written (Ex. xxxii, 32).
O Lord, I have heard thy speech (Hab. iii, 2).
The Lord is our lawgiver (Is. xxxiii, 22).
The Lord is our judge (Ibid).
For God is the king of all the earth (Ps. xlvii, 7).
He [God] is the governor (Ps. xxii, 8).
God himself is ... our captain (2 Ch. xiii, 12).
The Lord is a man of war (Ex. xv, 3).
The Lord hath opened his armory (Jer. i, 25).
The Lord shall blow the trumpet (Zech. ix, 14).
I [God] myself will fight (Jer. xxi, 5).
He [God] will whet his sword (Ps. vii, 12).
He [God] hath bent his bow (Lam. ii, 4).
God shall shoot at them (Ps. lxiv, 7).
Rocks are thrown down by him [God] (Nahum i, 6).
I [God] will kill you (Ex. xxii, 24).
Thou [God] art become cruel to me (Job. xxx, 21).
I [God] sware in my wrath (Ps. xcv, 11).
I [God] have cursed them already (Mal. ii, 1).
Thy God hath blessed thee (Deut. ii, 7).
The Lord repented (Amos vii, 6).
God did tempt Abraham (Gen. xxii, 1).
O Lord thou hast deceived me (Jer. xx, 7).
He [God] hath polluted the kingdom (Lam. ii, 2).
He [God] is mighty in strength (Job ix, 4).
With him [God] is wisdom (Job xii, 13).
I [God] was a husband (Jer. xxxi, 32).
The only begotten of the Father (John i, 14).
The sons of God saw the daughters of men (Gen. vi, 2).
The love that God hath to us (1 John iv, 16).
These six things doth the Lord hate (Prov. vi, 16).
The joy of the Lord (Neh. viii, 10).
It grieved him [God] at his heart (Gen. vi, 6).
The Lord pitieth them that fear him (Ps. ciii, 13).
I [God] feared the wrath of the enemy (Deut. xxxii, 27).
The Lord ... is a jealous God (Ex. xxxiv, 14).
The fierce anger of the Lord (Num. xxv, 4).
With the Lord there is mercy (Ps. cxxx, 7)
Vengeance is mine ... saith the Lord (Rom. xii, 10).
While many of these texts are simply metaphorical allusions to a Deity,
as a whole they clearly reveal the anthropomorphic conception of God
that prevailed among Bible writers generally. This God was represented
as a being of power and glory, yet a being possessing the form, the
attributes, and the limitations of man. He was a colossal despot--a
king of kings.
The God of the Bible is a product of the human imagination. God did
not make man in God's image, as claimed, but man made God in man's
image. Man is not the creation of God, but God is the creation of man.
This God who was supposed to have created the universe out of nothing
has himself gradually been resolved into nothingness in the minds
of his votaries, and to-day, enthroned in the brain of Christendom,
there reigns a mere phantom, "without body, parts, or passions"
PART III.
MORALITY.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE BIBLE NOT A MORAL GUIDE.
We are asked to accept the Bible as the revealed will of an
all-powerful, all-wise and all-just God. We are asked to revere it
beyond all other books, to make a fetich of it. Above all, we are asked
to accept it as a divine and infallible moral guide. Christians profess
to accept it as such; and many who are not Christians--many who reject
the authenticity of the most of it, and who doubt the credibility
of much of it--parrot-like, repeat the claims of supernaturalists,
dwell upon its "beautiful moral teachings," and abet the efforts of
the clergy to place it in our public schools, seemingly oblivious to
the fact that it is not in any sense a moral guide.
What is Morality?
What is morality? Paley, by many considered the chief of modern
Christian authorities, basing his conception of morality on the Bible,
defines it as "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will
of God [as revealed in the Bible], and for the sake of everlasting
happiness [and to escape everlasting misery]." Supernaturalism and
selfishness are thus its sole principles; supernaturalism being its
source and selfishness being the motive for its observance. Here virtue
does not bring its own reward, the will of God is not omnipotent,
and mankind, like a spoiled child, must be bribed or frightened to
obey its precepts.
This is the Christian conception of morality. But it is a false
conception. Morality is not supernatural and divine, but natural and
human. It is purely utilitarian. Utility, regardless of the will
of God, is its all-pervading principle. Whatever is beneficial to
man is right, is moral; and whatever is injurious to him is wrong,
is immoral. The end and aim of moral conduct, according to Hobbes,
is self-preservation and happiness; not everlasting happiness in
another world, as taught by Paley, but life-lasting happiness in
this. Dr. Priestley's phrase, "The greatest happiness of the greatest
number," is pronounced by Jeremy Bentham, one of the most eminent
of ethical writers, "a true standard for whatever is right or wrong,
useful, useless, or mischievous in human conduct."
More and more, as men become civilized and enlightened, the egoistic
principles of religionists give way to the altruistic principle
of Rationalists. "Live for others" is the sublime teaching of the
Positivist Comte. In obeying this noble precept we are not sacrificing,
but augmenting our own happiness. "To do good is my religion,"
said Thomas Paine. The rewards and punishments of this religion,
which is here but another name for morality, are happily expressed
by Abraham Lincoln: "When I do good I feel good, and when I do bad I
feel bad." The husband and wife who labor for each other's happiness,
regardless of their own; the father and mother who deprive themselves
to make their children happy; men, like Sir Moses Montefiore and
Baron Hirsch, and women, like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton,
who devote their time and wealth to aid in removing the poverty and
alleviating the sufferings of humanity--these, by increasing the
happiness of others, increase their own.
When the true principles of morality are universally understood and
accepted, divine revelations will be cast aside and supernatural
religions will die; the zealot's visions of a celestial paradise
will vanish, and the philanthropist's dream of a heaven on earth will
be realized.
Bible Codes.
The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount,
including the Golden Rule, in the New, are supposed to comprise
the best moral teachings of the Bible. They are declared to be so
far superior to all other moral codes as to preclude the idea of
human origin.
The Decalogue is a very imperfect moral code; not at all superior to
the religious and legislative codes of other ancient peoples. The last
six of these commandments, while not above criticism, are in the main
just, and were recognized alike by Jew and Gentile. They are a crude
attempt to formulate the crystallized experiences of mankind. The
first four (first three according to Catholic and Lutheran versions)
possess no moral value whatever. They are simply religious emanations
from the corrupt and disordered brain of priestcraft. They only serve
to obscure the principles of true morality and produce an artificial
system which bears the same relation to natural morality that a
measure of chaff and grain does to a measure of winnowed grain.
As a literary composition and as a partial exposition of the peculiar
tenets of a heretical Jewish sect, the Sermon on the Mount is
interesting; but as a moral code it is of little value. Along with
some admirable precepts, it contains others, like the following,
which are false and pernicious: "Blessed are the poor in spirit;"
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth;" "If thy
right eye offend thee pluck it out;" "If thy right hand offend thee
cut it off;" "Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth
adultery;" "Resist not evil;" "Whosoever shall smite thee on the
right cheek, turn to him the other also;" "If any man will sue thee
at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;"
"Love your enemies;" "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;"
"Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on;" "Take therefore
no thought for the morrow."
