"Faith" and "belief" seem to be among the most important words in the
Christian New Testament. No words are much more frequently used. They
occur in nearly every chapter, and are used more than two hundred times.
The following is a specimen of the manner in which these words are
used:--
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth
not shall be damned." This text, and the sentiment it contains, have
caused more misery, cruelty, and more butchery than all the edicts
of any king that ever sat on the throne of England. Never did a more
delusive and fatal error find lodgment in the human mind than the idea
couched in this text. Terrible have been the denunciations, punishments,
and cruelties poured upon the unbelievers in the popular creed, though
that creed has been one thing one day, and something else the next. No
matter how honest, how upright, how benevolent, or how righteous a man
proved himself in his practical life, he was doomed to the dungeon, the
fagot, and the halter, if his creed was not conformable to the orthodox
faith then in power. Men and women have been condemned and punished for
assuming the right to doubt the truth of any doctrine of the popular
creed,--an egregious mistake, showing a profound ignorance of the
nature of the human mind. All persons versed in the science of mental
philosophy now know that a man has no more control over his doubts and
beliefs than he has over the blood that courses through his veins:
for, without evidence, he can not believe; and, with it, he can
not disbelieve, as every one will find who will examine this matter
critically. Consequently it is as unreasonable to condemn a man for his
belief or disbelief, as to condemn him for the color of his hair. Doubt,
so far from being restrained, should be cultivated, as being the first
step toward the attainment of knowledge and progress; for a man never
makes any advancement or improvement in his views on any subject till
he begins to doubt the correctness of his present views, or, at least,
doubts their being perfect, or being incapable of improvement.
Who, then, can not see that to threaten a man for disbelief is tyranny
and injustice, inasmuch as it has a tendency to make him a slave, and
to repress the growth of his mind? Condemning a man for disbelief is
virtually offering a premium for hypocrisy, as it has the effect to make
thousands _profess_ to believe doctrines which they do not, and which
their consciences really condemn, in order to avoid the frowns and
ill-will of their neighbors. And, as hypocrisy is a greater evil in its
practical effects upon society than unbelief, it can be seen that the
practice of erecting a standard for belief and disbelief is wrong, and
mischievous in its effects.
The Bible declares that "faith is the gift of God." It is evident, that,
if this be true, no responsibility can attach to faith or religious
belief; but all responsibility rests with the being who gives it.
Two great blunders have been committed by faith-dealers: First, in
assuming that belief is of the nature of a coat, which can be put on and
off at pleasure,--i.e., that a man can believe what he pleases or wishes
to believe. The second is, that knowledge and belief are synonymous
terms, which is very far from being true. Knowledge begins where faith
and belief end. Belief is that uncertain state of the mind which is
experienced in the absence of knowledge; and, when that knowledge is
obtained, the belief may prove to have been entirely erroneous. Belief
implies _uncertainty_; knowledge implies _certainty_. There is this wide
difference between them. We believe a thing when we do not know whether
it is so or not; consequently the belief may be true or false. How
egregious, then, the blunder of the orthodox world in condemning for
disbelief! Belief, then, is a state of guessing. We will illustrate the
position of orthodox Christendom: A boy throws up a copper coin, and
cries, "Heads, or tails?" A by-stander, believing from its construction
that "heads" will come up, cries out, "Heads!" Now, according to
the logic of the orthodox, if he guesses wrong, he should be damned
eternally for it.
When you say to a man, "You shall believe this, or you shall believe
that," you bind his soul in chains, and reverse the wheels of his
progress, and push him toward the "dark ages."
The fear that it would be a sin to doubt, causes religious ignorance;
and a man will never abandon his religious errors and superstitions
while he fears to doubt their truth. A man's belief and creed grow
shorter as his knowledge increases. And the time is not far distant when
philosophers and men of science will have no religious belief: all will
be knowledge.
It can be seen from the above exposition, that it is folly and
consummate ignorance to attach so much importance to religious belief,
inasmuch as it is impossible to know whether it is right or wrong.
As the doctrine that belief is a virtue, and unbelief a crime has
inundated the world with persecution, misery, and blood, it is time to
abandon it.
Those Christians who assume that belief is under the control of the
will can settle the matter by trying the following experiment upon
themselves: Let them try to believe, for only five minutes, that Mahomet
was a true prophet, and Jesus Christ was an impostor. If they can do
this, it will settle the question, and prove that man is responsible for
his belief: otherwise he is not.
Some persons adhere to the Bible upon the plea that "it is safest to
believe it, and unsafe to disbelieve it." But he who can believe an
error or absurdity, or, rather, profess to believe it because he is
afraid to disbelieve it, has not a soul big enough to be saved, and will
be certain to miss it; or, if he could be saved, no man of sense would
want to live in a heaven made up of such moral cowards and moral dwarfs.
And, besides, the only way to make a safe thing of being saved on this
ground, is to swallow all the two thousand systems of religion in the
world,--six hundred Christian creeds, and fourteen hundred heathen
traditions; and, to do this, a person must have a very capacious
stomach.