Passages Commending or Enjoining the Use of Wine or Strong
Drink, or Both, or including a Plentiful supply of Wine among
the Blessings to be Bestowed upon Favored individuals or tribes,
etc.; or including the Deprivation of it among the Punishments
inflicted upon the Disobedient.
"Jacob, blessing Judah, said: (Gen. 49 : 11, 12): 'Binding his foal
unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed
his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. His
eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.'
"Doesn't look as though Yahweh, the 'God of Jacob,' thought wine a
very bad article.
"Num. 6 : 20: 'After that the Nazarite may drink wine.'
"In Deut. 7 : 13, God, through Moses, said to his chosen people:
'And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee; and he
will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land,
thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil,' etc., etc.
"Just think of it, Woman's Christian Temperance Union people, God has
solemnly promised to bless his faithful children with an especially
large vintage, a better vintage than that of their unbelieving
neighbors! Rather rough on the heretic French and the Infidel Germans!
"Deut. 11 : 14: 'That I will give you the rain of your land in his
due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest
gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thy oil.'
"Yahweh is determined that the supply of wine shall not fall short.
"Deut. 14 : 26: 'And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever
thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for
strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth; and thou shalt
eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and
thine household.'
"Rev. Mr. Stevenson to the box! Repeat your testimony, please. 'I said
that, The education of the children of the republic in temperance
principles logically involves the maintenance in those schools of
the Bible as the great text book in morals.'
"Deut. 15 : 14: 'Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock,
and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press of that wherewith
the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.'
"This is said regarding the manumitted Hebrew slave. And so it
is a blessing for God to give the fruit of the wine-press to his
children? And we are to emulate him?
"It seems that God punishes his people by blasting their vineyards,
and thus cutting short their supply of wine, as below:
"Deut. 28 : 39: 'Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but thou
shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes, for the worms
shall eat them.'
"Verse 51 of the same chapter tells the people that their cattle
and wine and oil shall be taken from them if they disobey God's
commands. This is the famous 'cursing chapter' of the Bible, and is
just the reading calculated to make a man believe that God was the
first pope of Rome.
"Deuteronomy is a very good book for the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union, and I suggest that it hold a special meeting to pray for the
evidently 'rum'-loving god who wrote it. There is much other matter
in it that helps to make it an admirable work for use in the schools.
"Judges 9 : 13: 'And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine,
which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees?'
"Ah! so it appears that God, the 'original prohibitionist,' according
to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union drinks wine, else how could
it cheer him?
"Second Sam. 6 : 19: 'And he dealt among all the people, even among
the whole multitude of Israel, as well to the women as men, to every
one a cake of bread, and a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine.'
"Query: What would the Christian temperance ladies have done with that
wine had they been present when David, the man after God's own heart,
dealt it out to all, men as well as women?
"Second Sam. 16 : 2: 'And Ziba said, The asses be for the king's
household to ride on; and the bread and summer fruit for the young men
to eat; and the wine that such as faint in the wilderness may drink.'
"In Kansas and Iowa many get 'faint in the wilderness,' judging by
the business of the drugstores. No doubt they have all seen this
prescription given by God.
"Second Chron. 2 : 10: 'And behold, I will give to thy servants,
the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat,
and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of
wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.'
"The article which Solomon, 'the wisest of all men,' gave to the
servants of the king of Tyre in one-fourth payment for their labor
in preparing the temple which he built to the Lord, was probably
especially blessed by the Lord for that use, and so rendered
non-intoxicating, else we must conclude that he pays those who build
houses for him in what friend St. John would call 'liquid damnation.'
"And inasmuch as Solomon was the wisest of all men (or God made a
mistake when he so said), and the temple was for the said God, I am
justified in concluding that this God regards wine as a legal tender,
and so I put the above passage in this category as one in which God
has sanctified the use of wine.
"Neh. 5 : 11: (To the usurers): 'Restore, I pray you, to them, even
this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive yards, and their
houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the
wine, and the oil, that ye exact of them.'
"Neh. 10 : 39: 'For the children of Israel and the children of Levi
shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil
... and we will not forsake the house of our God.'
"Wine, old or 'new,' seems to have been always acceptable to 'our God,'
whether tendered as a holy offering or otherwise.
"'The Lord' makes wine, according to the Psalmist:
"Psalm 104 : 15: 'And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil
to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.'