Christians claim that unbelievers have no moral standard, that they
alone have such a standard--an infallible standard--the Bible. If we
ask them to name the best precept in this standard they cite the Golden
Rule. And yet the Golden Rule is in its very nature purely a human rule
of conduct. "Whatsoever ye [men, not God] would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them." This rule enjoins what Christians profess
to condemn, that every person shall form his own moral standard. In
this rule the so-called divine laws are totally ignored.
The Golden Rule, so far as the Bible is concerned, is a borrowed
gem. Chinese, Greek, and Roman sages had preached and practiced it
centuries before the Sermon on the Mount was delivered. This rule, one
of the best formulated by the ancients, is not, however, a perfect rule
of human conduct. It does not demand that our desires shall always be
just. But it does recognize and enjoin the principle of reciprocity,
and is immeasurably superior to the rule usually practised by the
professed followers of Jesus: Whatsoever we would that you should do
unto us, do it; and whatsoever we wish to do unto you, that will we do.
The three Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity, fairly represent
this whole system of so-called Bible morals--two false or useless
precepts to one good precept. Charity is a true virtue, but "faith
and hope," to quote Volney, "may be called the virtues of dupes for
the benefit of knaves." And if the knaves have admitted charity to be
the greatest of these virtues, it is because they are the recipients
and not the dispensers of it.
Bible Models.
The noblest types of manhood, like Bruno, Spinoza, Paine, and
Ingersoll, have been slandered, anathematized, and slain by Christians,
while the gods, the heroes, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the
priests of the Bible have been presented as the highest models of
moral excellence. Of these, Jehovah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David,
Paul, and Christ are represented as the greatest and the best.
Who was Jehovah? "A being of terrific character--cruel, vindictive,
capricious, and unjust."--Jefferson.
Who was Abraham? An insane barbarian patriarch who married his sister,
denied his wife, and seduced her handmaid; who drove one child into
the desert to starve, and made preparations to butcher the other.
Who was Jacob? Another patriarch, who won God's love by deceiving
his father, cheating his uncle, robbing his brother, practicing
bigamy with two of his cousins, and committing fornication with two
of his housemaids.
Who was Moses? A model of meekness; a man who boasted of his own
humility; a man who murdered an Egyptian and hid his body in the
sand; a man who exterminated whole nations to secure the spoils of
war, a man who butchered in cold blood thousands of captive widows,
a man who tore dimpled babes from the breasts of dying mothers and put
them to a cruel death; a man who made orphans of thirty-two thousand
innocent girls, and turned sixteen thousand of them over to the brutal
lusts of a savage soldiery.
Who was David? "A man after God's own heart." A vulgar braggadocio,
using language to a woman the mere quoting of which would send me
to prison; a traitor, desiring to lead an enemy's troops against
his own countrymen; a thief and robber, plundering and devastating
the country on every side; a liar, uttering wholesale falsehoods
to screen himself from justice; a red-handed butcher, torturing and
slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children, making them pass
through burning brick-kilns, carving them up with saws and axes,
and tearing them in pieces under harrows of iron; a polygamist,
with a harem of wives and concubines; a drunken debauchee, dancing
half-naked before the maids of his household; a lecherous old
libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier; a
murderer, having this faithful soldier put to death after desolating
his home; a hoary-headed fiend, foaming with vengeance on his dying
bed, demanding with his latest breath the deaths of two aged men,
one of whom had most contributed to make his kingdom what it was,
the other a man to whom he had promised protection.
Who was Paul? A religious fanatic; a Jew and a Christian. As a Jew,
in the name of Jehovah, he persecuted Christians; as a Christian,
in the name of Christ, he persecuted Jews; and both as a Jew and a
Christian, and in the name of both Jehovah and Christ, he practiced
dissimulation and hallowed falsehood.
Who was Christ? He is called the "divine teacher." Yes,
"He led
The crowd, he taught them justice, truth, and peace,
In semblance; but he lit within their souls
The quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword
He brought on earth to satiate with the blood
Of truth and freedom his malignant soul."
--Shelley.
Immoral Teachings of the Bible.
In the modern and stricter sense of the term, morality is scarcely
taught in the Bible. Neither moral, morals, and morality, nor
their equivalents, ethical and ethics, are to be found in the
book. T. B. Wakeman, president of the Liberal University of Oregon,
a life-long student of sociology and ethics, says:
"The word 'moral' does not occur in the Bible, nor even the
idea. Hunting for morals in the Bible is like trying to find
human remains in the oldest geologic strata--in the eozoon, for
instance. Morals had not then been born."
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
nearly every vice and crime. Here is the long list of wrongs which
it authorizes and defends:
1. Lying and Deception.
2. Cheating.
3. Theft and Robbery.
4. Murder.
5. Wars of Conquest.
6. Human Sacrifices.
7. Cannibalism.
8. Witchcraft.
9. Slavery.
10. Polygamy.
11. Adultery and Prostitution.
12. Obscenity.
13. Intemperance.
14. Vagrancy.
15. Ignorance.
16. Injustice to Woman.
17. Unkindness to Children.
18. Cruelty to Animals.
19. Tyranny.
20. Intolerance and Persecution.
The Bible is, for the most part, the crude literature of a people
who lived 2,000 years, and more, ago. Certain principles of right
and wrong they recognized, but the finer principles of morality were
unknown to them. They were an ignorant people. An ignorant people is
generally a religious people, and a religious people nearly always an
immoral people. They believed that they were God's chosen people--God's
peculiar favorites--and that because of this they had the right to
rob and cheat, to murder and enslave the rest of mankind. From these
two causes, chiefly, ignorance and religion, i. e., superstition,
emanated the immoral deeds and opinions which found expression in
the writings of their priests and prophets.
The passages in the Bible which deal with vice and crime may be
divided into three classes:
1. There are passages which condemn vice and crime. These I indorse.
2. There are many passages in which the crimes and vices of the people
are narrated merely as historical facts without either sanctioning
or condemning them. The book merits no censure because of these.
3. There are numerous passages which sanction vice and crime. These,
and these alone, in the chapters which follow, I shall adduce to
prove the charges that I make against the Bible as a moral guide.
CHAPTER XXVI.
LYING--CHEATING--STEALING.
Lying.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
lying and deception.
"And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab that he may go up and
fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another
said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit and stood before
the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him,
Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit
in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade
him, and prevail also; go forth and do so. Now therefore, behold the
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these, thy prophets"
(1 Kings xxii, 20-23).
"If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord
have deceived that prophet" (Ezek. xiv, 9).
"O Lord, thou hast deceived me" (Jer. xx, 7).
"Wilt thou [God] be altogether unto me as a liar?" (Jer. xv, 18.)
"God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie"
(2 Thess. ii, 11).
Respecting the forbidden fruit God said: "In the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. ii, 17). But the serpent said,
"Ye shall not surely die" (iii, 4). Satan's declaration proved true,
God's declaration proved untrue. Thus, according to the Bible, the
first truth told to man was told by the devil; the first lie told to
man was told by God.
In regard to the promised land God says: "Doubtless ye shall not come
into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein,
... and ye shall know my breach of promise" (Num. xiv, 30-34).
