There are in this and other Christian countries more than one hundred
thousand clergymen who spend a portion of each recurring sabbath in
presenting the claims, and dilating upon the beauties and benefits (some
real and some imaginary), of the religion of the Christian Bible. They
claim that it is the religion for this age, and a religion that should
be adopted by the whole human race; but they present but one side of the
picture, and but one phase of the argument. A witness before a jury is
required to "tell the truth, and _the whole_ truth;" but the priesthood
dare not do this with respect to the errors and defects of their
religion. They would lose their congregations and their _salaries_ also.
But few clergymen possess the moral courage to turn state's evidence
against their pockets or their "bread and butter." It is a sad
reflection that they are hired, and required to _conceal_ whatever
errors may loom up before their moral vision in the investigation of the
principles of their religion, or the Bible on which it is founded. They
are placed in the position of an attorney who is sworn to be true to
his client at any sacrifice of truth and moral manhood. Whatever may
be their moral convictions with respect to the sinfulness or evil
consequences or demoralizing effects of continuing to preach the
_intellectually dwarfing and morally poisoning_ doctrines originated in,
and adapted only to, the dark and undeveloped ages of the past, when the
race was under the dominion of the animal and blind propensities, yet
_they must do it_. They must continue to preach these errors, to sustain
these evils, and maintain their false positions, or lose their salaries
and their popular standing in society. It is a very unfortunate position
to be placed in; but, self-interest being the ruling principle of the
age, we cannot reasonably expect the clergy will do any thing toward
enlightening the people on the errors and immoral influences of their
religious doctrines, or the substitution of a better system, until human
nature has advanced to a higher moral plane. On the contrary, we must
expect they will continue to blind the people, pervert the truth,
magnify every imaginable good quality of their religious system; while,
on the other hand, they will as sedulously attempt to hide every defect
which either they or others may discover in their Bible. This state of
things in the religious world imposes upon the moral reformer the solemn
necessity of employing the most effectual lever, and of adopting every
available moral means, to counteract this morally deleterious influence
of the clergy, and arrest the tide of evil which follows in their wake
as the legitimate fruits of a course of conduct dictated _by policy
instead of principle_.
II. THE MORAL TRUTHS OF THE BIBLE.
Some of our readers will doubtless be disposed to ask why we have not
occupied a larger portion of this work in exhibiting the beauties and
benefits of the religion and system of morals set forth in the Bible.
The answer to the question is fully anticipated in the preceding
remarks. It is simply because fifty thousand tongues and pens are almost
constantly employed in this work. They do it and overdo it. This renders
it a work of supererogation on our part; while, on the other hand, we
find the errors and evils of the Bible and its religion, which they
overlook or neglect to expose, so very numerous, that we can not exhibit
them in a single volume, unless we allow but a limited space to a
repetition of what is done by them every week. This is our reason for
appearing to pursue a one-sided policy.
III. WHY RESORT TO RIDICULE?
We hope we shall not be misunderstood or condemned by any reader for
appearing to indulge frequently in a spirit of levity in attempting to
expose the logical and moral absurdities of the Bible. We have assumed
this license more from an apprehended moral necessity than from a
natural disposition. Ridicule is now generally acknowledged by moralists
to be a most potent weapon for the demolition of error. Moral and
religions absurdities, according to Cicero, can be arrested and put down
much sooner by "holding them up to the light of ridicule, than by any
other means that can be employed." Let no one, then, oppose the use of
such means simply because it may disturb a sensitive feeling in his
own mind, derived from a false education. A critical investigation of
religious history discloses the important fact, that the conviction
established in the popular mind that it is wrong to indulge in a feeling
of levity when writing or discoursing on religious subjects is the work
of the clergy. Having discovered that many of the narrations of their
Bible, and likewise many of the tenets of their creeds, are really
ridiculous when examined in the light of science, reason, and sound
sense, in order to prevent these ridiculous features of their systems
from being exposed, they taught the people that ridicule is entirely
out of place in matters of religion, and that such feelings, or language
_expressive_ of such feelings, should be entirely suppressed. And it is
principally by the invention of this expedient, and the establishment
of this conviction in the public mind, that the clergy have succeeded in
keeping the ridiculous errors of their creeds concealed from age to age.
And to continue this policy longer is only to yield to their interests,
and prolong those evils still longer which have been perpetuated for
centuries by the adoption of this expedient. No other argument or
apology is necessary than this as a justification of the limited extent
to which the language of ridicule has been employed in this work. It is
an egregious error, which is the offspring of an erroneous education
and habit, to suppose that ridicule is more out of place on religious
subjects than on other subjects. O. S. Fowler has fully established this
as a scientific fact on phrenological grounds. We should be quite sorry
to wound the feelings of any sensitive mind by any language made use of
in this work, and hope this explanation, will prevent such results.