"If 'the Lord' lived in Iowa, Lozier and Foster would have him arrested
for violation of the new iron-clad prohibitory law.
"Prov. 3 : 10: 'So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy
presses shall burst out with new wine.'
"Prov. 31 : 6, 7: 'Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish,
and wine unto those that be of heavy heart. Let him drink and forget
his poverty and remember his misery no more.'
"In these two verses, the author of Proverbs has more than nullified
all the good things he said in his earlier chapters, and which I have
quoted in List A. I am quite sure that where they have prevented the
drinking of one glass of wine or strong drink, these passages have
led to the drinking of one thousand. And this is a mild statement of
the case.
"Eccl. 9 : 7: 'Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine
with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.'
"Song of Sol. 1 : 2: 'Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
for thy love is better than wine.'
"From this we gather that, next to love wine is the best thing
in the world. This is the opinion of most bacchanalian experts,
I believe. Solomon seems to have had much experience.
"Song of Sol. 5 : 1: 'I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O
friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O believers.'
"Is this the earliest mention of milk punch?
"Song of Sol. 8 : 2: 'I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of
the juice of my pomegranate.' Metaphorical, undoubtedly.
"Isa. 1 : 22: 'Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water.'
"Have your wine full strength, as much as you would have your silver
unalloyed, is the admonition of God's prophet.
"Isa. 24 : 7: 'The new wine mourneth, the vine languisheth; all the
merry-hearted do sigh.'
"One more in the long list of passages wherein it is said that God
punished his chosen people by cutting off their vintage. What God
regards as a real deprivation to lose must be good to have and to keep,
in his opinion, whatever the Woman's Christian Temperance Union people
may think about it. Verse 9 says: 'They shall not drink wine with a
song; strong drink shall be bitter to them that drink it.' Verse 11:
'There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened;
the mirth of the land is gone.'
"God thus punished them by taking away their wine, on the same
principle that he punishes us by killing our children, as Christians
say that he does. Will they contend that children are inherently an
evil? They must if they follow the same line of reasoning that they
do in interpreting these texts.
"Isa. 27 : 2, 3: 'In that day sing ye unto her, a vineyard of red
wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment; lest any
hurt it, I will keep it night and day.'
"Figurative, doubtless! So is the next, but all the influence of these
passages is on the side of intemperance, necessarily, for the simple
reason that the great mass of the people will take them literally,
and for the further reason that the constant association of wine
with 'good news' and symbols of religion familiarize the mind with
it and serve to give it something of a sacred character. This last
mentioned fact helps to explain why the church so long opposed the
modern temperance movement. But here is the passage above indicated,
Isa. 55 : 1: 'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,
and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat: yea, come buy wine
and milk without money and without price.'
"Isa. 62 : 8: 'The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm
of his strength, Surely I will no more give thy corn to be meat for
thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not drink thy wine,
for the which thou hast labored.'
"Rev. Stevenson should suggest to the Lord that, whereas wine is an
evil thing, and the Bible a 'great text book of morals,' and the
palladium of temperance, essential in the proper training of our
children, therefore, he, the Lord, should have clearly shown that he
meant that the enemies of his chosen people should take from them
their wine that through such deprivation they should be better and
happier. But, no! he ranks wine with corn, and registers a mighty
oath that the people shall have them both.
"Isa. 65 : 8: 'Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the
cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it,
so I will do for my servants' sake, that I may not destroy them all.'
"Jer. 31 : 12: 'Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of
Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat,
and for wine, and for oil,' etc.
"Jer. 40 : 10: 'But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and
put them in your vessels, and dwell in the cities that ye have taken.'
"Probably 'wine' here means grapes, though it is used in the same
construction as 'oil.'
"Jer. 48 : 33: 'And joy and gladness is taken from the plentiful field,
and from the land of Moab, and I have caused wine to fail from the
wine presses.'
"Dan. 1 : 5: 'And the king appointed them a daily provision of the
king's meat, and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three
years, that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.'
"Here God intends, plainly, to convey the impression that wine is
nourishing! The only way in which the Christian temperance people
can relieve him from the imputation of teaching lessons so opposite
to theirs is to enter the plea that he did not inspire the writer!
"Hos. 2 : 8, 9: 'For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine,
and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold which they prepared
for Baal. Therefore I will return and take away my corn in the time
thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool
and my flax given to cover her nakedness.'