God commands Moses to deceive Pharaoh (Ex. iii, 18), he rewards the
midwives for their deception (Ex. i, 15-20), and instructs Samuel to
deceive Saul (1 Sam. xvi, 2).
"And the Lord said unto Samuel, ... fill thine horn with oil, and go,
I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me
a king among his sons. And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it
he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer with thee, and say,
I am come to sacrifice to the Lord."
Would an omnipotent and a just God use falsehood and deceit? If there
be such a God we must believe that he is an honest and a truthful
Being. But this God of the Bible violates nearly every pledge he makes,
and instructs his children to lie and deceive.
The patriarchs all follow his example and instructions. Abraham tries
to deceive Pharaoh and Abimelech (Gen. xii, 13-19; xx, 2); Sarah tries
to deceive the Lord himself (Gen. xviii, 13-15). Abraham becomes the
parent of a liar. Isaac said of Rebecca, his wife, "She is my sister"
(Gen. xxvi, 7). Rebecca in turn deceives her husband (Gen. xxvii,
6-17). Jacob sustains the reputation of the family for lying.
"And he came unto his father, and said, My father; and he said,
Here am I; who art thou, my son? And Jacob said unto his father, I
am Esau, thy first-born.... And he discerned him not, so he blessed
him. And he said, Art thou my very son, Esau? And he said, I am"
(Gen. xxvii, 18-24).
Jacob's wives, Leah and Rachel, both used deceit. The former
deceived her husband (Gen. xxix, 25); the latter deceived her father
(Gen. xxxi, 34, 35). His twelve sons were all addicted to the same
vice (Gen. xxxvii; xlii, 7), and these became the founders of the
twelve tribes of Israel, God's chosen people.
David, Elisha, and Jeremiah, three of God's holiest men, were liars
(1 Sam. xxvii, 8-11; 2 Kings, viii, 7-15; Jer. xxxviii, 24-27).
Speaking of the Hebrews and Bible writers prior to the Exile and the
introduction of Persian ethics, Dr. Briggs says:
"They seem to know nothing of the sin of speaking lies as such. What
is the evidence from this silence? They were altogether unconscious
of its sinfulness. The holiest men did not hesitate to lie, whenever
they had a good object in view, and they showed no consciousness of sin
in it. And the writers who tell of their lies are as innocent as they."
The Decalogue itself does not forbid lying. It forbids perjury;
but mere lying is not forbidden.
Christ taught in parables that he might deceive the people.
"And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of
the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things
are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive;
and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time
they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them"
(Mark iv, 11, 12).
Paul used deception and boasted of it. He says:
"Being crafty, I caught you with guile" (2 Cor. xii, 16).
"Unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews"
(1 Cor. ix, 20).
"I am made all things to all men" (1 Cor. ix, 22).
"For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his
glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" (Rom. iii, 7.)
The primitive Christians, accepting the Bible as infallible
authority, naturally regarded lying for God's glory not a vice but
a virtue. Mosheim in his "Ecclesiastical History" says:
"It was an established maxim with many Christians, that it was
pardonable in an advocate for religion to avail himself of fraud and
deception, if it were likely they might conduce toward the attainment
of any considerable good."
Dean Milman, in his "History of Christianity," says: "It was admitted
and avowed that to deceive into Christianity was so valuable a service
as to hallow deceit itself."
Dr. Lardner says: "Christians of all sorts were guilty of this fraud."
Bishop Fell writes: "In the first ages of the church, so extensive
was the license of forging, so credulous were the people in believing
that the evidence of transactions was grievously obscured."
M. Daillé, one of the most distinguished of French Protestants, says:
"For a good end they made no scruple to forge whole books."
Dr. Gieseler says they "quieted their conscience respecting the
forgery with the idea of their good intention."
Dr. Priestley says they "thought it innocent and commendable to lie
for the sake of truth."
Scaliger says: "They distrusted the success of Christ's kingdom
without the aid of lying."
That these admissions are true, that primitive Christianity
was propagated chiefly by falsehood, is tacitly admitted by all
Christians. They characterize as forgeries, or unworthy of credit,
three-fourths of the early Christian writings.
The thirty-second chapter of the Twelfth Book of Eusebius's
"Evangelical Preparation" bears this significant title: "How far it
may be proper to use falsehood as a medicine, and for the benefit of
those who require to be deceived."
Bishop Heliodorus affirms that a "falsehood is a good thing when it
aids the speaker and does no harm to the hearers."
Synesius, another early Christian bishop, writes: "The people are
desirous of being deceived; we cannot act otherwise with them."
That is what most modern theologians think. With Dr. Thomas Burnett,
they believe that "Too much light is hurtful to weak eyes."
That the methods employed in establishing the church are still used in
perpetuating its power, a glance at the so-called Christian literature
of the day will suffice to show. Read the works of our sectarian
publishers, examine the volumes that compose our Sunday-school
libraries, peruse our religious papers and periodicals, and you will
see that age has but confirmed this habit formed in infancy.
Every church dogma is a lie; and based upon lies, the church depends
upon fraud for its support. The work of its ministers is not to
discover and promulgate truths, but to invent and disseminate
falsehoods. In the words of Isaiah, they well might say: "We have
made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves."
The church offers a premium on falsehood and imposes a punishment
for truthfulness. With a bribe in one hand and a club in the other,
she has sought to prolong her sway. The allurements of the one and
the fear of the other have filled the world with hypocrisy. In our
halls of Congress, in the editorial sanctum, in the professor's chair,
behind the counter, in the workshop, at the fireside, everywhere, we
find men professing to believe what they know to be false, or wearing
the seal of silence on their lips, while rank imposture stalks abroad
and truth is trampled in the mire before them.
Every truth seeker is taunted and ridiculed; every truth teller
persecuted and defamed; the scientist and philosopher are discouraged
and opposed; the heretic and Infidel calumniated and maligned. In proof
of this, witness the abuse heaped upon the Darwins and Huxleys, see
the countless calumnies circulated against the Paines and Ingersolls.
It is said that Paulus Jovius kept a bank of lies. To those who paid
him liberally he gave noble pedigrees and reputations; those who
did not he slandered and maligned. Paulus is dead, but the church,
guided by Bible morality, continues his business.
Cheating.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide, because it sanctions
cheating and the use of dishonorable methods in obtaining wealth
and power.
"And Jacob sod [boiled] pottage; and Esau came from the fields, and
he was faint; and Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that
same red pottage; for I am faint.... And Jacob said, Sell me this
day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die;
and what profit shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear
to me this day; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright
unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and
he did eat and rose up and went away" (Gen. xxv, 29-34).
This transaction, one of the basest recorded, receives the sanction
of the Bible. Jacob, with God's assistance, by using striped rods,
cheated Laban out of his cattle:
"And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive,
that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters,
that they might conceive among the rods.
"When the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feebler were
Laban's and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly,
and had much cattle" (Gen. xxx, 41-43).
"If he [Laban] said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the
cattle bare speckled; and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be
thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstreaked. Thus God hath taken
away the cattle of your father and given them to me" (Gen. xxxi, 8, 9).