THE PRINCIPAL DESIGN OF THIS WORK.
As a critical examination of the Christian Bible discloses the fact
that it contains several thousand moral and scientific errors, and as
experience proves the tendency of such errors is to corrupt the moral
feelings and check the intellectual growth of all who read and believe
"the Hoty Book," we have, since arriving at this conviction, considered
it to be our duty not only to expose these errors, but also to
discourage the habitual reading of the Bible with any other view than
to learn its real character. And more especially do we earnestly advise
parents not to place the Bible in the hands of their children till
they arrive at an age when a more mature judgment can enable them to
discriminate between its truths and its errors. And we likewise entreat
all moralists and philanthropists, and all lovers of truth and virtue,
as they desire the moral growth and moral reformation of the world, to
exert their influence to stop the shipment of the Christian Bible
to foreign lands to be circulated among the uncultured and credulous
heathen. Here is disclosed one of our principal reasons for writing this
work. We wish to make it a voice of remonstrance against placing any of
those morally defective books called Bibles in the hands of the ignorant
and impressible heathen, or the children of Christian countries, until
their minds become sufficiently fortified by age and experience to
resist or withstand the demoralizing influence of their bad precepts and
bad examples as exposed in this work.
DON'T READ PERNICIOUS BOOKS.
The Quaker Church (of which the author was once a member) have a clause
in their discipline forbidding their members to read pernicious books,
which are defined by one of the founders of the Church (William Penn)
to be "such books and publications as contain language which appears to
sanction crime or wrong practices, or teach bad morals." And hundreds
of cases cited in this work prove that the Christian Bible may be ranked
with works of this character. If the advice of the Hindoo editor had
been complied with many years ago,--to "revise all Bibles, and leave
out their bad precepts and examples," and change their obscene
language,--the Christian Bible might now be a very useful and
instructive book. But we are willing to leave it to the conscience of
every honest reader, who places truth and morality above Bibles and
creeds, to decide, after reading this work, whether the Bible, with all
its ennobling precepts, does not contain too strong an admixture of bad
morality to make it a safe or suitable book to be relied on as a guide
in morals and religion. According to Archbishop Tillotson, Bibles shape
the morals and religion of the people in all religious countries,--they
are derived from the examples and precepts of these "Holy Books." If
this be true, we most solemnly and seriously put the question to every
Bible reader, What must be the effect upon the morals and religion of
Christian countries of such moral examples as Abraham, Moses, Noah,
Isaac, Jacob, David, Solomon, and nearly all the prophets, with their
long string of crimes, as shown in this work? Let us not be guilty of
the folly of suffering our inherited, stereotyped predilections, and
exalted veneration for "the Holy Book," to rule our moral sense, and
control our judgment in this matter, but muster the moral courage to
look at the thing in its true light. Let us be independent moralists and
philanthropists, rather than slaves to Bibles and creeds. "Every book,"
says a writer, "has a spirit which it breathes into the minds of its
readers;" and, if it contains bad morals or bad language, the habitual
reading of it will gradually reconcile the mind to those immoral
lessons, and finally cause them to be looked upon as God-given truths.
Such is the omnipotent force of habit. And we appeal to all Bible
readers to testify if this has not been their experience. All Christian
professors, when they first commenced reading the Bible, doubtless found
many things in it which shocked their moral sense, did violence to
their reasoning faculties, and mortified their love of decorum. But a
perseverance in reading it, through the force of habit and education,
has finally reconciled their minds to those immoral lessons, and blinded
the judgment, so that they are not now conscious of their real character
and deleterious influence upon the mind.
TWO THOUSAND BIBLE ERRORS.
One of the strongest and most solemn lessons of human experience, and
proofs of the blinding effect of a false religious education, may be
found in the fact that the two thousand Bible errors brought to notice
in this work have been overlooked from age to age by the great mass of
Bible readers. So absolutely and deplorably blinded have they been in
some cases, as to lead them to conclude, like Dr. Cheever of New York,
that "the Bible does not contain the _shadow of a shade_ of error from
Genesis to Revelation." Such a perversion and stultification of the
reasoning faculties was never excelled in any age or country. St.