"Of course, if these passages and very many of like import, are any
argument against wine, they are of equal weight in the scale against
corn, wool, and many other useful and necessary articles. The authors
of such verses, wherever found, unquestionably looked upon wine as
one of God's good gifts to his children, but which he was compelled
to sometimes deprive them of because of their disobedience.
"Hos. 9 : 2: 'The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them,
and the new wine shall fail in her.'
"That is, Israel shall be punished for her transgressions by the
destruction of the fertility of the soil.
"Evidently the perfume of wine was pleasing unto the Lord, for he
says, in promising his blessing to the repentant people (Hos. 14 :
7): 'They shall revive as the corn, and grow as the wine; the scent
thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.'
"Joel 1 : 5: 'Awake, ye drunkards, and howl, all ye drinkers of wine.'
"This, taken by itself, would be an unqualified condemnation of
intoxicants, but such was not the prophet's meaning. The verse
concludes: 'Because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your
mouths.'
"In the vision of the prophet he sees the great evils that have
come upon his country; the palmer-worm, and the locust, and the
canker-worm have destroyed the crops. 'The meat-offering and the
drink-offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, ... the corn
is wasted, the oil languisheth,' etc. While in the verse quoted the
drinkers are mildly requested to howl, in verse thirteen we have,
'Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests; howl ye ministers of the
altar.' No temperance admonition or lesson here, that is plain.
"Joel 3 : 18: 'And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains
shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and
all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water,' etc.
"Thus, again, among the great blessings to be bestowed upon the
faithful is wine in abundance. One of the facts that strikes me
most forcibly, in making such an examination as this, is the almost
universal favor with which the Hebrew prophets looked upon wine
and wine-drinking; and in prophesying the evils to come upon their
people because of their disobedience to God or their oppression of
their fellows, they rarely fail to include the cutting off of the
wine supply. This they evidently regarded as one of the greatest of
calamities. Our Christian temperance friends would gladly, so they
say, visit wholesale destruction upon the vineyards and barley fields,
and they seem almost to seek to convey the impression that God made a
mistake when he created grapes and barley. This proves how honest they
are when they say that the Bible is a temperance book. In Amos 5 : 11,
we have another example of the above-mentioned fact in the utterances
of the prophet. Denouncing the people for their injustice, he says:
'Ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of
them.' In the preceding sentence he had said: 'Ye have built houses of
hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them.' Houses were good, wine was
good; but because of their sins they should be deprived of both. There
is here no argument either direct or implied in behalf of abstinence.
"Amos 9 : 14: 'And I will bring again the captivity of my people
of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them;
and they shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall
also make gardens and eat the fruit of them.'
"It does not seem that even Mr. Stevenson would venture to claim this
verse as a Bible argument for temperance. They shall drink the wine!
"Micah. 6 : 15: 'Thou shalt sow, but thou shalt not reap; thou shalt
tread the olives, but thou shalt not anoint thee with oil; and sweet
wine, but shalt not drink wine.'
"How can apparently honorable men claim that God, as revealed in the
Bible, disapproves of the use of intoxicants when he is continually
telling his chosen people that he will punish them by destroying
their corn, and their wine, and their oil; evidently taking particular
pains to impress upon them the fact that they (wine, corn, and oil)
are equally good and useful?
"Zeph. 1 : 13: 'They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them;
and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.'
"The same old story:
"In chapter 1, verse 11, Haggai calls for a drouth upon the land to
punish the people, and he includes, as usual, the corn, and the oil,
and the new wine among the things to be destroyed.
"Zech. 9 : 17: 'For how great is his goodness, and how great is
his beauty; corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine
the maids.'
"Rather a singular apportionment of his bounty, unless 'corn' means
something stronger than wine.
"Matt. 11 : 19: 'The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
Behold, a man is gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans
and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.' But are these
her children who claim Jesus as very God and yet fly directly in the
face of his precepts and practice? Or is it moral uprightness instead
of wisdom that they lack?
"In Mat. 21 : 33 to 41, and Mark 12 : 1 to 9, Jesus gives us the
parable of the vineyard and the husbandman, and in it all there is
no hint that there was anything wrong in the business of winemaking.
"The thought that we find expressed in Mat. 11 : 19, is given again
in Luke 7 : 33-4-5, where we read: 'For John the Baptist came neither
eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son
of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold a gluttonous
man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom
is justified of all her children.'