Thus, by defrauding his uncle, his famishing brother, and his blind
and aged father, this God-beloved
patriarch stands forth the prince of cheats--the patron saint of
rogues.
The Israelites obtain the Egyptians' property by false pretenses.
"And I [God] will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians;
and it shall come to pass that when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but
every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in
her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye
shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters; and ye shall
spoil [rob] the Egyptians" (Ex. iii, 21, 22).
"And the Lord said unto Moses, ... Speak now in the ears of the
people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of
her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold" (Ex xi, 1, 2).
"And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and
they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold,
and raiment; and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the
Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required;
and they spoiled the Egyptians" (Ex. xii, 35, 36).
Here obtaining goods under false pretenses and embezzlement are
commended by God himself. It may be claimed that the Egyptians had
wronged the Israelites. Suppose they had; could God secure justice
for them only by treachery and fraud? Suppose your son worked for a
farmer, and that farmer defrauded him of his wages; would you advise
your son to borrow a horse of his employer and decamp with it in order
to obtain redress, especially when you had the power to obtain redress
by lawful means? Instead of encouraging these slaves in an act that
would eventually lead them to become a race of thieves and robbers,
an honest God would have taken their masters by the collar and said,
"You have received the labor of these men and women; pay them for it!"
In the Mosaic law we find the following beautiful statute:
"Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give
it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it, or
thou mayest sell it unto an alien" (Deut. xiv, 21).
"Anything that dieth of itself" is diseased. Diseased flesh is
poisonous. To authorize its use, even if those receiving it are not
deceived, is immoral.
Out West, a family, good Christians, had a hog to die of some
disease. What did they do with it? Eat it? No, their Bible told them
this would be wrong. They dressed it nicely, took it into an adjoining
neighborhood, and sold it to strangers. Was this right? The Bible
says it was.
With the widespread influence of a book inculcating such lessons in
dishonesty, what must be the inevitable result? Men distrust their
fellow men; along our business thoroughfares Fraud drives with brazen
front; in almost every article of merchandise we buy we find a lie
enshrined; at every corner sits some Jacob slyly whittling spotted
sticks to win his neighbor's flocks.
Stealing.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
theft and robbery.
Its pages teem with accounts of robberies, and in many instances God
is said to have planned them and shared in the spoils. He instructs
Moses to send a marauding expedition against the Midianites. They
put the inhabitants to the sword, and return with 800,000 cattle. Of
this booty God exacts 800 head for himself and 8,000 head for his
priests. The remainder he causes to be divided between the soldiers
and citizens. So elated are the Israelites with their success, so
grateful to God for his assistance, that they make him a gift of
16,000 shekels of stolen gold (Num. xxxi).
When Joshua took Jericho, "they burnt the city with fire, and all that
was therein; only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass
and of iron they put into the treasury of the Lord" (Josh, vi, 19-24).
When he captured Ai, "the cattle and the spoils of that city Israel
took for a prey unto themselves, according unto the word of the Lord
which he commanded Joshua" (Josh, viii, 27).
Jehovah gets the spoils of Jericho, and Israel those of Ai.
David, a modest shepherd lad, is placed under the tutelage of Jehovah
only to become the cruelest robber of his time. On one occasion,
purely for plunder, he despoiled three nations and "saved neither man
nor woman alive to bring tidings to Gath, saying, Lest they should
tell on us" (1 Sam. xxvii, 8-12).
It is said that the Italian bandit never plans a robbery without
invoking a divine blessing upon his undertaking, doubtless believing
that the God of David, of Moses, and of Joshua still reigns.
Jacob's wives, Leah and Rachel, were both thieves. Leah appropriated
the property of her son; Rachel stole her father's jewels. Neither
act was condemned.
"When thou comest into thy neighbor's vineyard, then thou mayest eat
grapes thy fill at thine own pleasure, but thou shalt not put any in
thy vessel.
"When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbor, then thou
mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a
sickle unto thy neighbor's standing corn" (Deut. xxiii, 24, 25).
"Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he
is hungry" (Prov. vi, 30).
Grand larceny is condemned, but petty larceny is commended.
Christ enjoined submission to robbery: "Of him that taketh away thy
goods ask them not again" (Luke vi, 30).
CHAPTER XXVII.
MURDER--WAR.
Murder.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
murder.
It is true the Sixth Commandment says, "Thou shalt not kill;" but
this law is practically annulled by innumerable commands from the
same source, like the following, to kill:
"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his
side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and
slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every
man his neighbor" (Ex. xxxii, 27).
"Spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling"
(1 Sam. xv, 3).
"Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children"
(Ezek. ix, 6)
"Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood" (Jer. xlviii,
10).
For the leader and legislator of his chosen people, God selects a
murderer. The first recorded act of Moses was premeditated murder. "He
looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man,
he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand" (Ex. ii 12).
For committing a murder, Phinehas is rewarded by Jehovah with "the
covenant of an everlasting priesthood" (Num. xxv, 6-13).
Samuel "hewed Agag," a captive king, "in pieces before the Lord"
(1 Sam. xv, 32, 33).
Jehu murders all the house of Ahab, and God rewards him for it:
"And Joram turned his hands and fled, and said to Ahaziah, There is
treachery, O Ahaziah. And Jehu drew a bow with his full strength,
and smote Jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out at his
heart and he sunk down in his chariot.
"But when Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw this, he fled by the way
of the garden house. And Jehu followed after him, and said, Smite
him also in the chariot. And they did so.
"And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she
painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window. And
as Jehu entered in at the gate she said, Had Zimri peace who slew his
master? And he lifted up his face to the window, and said, Who is on
my side? Who? And there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And he
said, Throw her down. So they threw her down, and some of her blood
was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses; and he trode her under
foot. And when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, Go, see
now this cursed woman, and bury her; for she is a king's daughter. And
they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull,
and the feet, and the palms of her hands."
The dogs had devoured her.
"And Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters and
sent to Samaria.... And it came to pass when the letter came to them,
that they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, and put
their heads in baskets, and sent him them to Jezreel."
"So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel,
and all his great men, and his kinsfolks, and his priests, until he
left him none remaining."
"And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing
that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of
Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the
fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel" (2 Kings ix,
23, 24, 27, 30-35; x, 1, 7, 11, 30).
The assassination of Eglon by Ehud was characterized by the basest
treachery and brutality. Eglon was king of Moab. Ehud carried a present
to him, and after he had delivered the present he told the king that he
had a private message for him. Eglon ordered his attendants to retire,
and when alone Ehud drew a large dagger from beneath his cloak and
thrust it through the body of the king. And the Bible tells us that
God raised up Ehud expressly for this work (Jud. iii, 15-23).
The warmest eulogy in the Bible is bestowed upon a murderess. Sisera
is a fugitive from battle. He reaches in safety the tent of Heber, his
friend. Heber is absent, but Jael, his wife, receives the fugitive, and
bids him welcome. She gives him food, spreads a soft couch for him, and
covers him with her mantle. Wearied with his retreat, and unconscious
of impending danger, Sisera soon sinks into a profound slumber. With a
tent nail in one hand and a hammer in the other, Jael approaches the
bedside of her sleeping guest. She bends over him, listens to assure
herself that he is asleep, then places the nail against his temple,
and with a blow drives it through his head. A struggle, and Sisera
is dead, a victim of one of the most damnable deeds ever committed.
