(a) It is destructive of error, crime, cruelty, superstition and all
kinds of wrong and oppression.
(b) It is constructive in its defense and support of the rights of man,
woman, and child.
(c) It is constructive in seeking to establish the highest form of
morality, that is, rational morality.
(d) It is constructive, because it inspires man with a thirst for
knowledge, and puts him in sympathy with science.
(e) It is positive and reconstructive in inspiring man with moral
courage.
"What will you give us in place of religion?"
(a) We would put in place of religion, liberty, morality, honesty,
courage, knowledge, and manliness.
(b) We do not wish to take away the Golden Rule; but we insist that it
is not a Christian precept. It was in the world long before Jesus,
before Moses, and before Abraham. Long before the pyramids were
built mothers called their children to their knees and said to them,
"Children be good to each other to-day." This is the Golden Rule. We
see then that it is of human origin, and not a part of Christianity,
as Christianity is founded upon the supernatural. It is the old,
old way that religions have of borrowing human virtues and ascribing
them to the gods.
(c) We do not teach men to despise charity, but to so improve human
conditions that charity and charitable institutions shall not be
needed.
(d) "What will you give us in place of the Bible?"
We do not propose to take it away. We only ask people to read it as
they do other books--accepting the good and rejecting the bad.
"What are we to have in place of the consolation of the gospel?"
The gospel means glad tidings. What are the glad tidings?