"Whoever uttered these words, man or god; whoever wrote them,
John or some one else one hundred or more years later, there can
be no disputing regarding the lesson which is taught. It is that
each individual is to determine for himself or herself in all
things pertaining to personal conduct and habits. 'Let every man
be fully persuaded in his own mind' is the central idea of the
various renderings. There is no rebuke, expressed or implied,
of intemperance; there is nothing that can be tortured into a
condemnation of wine-drinking or into an approval of the principle of
total abstinence, or that of prohibition. Here was his opportunity to
condemn the drinking of wine, to speak for that which is now called
temperance; but from his lips fell no words of warning; to those
gathered about him he said nothing in favor of the great reform which
Christians of to-day, falsely assuming to speak in his name, declare
finds its sanction and inspiration, its bulwark and tower of defense,
in the Bible.
"It seems that the good Samaritan (Luke 10 : 34) had with him a supply
of wine with which he dressed the wounds of the stranger.
"John 2 : 3-11: 'And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith
unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have
I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto
the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set
there six water pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of
the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto
them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to
the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the
governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast
had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was
(but the servants which drew the water knew), the governor of the
feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the
beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk,
then that which is worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until
now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and
manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.'
"John 4 : 46: 'So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he
made the water wine.'
"The first miracle which Jesus performed was to convert six pots
of water into wine! And this feat convinced his disciples of his
supernatural origin and powers! And he did this to manifest forth
his glory! Either this is true or the Bible is false. Whether true or
not, it has been a most powerful argument against abstinence; it has
resulted directly in making drunkards, as it has indirectly in making
hypocrites and Jesuitical sophists. I of course mean by this last
sentence that the seeming necessity to prove the Bible a temperance
work has made any number of Christian apologists resort to all kinds
of specious arguments and make any number of false claims in order to
make good their assertions. The assumption that this wine was not of
an intoxicating nature is purely gratuitous. There is not even the
ghost of a fact to be found in support of it. Hundreds of passages,
which I have quoted under their appropriate heads, prove beyond a
doubt that the wine so often mentioned in the Bible was intoxicating;
the words of the governor prove that this miraculously produced portion
of it certainly was of the very best, for it is against all reason to
suppose that men accustomed to the taste and effects of wine would
pronounce simple grape-juice to be better than all that had already
been served to them at the feast; and, finally, the declaration that
this act of Jesus was a miracle and that it made his disciples to
'believe on him,' gives the last stroke to the already nearly dead
'non-intoxicating' theory.
"Col. 2 : 16: 'Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or
in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days.'
"In other words, judge for yourselves in all these matters, submit
to no dictation from without. How does that strike you, Messrs. Bible
Prohibitionists?
"1 Tim. 5 : 23: 'Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for
thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.'
"It is probable that this short verse has led to the consumption of
more wine and caused more intemperance than any other equal number
of words in any language or contained in any book. It has had more
potent effect upon the mind of the Christian believer than have
twenty passages which have in a hesitating, half-hearted, uncertain
way caution against the use of much wine.
"Comparing this class of passages with those grouped under 'A,'
we find that the Bible pleas for temperance are out voted more than
five to one by those in favor of the use of intoxicants. The record
is an astonishingly bad one for the Bible as a total abstinence and
Prohibition work, and should put to the blush all of its worshipers and
apologists who have been so foolish or unscrupulous as to claim that
it is indispensable to the temperance cause and in the education of our
children. Both claims are absurd." (E. C. Walker's "Bible Temperance.")
The Inconsistency of Agnosticism.
"It seems to me as irrational to say there is no God as to say
there is a God."--Editor Twentieth Century.
"But pray, why? Does not that proposition tacitly concede that it is
irrational to say there is a God? If so, how can it be irrational
to deny an irrational proposition or absurdity? Are not the two
propositions antithetical? If so, one or the other is, of necessity,
false. Conceding then, as he does, the absurdity of the God idea, why
will Mr. Pentecost persist, inconsistently, in maintaining that there
is no difference between the rationality of Theism and Materialism,
with its incidental Atheism?
"Will he kindly tell us the difference in degree of rationality
between the position that there is a personal Devil and that there is
a God? Are not both notions of the same origin and equally absurd? Are
not both transmitted to us from the dark ages, from the same book, and
must not both stand or fall together? Yet Mr. Pentecost would not, from
pure deference and respect for our poor, non-evolved pious friends,
assume an Agnostic's attitude and concede that 'it is as irrational
to say there is no Devil as to say there is a Devil.' Of course
not. He simply denies the existence of His Satanic Majesty without
equivocation, and the proof of his existence not being forthcoming
his denial is equivalent to proof that such a being does not exist.