In honor of this assassination, God's favorite prophetess, Deborah,
sings:
"Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, be;
blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she
gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put
her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer;
and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when
she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he
bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he
bowed, there he fell down dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at
a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long
in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his chariot?" (Jud. v, 24-28.)
We wish to place before our children, for their emulation, good
and noble characters. We have been taught that in the Bible such
characters may be found. You desire a model woman to place before your
daughter. What one will you select? Here is a woman whom the Bible
pronounces "blessed above women." This must be a suitable model,
then. Blessed for what? For committing one of the most infamous
of murders.
We had a Kansas girl who followed in the footsteps of this
"blessed woman." Years ago, across the prairies of southern Kansas
stretched a lonely road. By its side, far from other habitations,
stood an unpretentious dwelling, inhabited by four persons--father,
mother, son, and daughter. But the daughter was the ruling spirit
there. Their only volume, we are told, was a Bible, and this the
daughter read. The house contains two rooms besides the cellar. The
rooms are separated simply by a curtain. In the front room is kept a
small stock of groceries. Here, too, with its back against the curtain,
and fastened to the floor, stands a chair. Above the door is a sign
with this inviting word, "Provisions." A traveler enters and makes some
purchases, displaying a well-filled purse. He is treated hospitably,
and invited to remain awhile and rest. Wearied, he drops into the
chair, his head pressing against the curtain. Armed with a hammer,
this follower of Jael now approaches from the rear. One well-directed
blow, and the tired traveler sinks into eternal rest. His pockets are
rifled, and his body thrown into the cellar, to be taken out at night
and buried in the little garden behind the dwelling. Time rolls on;
the traveler does not return. Day after day his wife at home, with
anxious heart, peers through the window and sighs, "Why don't he
come?" At length suspicion rests upon this den of infamy. A search
is instituted, and the garden is found to be a cemetery, filled with
the bodies of murdered travelers--one a little child. In the mean
time this female monster with her kin has fled. Detectives are still
searching for her. They'll never find her. Where is she? In heaven
with Jael. Now let some modern Deborah sing, "Blessed above maidens
shall Kate Bender be!"
War.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
wars of conquest and extermination.
"Blessed be the Lord, my strength, which teacheth my hands to war
and my fingers to fight" (Ps. cxliv, 1).
The Old Testament is largely a record of wars and massacres. God
is represented as "a man of war." At his command whole nations are
exterminated.
"Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you,
... and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell
therein" (Num. xxxiii, 52, 53).
"And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall
deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them" (Deut. vii, 16).
"Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee
for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
but thou shalt utterly destroy them" (Deut. xx, 16, 17).
"And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses;
and they slew all the males.... And the children of Israel took
all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took
the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their
goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all
their goodly castles with fire" (Num. xxxi, 7-10).
Moses is angry because the women and children have been saved, and
from this fiendish conqueror comes the mandate: "Kill every male
among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man."
The mourning remnants of twenty thousand families are thus to be
destroyed. The fathers, far away, lie still in death beside the
smouldering ruins of their once fair homes; and now their wives and
little ones are doomed to die. The signal is sounded, and the massacre
begins. The mothers, on bended knees, with tearful eyes and pleading
lips, are ruthlessly cut down. Their prattling babes, in unsuspecting
innocence, smile on the uplifted sword as if it were a glittering toy,
and the next moment feel it speeding through their little frames. The
daughters only are spared--spared to be the wretched slaves of those
whose hands are red with the life-blood of their dear ones.
And this is but a prelude to the sanguinary scenes that are to follow.
"Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon; behold
I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and
his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. This
day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon
the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report
of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee."
"And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the
men, and the women, and the little ones of every city, we left none
to remain" (Deut. ii, 24, 25, 34).
"The Lord our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of
Bashan, and all his people, and we smote him until none was left to
him remaining. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a
city which we took not from them, threescore cities.... And we utterly
destroyed them as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying
the men, women, and children of every city" (Deut. iii, 3-6).
Moses dies, and Joshua next leads Jehovah's troops.
"And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand
Jericho.... And they utterly destroyed all that was in that city,
both man and woman, young and old" (Josh. vi, 2, 21).
"And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in
thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thine hand.... And so
it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were
twelve thousand.... And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it a heap forever"
(Josh. viii, 18, 25, 28).
"And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel with him, unto Lachish,
and encamped against it, and fought against it. And the Lord delivered
Lachish into the hands of Israel, which took it on the second day,
and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were
therein" (Josh. x, 31, 32).
"And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and all Israel with him;
and they encamped against it, and fought against it. And they took it
on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls
that were therein he utterly destroyed that day" (Josh. x, 34, 35).
Thus city after city falls, and nation after nation is vanquished,
until thirty-one kingdoms have been destroyed. And still there
"remaineth much land to be possessed," and many millions more of
unoffending people to be slain to please this God of War.
Christ came, heralded as the "Prince of Peace." But he "came not to
send peace but a sword"--a sword his own arm was too weak to wield,
but which his followers have used with dire effect. Expunge from the
history of Christendom the record of its thousand wars and little will
remain. From the time that Constantine inscribed the emblem of the
cross upon his banner to the present hour, the church of Christ has
been upheld by the sword. Five million troops maintain its political
supremacy in Europe to-day. To "express our national acknowledgment
of Almighty God as the source of all authority in civil government;
of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler of nations, and of his revealed
will as of supreme authority;" in short, to make this a "Christian
nation," as Bible moralists demand, means a standing army in this
country of five hundred thousand men.
The Bible has inspired more wars in Christendom than all else
combined. It is a fountain of blood, and the crimson rivers that have
flowed from it would float the navies of the world.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HUMAN SACRIFICES--CANNIBALISM--WITCHCRAFT.
Human Sacrifices.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
human sacrifices.
"No devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the Lord of all that
he hath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession,
shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the
Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed;
but shall surely be put to death" (Lev. xxvii, 28, 29).
God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son:
"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get
thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering"
(Gen. xxii, 2).
The order was countermanded, but the perusal of this text has driven
thousands to insanity and murder.
That a famine may cease, David sacrifices the sons of Saul:
"Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and
wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance
of the Lord?... And they answered the king, The man that consumed us
and devised against us.... Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto
us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord.... And the king said, I
will give them. And he delivered them unto the hands of the Gibeonites,
and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all
seven together, and were put to death in the days of the harvest"
(2 Sam. xxi).
The sacrifice, we are told, was accepted, and the famine ceased.
Five of these innocent victims, if the Bible be true, were the sons
of Michal, David's own wife. Two were the sons of Rizpah. Throughout
that long summer--from April till October--in the heat and glare of the
day and the chill and darkness of the night, Rizpah, broken-hearted,
tenderly watches and protects the decaying bodies of her dead sons
and relatives.
"And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for
her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped
upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air
to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."