Augustine furnishes another striking illustration of the total wreck of
mind and moral principle which an obstinate determination to accept the
Bible with all its errors is capable of effecting. Having found a great
many absurdities in the Bible which he could not reconcile with reason
and sense, and hence discovering he must either give up his Bible or his
reason, he chose the latter alternative, and declared in his "Book
of Sermons" (p. 33), "I believe things in the Bible because they are
absurd. I believe them because they are impossible" (as glaring an
absurdity as ever issued from human lips). Such a desperate expedient
to save his Bible and creed from going overboard shows that they had
demoralized his mind, and made a complete wreck of his reason. This is
the writer who declared he found and preached to a nation of people
who had but one eye, and that situated in their foreheads, and another
nation who had no heads, but eyes in their breasts. It seems a pity that
this single-eyed nation became extinct; for Christ declared, "If
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." Such an
embodiment of light might have done much to enlighten the world. And
this St. Augustine is the writer whom Eusebius pronounces "the great
moral light of the Christian Church." And St. Irenaeus furnishes
another deplorable example of the prostration or perversion of the
moral faculties by accepting the Bible as a standard for morals when he
_justified the crime of incest_ by pointing to the example of "righteous
Lot" and his daughters. The celebrated Albert Barnes was made a
victim of great mental suffering for many years by his laborious but
ineffectual attempts to reconcile the Bible with the dictates of reason.
Hear what he says about the matter. We will present the case in his own
language: "These difficulties (of reconciling the teachings of the Bible
to reason) are probably felt by every mind that ever reflects on
the subject; and they are unexplained, unmitigated, and unremoved. I
confess, for one, that I feel them, and feel them more sensibly and
powerfully the more I look at them, and the longer I live. I do not
understand them, and I make no advance toward understanding them. I do
not know that I have a ray of light upon this subject which I had not
when the subject first flashed across my soul. I have read what wise and
good men have written upon the subject; I have looked at their theories
and explanations; I have endeavored to weigh their arguments,--for my
whole soul pants for light and relief on these questions: but I get
neither; and, in the anguish and distress of my soul, I confess I get no
light whatever. I see not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin
came into the world, why the earth is strewn with the dying and the
dead, and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never seen a
particle of light thrown on these subjects that has given a moment's
ease to my tortured mind.... I trust that other men... have not the
anguish of spirit which I have. But I confess, when I look on a world of
sinners and sufferers, upon death-beds and graveyards, and upon a world
of woe filled with hosts to suffer for ever; and when I see my friends,
my parents, my family, my people, my fellow-citizens--when I look upon
a whole race--all involved in this sin and danger; and when I see the
great mass of them wholly unconcerned; and when I feel that God only
can save them, and yet he does not do it,--I am struck dumb. It is
all dark--dark--dark to my soul; and I cannot disguise it" (Practical
Sermons, p. 124). There, reader, you have the candid confession of an
honest-minded, orthodox, and one of the ablest and most talented writers
that ever wielded the pen in defense of the Christian faith. And if such
a talented and logical mind could find no reason, consistency, or moral
principle in the dogmas of orthodoxy, we may readily ask, Who can?
Thousands of other orthodox clergymen have doubtless been perplexed with
the same difficulties, but have not had the honesty to confess it. Those
who do not now perceive them can find the reason by putting their hands
on their own heads. They will find their intellects or logical brains
defective. Moral philosophers now find no difficulty in solving any of
those problems which so much perplexed the mind of Mr. Barnes. They
are all false and unfounded dogmas, except the prevalence of death and
disease in the world. And these casualties are now known to be amongst
the wisest and most useful dispensations of nature. (See chapter headed
Natural and Moral Evil.) And had Mr. Barnes ascended to the plane
of mental and moral science, instead of remaining down in the dark,
orthodox, theological cellar, trying to squeeze truth out of old, dead,
dried-up, dusty, theological dogmas, he would have readily found the
solution to all his problems, and would have rejoiced in thus emerging
into the glorious sunlight of truth.
BIBLES USEFUL IN THEIR PLACE.
We do not question but that Bibles served a useful purpose for those
nations and tribes by whom and for whom they were written; but as they
only represent the imperfect moral and religious conceptions of that
age, and have always been sacredly guarded from improvement, to make
them the rule of action for any subsequent age would be to stop all
moral and religious improvement. It is strikingly evident that society
can make no improvement while it follows a Bible which is interdicted
from improvement. It must remain stationary, with respect to religion
and morals, so far as it is tied to an unchangeable book. Bibles in this
way become masters of human thought, and shackles for the soul, and thus
inflict serious evils upon society by their tendency to stop all moral,
and religious progress. Three thousand or ten thousand years may elapse,
and no improvement can be made in the religion or morals of the people
while the Bible from which they emanate is prohibited from improvement.
Thus Bibles inflict a death-like torpor and stagnation upon the moral
and intellectual progress of society so far as their precepts are
lived up to; that is, so far as the assumption that there can be no
improvement in the teachings of the Bible is practically observed. It
is the source of a pleasing reflection, however, to know that most Bible
believers habitually violate their own principles by trampling this
assumption under foot. Otherwise we would have remained eternally in a
state of barbarism.