"In law and equity the affirmative is obliged to prove its case. If
then a proposition is self-evidently absurd, unnatural and absolutely
impossible, why concede to those affirming, without a shadow of proof,
that their belief is equally rational with our unbelief, that 'it
may be so,' 'I don't know,' etc.
"Having discarded as authoritative ancient traditions, there is
absolutely no logic, no reason, no science, no analogy that will
sustain or demonstrate the existence of a God. And in view of this fact
a simple denial is all-sufficient to prove the negative. As the plea of
the prisoner at the bar of 'not guilty' is equivalent to proof of his
innocence and bound to be respected by court and juror, unless, indeed,
the affirmative, beyond a shadow of a doubt, establishes his guilt, so
the Atheist's fearless denial, nowadays, must demand profound respect,
and is equivalent to proof, unless, indeed, the Church brings proof,
outside of a discarded Bible, of the truth of its basic idea.
"Now, though unnecessary to prove a negative, and the God-idea not
having been established by history, revelation, science, or reason,
yet alleged arguments being continually advanced in the vain endeavor
to resuscitate a vanishing religion, a few propositions are here
advanced which prove there is no God.
"There is a universe. This proves there is no God.
"The universe is infinite. This excludes anything else of like
character--two infinities being an absurdity.
"The universe (nature) is here and there and everywhere. This proves
that God cannot be here and there and everywhere.
"Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Matter
(implying energy and force) monopolizing every point of space,
nothing else can occupy it in addition.
"The universe exists now. Something cannot come from nothing, therefore
the universe has always existed.
"Being eternal and infinite, this excludes anything anterior, exterior,
or superior to it.
"Is God in the universe or the universe in God? If there is a God,
either of these propositions must be true, yet both are glaringly
absurd.
"Can an engineer drive a locomotive and be a locomotive at the same
time? If not, how can a God manipulate an infinite universe and be
infinite 'Himself?'
"Yet the universe, outside of a God, is an absolute reality, as much
so as a locomotive is a reality outside of the engineer. The world
is a reality, our planets, the sun, all the countless millions of
stars within reach of our telescopes and the infinitude of stars and
systems beyond the reach of our strongest lenses, which science infers
to exist, all these are a reality and all these, yes, every object of
knowledge is a reality, and all these are not God! How then, in the
name of reason I ask, can a God, of whom we know absolutely nothing,
be infinite, when an infinite number of material objects--not God--fill
all space?
"But does the universe exist in God? If we but imagine for a moment
the aspect of the universe to resemble a huge machine of infinite
proportions, eternally active in all its vast proportions, the idea
of the universe existing within a God will appear equally childish
and simple.
"All phenomena are the results of energy co-existent and inseparable
from matter. All cosmic motion, change, and life may be traced to
this physical and chemical energy pervading all nature--never to a God.
"Mind--the so-called infinite as well as finite--implies limit,
localization, conditions, etc. This fact tends to prove that while God,
perchance, might concentrate his mind on the world or some particular
sect or individual, considering their exhortations, the rest of the
world and the universe for the time being would be Godless!
"From a late scientific authority I quote in proof: 'It is impossible
for a person's mind to be in two places at the same time.' Noted
chess players may play twenty games simultaneously, but it is done
by speedy transfer of thoughts from one game to another and not by
considering two moves at once.
"Thus 'Omniscience' is impossible.
"Again; mind implies limit and necessitates organism, brain,
nervous force, etc. This again makes impossible a God. Let the Church
demonstrate how a God without a brain can be a God and all it implies,
or how a God with a brain can be infinite, and I will kneel down and
worship with them.
"Is this dogmatism? The 'dogmatism of the Infidel' we hear so
much about? If it is, then asserting that twice two is four is
dogmatism. Then we state all the facts of mathematics, all the truths
of history is dogmatism. We simply confine ourselves to fact, to
knowledge and demonstrated truth. There we stop and refuse to accept
the crude notions transmitted from our ignorant ancestors, which, it is
dogmatically asserted, are true in spite of our knowledge and reason.