When I dwell on this dark tragedy, and contrast the love and devotion
of this agonized and despairing Hebrew mother with the malignant
hatred and heartless cruelty of this Bible God and his despicable
agent, humanity rises to the highest heaven and divinity sinks to
the lowest hell.
The pathetic story of Jephthah's daughter is familiar to all. Jephthah
is a warrior, and makes a vow that if he is permitted to conquer
the children of Ammon, upon his return the first that meets him at
the door will be offered up for a burnt offering unto the Lord. He is
successful; the Lord permits him to defeat the children of Ammon. Upon
his return the first to meet him is his daughter, an only child. He
tells her of his vow. She prays for two brief months to live. Her
prayer is granted, and at the expiration of this time, the Bible tells
us that Jephthah "did with her according to the vow which he had vowed"
(Jud. xi, 26-40).
Describing the fulfilment of this terrible vow, Dr. Oort says:
"This victim, crowned with flowers, was led round the altar with
music and song in honor of Yahweh. She met her cruel fate without
shrinking. But who shall say how sick at heart her father was when
he struck that fatal blow with his own hand and saw the blood of his
darling child poured out upon the sacred stone, while her body was
burned upon the altar?" (Bible for Learners, Vol. I., p. 408.)
"In that frightful sacrifice that he performed--breaking the holiest
domestic ties--we do but see the disastrous results of a mistaken
faith" (Ibid., p. 411).
The celebrated Jewish commentator, Dr. Kalisch, while endeavoring
to palliate as far as possible the crimes of his people, admits that
human sacrifices were not uncommon among them:
"The fact stands indisputable that human sacrifices offered to Jehovah
were possible among the Hebrews long after the time of Moses, without
meeting a check or censure from the teachers and leaders of the nation"
(Leviticus, Part I., p. 385).
"One instance like that of Jephthah not only justifies, but
necessitates, the influence of a general custom. Pious men slaughtered
human victims, not to Moloch, nor to any other foreign deity, but to
the national God, Jehovah" (Ibid., p. 390).
Jules Soury says: "Nothing is better established than the existence
of human sacrifices among the Hebrews in honor of Iahveh, and that
down to the time of Josiah, perhaps even until the return from the
Babylonish captivity" (Religion of Israel, p. 46).
The Church, having received the benefits of a sacrificed God,
deems human sacrifices no longer necessary. But what can be said
of the Church as a whole cannot be said of all its individual
members. Scarcely a year passes without the sacrifice of human beings
by those who believe the Bible to be inspired, and who believe that
what was right three thousand years ago is right to-day.
The sacrifice of little Ben Smith at Los Angeles, in 1882, is still
remembered by some. His father was converted at a Methodist revival. He
became very religious. The press dispatches stated that "for several
months he devoted his time to the study of the Bible until he not
only convinced himself that he ought to make a human sacrifice, but
brought his wife and their only child, a boy of thirteen, to acquiesce,
in his views." I quote from the mother's testimony:
"When he talked to me and persuaded me that a good wife ought to
think as her husband did, I got so as to take whatever he said as the
truth. He made us fast, and when Ben asked him if God had ordered us
to starve he said yes. When he announced that the boy must be killed
we both remonstrated, but finally thought it was all right. On the
day appointed for the ceremony he called Ben out of the house and
told him he had to die for our savior. The little fellow knelt down
and I got on my knees by his side; John raised the knife, looked hard
into the boy's face, and then drove the knife into his breast."
Here the mother was overcome with grief. Regaining her composure,
she continued: "I am always thinking of Ben; I am always hearing him
in the night asking to be brought in and laid on his bed, and begging
for a little water before he died."
Let me recall another half-forgotten scene. In a quiet village of New
England live a pair whom nature meant for good, kind citizens. But
they have become infatuated with the Bible. They believe it to be
infallible. Day after day they pore over its pages. They dwell with
especial interest upon the story of Abraham and Isaac, until at last
they become impressed with the belief that they, too, are called
upon to offer up their child. The fatal hour arrives. Nerved for the
cruel deed, they approach the bedside of their child, a sweet-faced,
curly-haired girl of four. How placidly she rests! Folded upon her
breast are dimpled hands, white as the winter snow; curtained in
slumber are eyes as mild as the summer sky. How beautiful! How pure! We
would risk our lives to save that pretty thing from harm. How dear,
then, must she be to that father and that mother! She is their
idol. But that idol is about to be sacrificed upon the altar of
superstition. There they stand--the mother with a lamp in her hand,
the father with a knife. They gaze for a moment upon their sleeping
victim. Then the father lifts his arm and plunges the knife into
the heart of his child! A quiver--the blue eyes open, and cast
a reproachful look upon the parent. The little lips exclaim, "O
papa!" and the sacrifice is made!
You may say these people were insane. Aye, but what made them
insane? And what, more than almost any other cause, is filling our
asylums with these unfortunate people? The vain attempt to reconcile
with reason the irreconcilable teachings of the Bible.
Cannibalism.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it teaches the
horrible custom of cannibalism.
"The fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons
shall eat their fathers" (Ezek. v, 10).
"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your
daughters shall ye eat" (Lev. xxvi, 29).
"And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of
their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend"
(Jer. xix, 9).
"And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy
sons and of thy daughters.... So that the man that is tender among
you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother,
and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his
children which he shall leave; so that he will not give to any of
them the flesh of his children whom he shall eat.... The tender and
delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole
of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye
shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and
toward her daughter, ... for she shall eat them" (Deut. xxviii, 53-57).
"The hands of the pitiful women have sodden [boiled] their own
children" (Lam. iv, 10).
"And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered,
This woman said unto me, Give thy son that we may eat him to-day,
and we will eat my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat
him. And I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may
eat him; and she hath hid her son" (2 Kings vi, 28, 29).
You will say that these were punishments inflicted upon these people
for their sins. And you will have us believe that these punishments
were just. Strange justice! a merciful God compelling a starving
mother to kill and devour her own child!
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
ye have no life in you" (John vi, 53).
The church perpetuates the idea, if not the practice, of
cannibalism. The Christian takes a piece of bread, and tries to make
himself and the world believe that he is eating the body of Christ;
he takes a sup of wine, and says, "This is Christ's blood." Your
sacramental feast points to the time when savage priests gathered
around the festal board and supped on human flesh and blood.
Primitive Christians, many of them, were guilty of cannibalism. In
their Agapæ they were accustomed to kill and eat an infant. Dr. Cave
in his "Primitive Christianity" (Part III., ch. i) says:
"Epiphanius reports that the Gnostics (a sect of primitive Christians)
at their meetings were wont to take an infant begotten in their
promiscuous mixtures, and, beating it in a mortar, to season it
with honey and pepper and some other spices and perfumes to make
it palatable, and then like swine or dogs to devour it, and then to
conclude all with prayer."
Meredith, in "The Prophet of Nazareth," says:
"So well known were those horrid vices to be carried on by Christians
in their nocturnal and secret assemblies, and so certain it was thought
that every one who was a Christian participated in them, that for a
person to be known to be a Christian was thought a strong presumptive
proof that he was guilty of these offenses.... It would appear,
however, that, owing to the extreme measures taken against them by
the Romans, both in Italy and in all the provinces, the Christians, by
degrees, were forced to abandon entirely in their Agapæ infant murders,
together with every species of obscenity, retaining, nevertheless,
some of them, such as the kiss of charity, and the bread and wine,
which they contended was transubstantiated into real flesh and blood."
In the remote districts of Christian Russia, where the rays of
our civilization have not yet penetrated the darkness of theology,
where Bible morals are still supreme, we are told that even at the
present time a more terribly real form attaches to this eucharistic
ceremony. From Harper's Weekly I quote the following:
"We hear of horrid sects at present in Russia, practicing cannibal and
human sacrifices with rites almost more devilish than any recorded in
history. 'The communism of the flesh of the Lamb' and 'the communism
of the blood of the Lamb' really seem to have been invented by the
lowest demons of the bottomless pit. The subject is too revolting to
be pursued in detail; it is enough to say that an infant seven days
old is bandaged over the eyes, stretched over a dish, and a silver
spoon thrust into the side so as to pierce the heart. The elect suck
the child's blood--that is 'the blood of the Lamb!' The body is left
to dry up in another dish full of sage, then crushed into powder and
eaten--that is 'the flesh of the Lamb!'"
Witchcraft.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it recognizes
as a verity the delusion of witchcraft and punishes with death its
victims.
The God that inspired the account of Saul's interview with the
witch of Endor was as thorough a believer in witchcraft as the most
superstitious crone of the Middle Ages.
Manasseh "used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a
familiar spirit, and with wizards" (2 Chron. xxxiii, 6).
Isaiah speaks of "wizards that peep and mutter" (Isa. viii, 19).
Samuel (1 Sam, xv, 23) and Micah (v, 12) and Nahum (iii, 4) and Paul
(Gal. v, 20) all admit the reality of witchcraft.
The decline in the belief of wizards and witches denotes a decline of
faith in the Bible. Until a very recent period, those who professed
to believe in the divinity of the Bible also professed to believe in
the reality of witchcraft. "Giving up witchcraft," says John Wesley,
"is, in effect, giving up the Bible" (Journal, 1768).
Sir William Blackstone says: "To deny the possibility--nay, actual
existence--of witchcraft and sorcery is at once flatly to contradict
the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and
New Testaments."
Sir Matthew Hale says: "The Bible leaves no doubt as to the reality
of witchcraft and the duty of putting its subjects to death."
"I should have no compassion on these witches." said Luther; "I would
burn them all" (Table Talk).
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Ex. xxii, 18).
"A man also or a woman that hath a familial spirit, or that is a
wizard, shall surely be put to death" (Lev. xx, 27).
Oh, that I could bring to view the suffering and death these texts
have caused! Millions have died because of them. One thousand were
burned at Como in one year; 800 were burned at Würzburg in one year;
500 perished at Geneva in three months; 80 were burned in a single
village of Savoy; nine women were burned in a single fire at Leith;
sixty were hanged at Suffolk; 3,000 were legally executed during
one session of Parliament, while thousands more were put to death by
mobs; Remy, a Christian judge, executed 800; 600 were burned by one
bishop at Bamburg; Boguet burned 600 at St. Cloud; thousands were
put to death by the Lutherans of Norway and Sweden; Catholic Spain
butchered thousands; Presbyterians were responsible for the death of
4,000 in Scotland; 50,000 were sentenced to death during the reign
of Francis I.; 7,000 died at Treves; the number killed in Paris in a
few months is declared to have been "almost infinite." Dr. Sprenger
places the total number of executions for witchcraft in Europe at nine
millions. For centuries witch fires burned in nearly every town of
Europe, and this Bible text, "Thou shall not suffer a witch to live,"
was the torch that kindled them.
Four hundred were burned at Toulouse in one day. Think of it! Four
hundred women--guilty of no crime, save that which exists in the
diseased imaginations of their accusers--four hundred mothers, wives,
and daughters, taken out upon the public square, chained to posts,
the fagots piled around them, and burned to death! See them writhing
in the flames--listen to their piteous shrieks--four hundred voices
raised in one wild chorus of agony! And all because the Bible says,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
Only a few years ago, in the province of Novgorod, Russia, a woman was
burnt for witchcraft. Agrafena was a soldier's widow, and possessed
of more than ordinary gifts of mind. But ignorance and superstition
prevailed around her. Every strange occurrence, every disease that
could not be accounted for, was the result of witchcraft. One day a
farmer's daughter was seized with some violent disease, and in her
paroxysms of pain she chanced to breathe the name of Agrafena. That
was enough; Agrafena was a witch. A mob was raised and led to the
widow's dwelling. They called her to the door, parleyed with her a
moment, then thrust her back into the house, fastened its doors, and
set it on fire. And while it was burning, this mob, led by Christian
priests, stood around it, singing praises to God--their strains blended
with the shrieks of this dying woman--dying because the Bible says,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
And in our own America the blighting influence of this delusion and
this brutal statute has been felt. With the soil of our Republic is
mingled the dust of murdered women--murdered because the Bible says,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
CHAPTER XXIX.
SLAVERY--POLYGAMY.
Slavery.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
the infamous crime of human slavery.
"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall
be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy
bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that
do sojourn among you; of them shall ye buy, and of their families
that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be
your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your
children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be
your bondmen forever" (Lev. xx. v, 44-46).
In certain cases they were even permitted to enslave the members of
their own race.
"If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the
seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself,
he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall
go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have
borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her
master's and he shall go out by himself" (Ex. xxi, 2-4).
If he desires his liberty he must desert his wife and little ones. To
become a freeman he must become an exile.
"And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife,
and my children; I will not go out free, then his master shall bring
him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto
the door-post; and his master shall bore his ears through with an awl;
and he shall serve him forever" (5, 6).
"And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be
unto his brethren.
"And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be
his servant.
"God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem;
and Canaan shall be his servant" (Gen. ix, 25-27).
Nor is it the Jewish Scriptures alone which sanction slavery. The
Christian Scriptures are not less emphatic in their indorsement of it.
"Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters
worthy of all honor" (1 Tim. vi, 1).
"Exhort servants to be obedient unto their masters" (Titus ii, 9).
"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to
the flesh, with fear and trembling" (Eph. vi, 5).
"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the
good and gentle, but also to the froward" (1 Pet. ii, 18).
It may be urged that the term "servant" here refers to a hired
servant. Not so; wherever the word "servant" occurs in the New
Testament, it means slave in its worst sense.
The Fugitive Slave law, which made us a nation of kidnappers, derived
its authority from the New Testament. Paul had established a precedent
by returning a fugitive slave to his master.
Referring to this act of Paul, the Rev. Dr. Stringfellow of Virginia
wrote:
"Oh, how immeasurably different Paul's conduct to this slave and
master, from the conduct of our abolition brethren! This is sufficient
to teach any man that slavery is not, in the sight of God, what it
is in the sight of the abolitionists" (Scriptural View of Slavery).
The Rev. Moses Stuart of Massachusetts wrote:
"What, now, have we here? Paul sending back a Christian servant,
who had run away from his Christian master.... Paul's conscience sent
back the fugitive slave. Paul's conscience, then, like his doctrines,
was very different from that of the abolitionists."