"I protest against being accused of dogmatism, I studiously endeavor
to be fair and make no pretensions to scholarship and learning. But I
emphatically protest against the dogmatism of others who, assuming a
superior air of knowledge assert notions contrary to fact. Supposing
some one should affirm that twice two is five, would it be dogmatism,
to deny the proposition, and would thinking minds be justified to
assume the attitude of Agnostics and concede that while in their
opinion twice two is four, yet twice two may be five, 'I don't know,'
'one proposition is as irrational as the other,' etc.?
"We know a universe exists. Existing now proves it is eternal. This
simple fact absolutely makes impossible, yes, needless, a God.
"I simply assert that twice two is four and cannot possibly be
five. That the universe filling all space nothing else can fill it in
addition. If this be dogmatism all knowledge is a farce."--Wettstein.
God Responsible for the Ills Man Suffers.
"If God foreknew whatever was to come to pass, he must have been
perfectly well aware that his whole creation, including the scheme of
redemption, would be the most stupendous failure imaginable,--as it
certainly has been if the Christian religion be true. For what rational
or humane man would raise a family of children, if he knew beforehand
that they would all be vagabonds and criminals, ending their days in
prison or on the scaffold? What prudent farmer would intentionally
sow wheat on land certain to produce a bad crop? What sensible
business man would knowingly embark in an enterprise sure to prove
disastrous, and to involve himself and his family in irretrievable
ruin? And yet such conduct on the part of men would be far less
irrational and criminal than that of which the Creator is guilty,
if the doctrine of his foreknowledge and omnipotence be true. For,
according to this doctrine, he alone is responsible for whatever
has occurred and will occur, and for all the suffering in the world,
since he had full power to prevent it but did not, and does not; and
the conclusion to be drawn from this fact is, that he intended all
things to be just as they have been in the past, are now and are to
be in the future. For, if he possessed absolute power, he might have
placed man under entirely different circumstances, and surrounded
him by influences which would have led him into the path of perfect
rectitude, but did not choose to do so; and we fail to understand
how man can be justly held responsible either for his own creation,
for the nature with which he is endowed, or for the environment which
determines his conduct." (J. W. Stillman's "God and the Universe.")
The Idea of God Must Go.
"I think it is not a good thing for people to believe in God. I think
it is a bad thing for them to do so. I think the belief in God is one
of the things that is helping very strongly to keep knaves in power and
honest people in weakness; it is one of the things that is preventing
the people from thinking for themselves and helping themselves. The
human mind will never be perfectly free, and peasants and mechanics
and day laborers will never be perfectly fairly treated in this world,
until the church is utterly destroyed. I do not want to see the church
reformed. I want to see her utterly destroyed, because as long as she
exists the ruling classes in society will always have in her a faithful
ally to help them carry on their infernal schemes of pillage. I do not
want people to have a better idea of God or an idea of a better God. I
want the idea of God entirely rooted out of the mind, because I know
that as long as any idea of God remains in the mind, the priest and
the politician will have something to work upon, and this world will
never be free and happy until the priest and the politician are gone.
"One man will tell you that God is a Roman Catholic, another that
he is a Presbyterian, another that he is a Baptist, and so on. One
man will say that he is a Republican, another that he is a single
taxer, another that he is a Socialist, and so on. What we must come
to see is, that nothing is done in human society that is not done by
men. Poverty must be destroyed, not because it is God's will that it
should be, but because it is best for the human race that it should
be. And general wealth must be achieved, not because it is God's
will that it should be, but because it is best for the human race
that it should be. Beware of those men who tell you what is or what
is not the will of God. In every case you will find a person who is
intellectually asleep, or half asleep, or mentally dishonest, or else
you will find--and this is more likely--a priest or a politician,
a person who wants to get you to not think about what he is teaching
you. We have been dragged through enough mire and blood and darkness
doing things according to the will of God. It is now time we began
to think things out for ourselves."--Pentecost.
"Mr. Barnum said that Christians had a different way of thinking
about God now from that of fifty years ago. 'When I first heard
of the doctrine of the Universalists,' said he, 'I felt so utterly
astonished that I thought I'd drop dead in my boots. The orthodox
faith painted God as so revengeful a being that you could hardly
distinguish the difference between God and the Devil. If I had almighty
power and could take a pebble and give it life, knowing beforehand
that fifty-nine seconds out of every sixty would be extreme misery,
I would be a monster. Yet this is how God was described, and people
talk about loving such a being.'" (Newspaper clipping.)
Atheism.
1. Something (substance) must have always been, or anything could
not now be.