It was no easy task to convince the Bible moralist that slavery
was wrong. When the French Revolutionists rejected the Bible, they
abolished slavery in the colonies. When the church regained control
of the government, the Bible came back, and with it slavery. When
Clarkson's bill for the abolition of slavery was before Parliament,
Lord Chancellor Thurlow characterized it as a "miserable and
contemptible bill," and "contrary to the Word of God."
Charles Bradlaugh, in the North American Review, writing of his own
Christian England, says:
"George III., a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories with
abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords was utterly opposed to
granting freedom to the slave. When Christian missionaries, some sixty
years ago, preached to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian
England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission
from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A Christian
commissioned officer, member of the Established Church of England,
signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as 1824."
The most zealous defenders of slavery in this country were Bible
moralists. The Rev. Alexander Campbell wrote: "There is not one verse
in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not
then, we conclude, immoral."
The Rev. E. D. Simms, professor in Randolph-Macon College, wrote:
"These extracts from Holy Writ unequivocally assert the right of
property in slaves."
The Rev. R. Furman, D. D., Baptist, of South Carolina, said: "The
right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures,
both by precept and example."
Rev. Thomas Witherspoon, Presbyterian, of Alabama, said: "I draw my
warrant from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to hold the
slave in bondage."
Said the Rev. Mr. Crawder, Methodist, of Virginia: "Slavery is not
only countenanced, permitted, and regulated by the Bible, but it was
positively instituted by God himself."
You say that this is the testimony of interested parties, that the
South was interested in perpetuating slavery. True, but where did
your Northern theologians stand?
Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk, President of Wesleyan University, thus wrote:
"The New Testament enjoins obedience upon the slave as an obligation
due to a present rightful authority."
The Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, President of Dartmouth College, wrote:
"Slavery was incorporated into the civil institutions of Moses; it
was recognized accordingly by Christ and his apostles. They regulated
it by the just and benevolent principles of the New Testament. They
condemned all intermeddlers with it."
Professor Hodge, of Princeton, said: "The Savior found it around him,
the Apostles met with it in Asia, Greece, and Italy. How did they
treat it? Not by denunciation of slave-holding as necessarily sinful."
Said the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Principal of the Theological Department of
Yale College: "I have no doubt that if Jesus Christ were now on earth,
he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder."
It is now half-forgotten that the North as well as the South once
practiced slavery--that New England, New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania all held slaves. Christian New England, which made the
Bible both its legal and moral code, for more than one hundred years,
held Negroes and Indians in slavery, and even sold Quaker children
into bondage. "Parish ministers all over New England," says the
Rev. William Goodell, "owned slaves" (American Slave Code, p. 106).
Clerical slaveholders in the South trampled under foot the relations
of wife and mother; and clerical slaveholders in the North did the
same. Mr. Goodell says:
"Even in Puritan New England, seventy years ago, female slaves,
in ministers' and magistrates' families, bore children, black or
yellow, without marriage. No one inquired who their fathers were, and
nothing more was thought of it than of the breeding of sheep or swine"
(Ibid., p. 111).
"A Congregational minister at Hampton, Conn. (Rev. Mr. Mosely),
separated by sale a husband and wife who were both of them members
of his own church, and who had been, by his own officiating act as
a minister, united in marriage" (Ibid., p. 114).
Let me cite one of the laws of the Bible relative to the treatment
of slaves--a law which demons would blush to indorse, but which a
merciful (?) God enacted for the guidance of his children:
"If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die
under his hand, he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he
continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money"
(Ex. xxi, 20, 21).
Here a master may brutally beat his slave, and if that slave linger
in the agonies of death a day or two before dying, he shall not be
punished, because the slave "is his money."
Goodell's "American Slave Code," a work written by a Christian
clergyman, and which I have already quoted, contains four hundred
pages of outrages, like the following, committed by men who accepted
the Bible as their moral guide:
"A minister in South Carolina, a native of the North, had a stated
Sabbath appointment to preach, about eight miles from his residence. He
was in the habit of riding thither in his gig. Behind him ran his negro
slave on foot, who was required to be at the place of appointment
as soon as his master, to take care of his horse. Sometimes he fell
behind, and kept his master waiting for him a few minutes, for which
he always received a reprimand, and was sometimes punished. On one
occasion of this kind, after sermon, the master told the slave that
he would take care to have him keep up with him, going home. So he
tied him by the wrists, with a halter, to his gig behind, and drove
rapidly home. The result was that, about two or three miles from home,
the poor fellow's feet and legs failed him, and he was dragged on
the ground all the rest of the way by the wrists! On alighting and
looking round, the master exclaimed, 'Well; I thought you would keep
up with me this time!' So saying, he coolly walked into the house. The
servants came out and took up the poor sufferer for dead. After a
time he revived a little, lingered for a day or two, and died!"
Was this brutal minister punished? He was not. "If he continue a day or
two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money." Was he silenced
from preaching? was he even reprimanded by the church? No. Without
punishment, without censure, he continued to preach Bible morals and
abuse his slaves.
Frederick Douglass, the greatest of his race and a slave, says:
"My master found religious sanctity for his cruelty.... I have seen
him tie up a lame young woman and whip her with a heavy cowskin
upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and,
in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of
Scripture: 'He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not shall
be beaten with many stripes.'"
Slavery flourished on this continent because the Bible taught
that it was lawful and just. To oppose slavery was to oppose the
plainest teachings of this book. The Abolition movement was an Infidel
movement. The Emancipation Proclamation was a nullification of "God's
law." The great Rebellion was a contest between Bible morality and
natural morality. The latter triumphed, but the conflict filled half
a million graves, brought grief to many million hearts, and covered
the land with desolation.
And this advocate of slavery is the idol Protestants worship; this
is the book they wish to become the law of our land; this is the
moral guide they wish to place in our public schools! In the name
of those who died for the freedom of their fellow-men; in the name
of those made childless, fatherless, and companionless by this cruel
strife; in the name of those whose backs still bear the scars of the
master's lash; in the name of human liberty, I protest against this
retrogressive movement!
Polygamy.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions
that other twin relic of barbarism, polygamy.
The Mosaic law provides that "if a man have two wives, one beloved
and another hated," he shall not ignore the legal rights of the hated
wife's children (Deut. xxi, 15-17). This statute recognizes both the
existence and the validity of the institution.
Another statute (Deut. xxv, 5) provides that if a man die, his
surviving brother shall become the husband of his widow, and this
regardless as to whether the brother be married or single.
The first eighteen verses of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus
are devoted to what is termed "unlawful marriages." Here polygamy
is recognized and regulated to the extent of prohibiting a man from
marrying the sister of a living wife.
But there is one statute which places the validity of this institution,
so far as the Bible is concerned, beyond all controversy. Deuteronomy
(xxiii, 2) declares that no illegitimate child shall enter into the
congregation of the Lord, even up to the tenth generation. Now,
polygamy was either lawful or unlawful. If unlawful, then the
children of polygamists were illegitimate children, and disqualified
for the sanctuary. But the children of polygamists were not thus
disqualified. The founders of the twelve tribes of Israel were all
children of a polygamist.