The pro and con of supernatural religion

Part II. Review of the arguments in favor of Supernatural Religion

Paet III. Statement of the arguments against Supernatural Religion.

Part IY. Particular remarks on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, and statement of the views of Rationalists on Inspiration, Reflation and Religion.

<Tv v by e! e? guild.

1 1 "

TOGETHER WITH, A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

There is no human religion outside of human nature The different forms of religion contain the elements of

one universal religion, and are but different phases of

the religion of humanity.

Describe to me the God whom you worship, and I see

in that description a reflex image of yourself.

NEW YORK: ; ..

t>. M. BENNETT, 335 BKOADW b*

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Preface

Whenever an opinion or institution which has long been held to be sacred, is attacked, the prejudices of their adherents will of course be shocked. This proves nothing either for or against the opinion or institution. The same shock is experienced by the Egyptian when he hears the sacredness of leeks and onions, cats and other animals questioned. Also by the Hindoo, when the divinity of his idols is disputed. And by the Mohammedans, when the authority of the Koran is denied. For ages mankind have revered, venerated and held sacred three great idols — the Priesthood, the Bible and the Church. The first has been regarded as the authorized instructor of the people in knowledge, wisdom and virtue ; the second as the ultimate standard of appeal to settle all differences of opinion ; the last as a secure shelter from the wrath of an incensed Deity and the evil influence of a semi-omnipotent Devil, who disputes with the Almighty the supremacy of the Universe. These are monstrous errors, degrading and pernicious in their influence. One design of this work is to expose them.

Although the Priesthood of the present day profess to be the friends of education, they are so only in so far as they can control it. There is a certain kind of

PREFACE.

information which, to the extent of their ability, they keep from the knowledge of the people. This work is intended to impart to them that very knowledge. The writer does not believe that ignorance is the mother of trne devotion, nor that it is a good soil for the growth of true religion. Nor does he believe with Eusebius that falsehood is good as a medicine for the mind, nor that in order to benefit the people it is necessary to deceive them. He does not endorse the sentiment of Gregory, surnamed " The Divine," who says, " a little jargon is all that is necessary to impose on the people," nor that of Synecius, a bishop of the Church, whose opinion was that " the people are desirous of being deceived." And although he said that " to himself he should always be a philosopher, but, in dealing with the mass of mankind, he should be a priest," we say it is the duty of every man who assumes the office of a public instructor, to be not only a philosopher to himself, but to the people also, and to make philosophers of them too if he can. We do not believe that there is anything true about religion that the people ought not to know, nor anything false that it is expedient for them to believe.- If the people are perishing at all, it is for the lack of knowledge and for proper direction of the faculties and powers which the God of Nature has bestowed upon them.

The present inhabitants of the world number 1,288,- 000,000 souls ; one quarter of these are nominal Christians. If we allow that one in four of these are actual professors, the number will be 80,500,000. Can tiie idea be entertained for a moment that for a period of near 6,000 years God has been endeavoring, by the most stupendous miracles, to establish a religion in the world, on the belief of which hang suspended the

PREFACE.

eternal interests of mankind, and that belief in it is confined to only a small remnant of our race ? Is it not a much better, broader, more charitable view, one more honoring to God, and more satisfactory to believe, that all forms of religion contain some truth and some error, and that it is a perfectly lawful and legitimate business to separate the one from the other ? To this work these pages are dedicated as an assistant. May they be effectual in accomplishing this design. The position defended by the author is, that there is no true religion except what is perfectly natural to man ; and that whatever else is so called, is a delusion and a snare. The great objection urged against this view is, that " without supernatural revelation, we could know nothing about God, or our relations to him, nor of our duty to him and our fellow-men." This conies with an ill grace from those who accept as infallible an authority which flatly contradicts them. The Bible teaches that ' ' the heavens declare the glory of God, that the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." Paul quoted the testimony of a heathen poet to prove that mankind aie the children of God, and he asserted that the Gentiles who had not the law, but were a law unto themselves, did by nature the things contained in the law, their consciences accusing or excusing one another. Jesus, addressing the multitude, says, "why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right ?" implying an ability on their part to distinguish between right and wrong. But what can be expected of men who have been educated to think that investigation and the use of their reason are wrong, and put in jeopardy their eternal interest ? What men need is to have the men-

PREFACE.

tal crutches on which they have been leaning removed ; to be taught to rely on themselves, and " stand up and show themselves men." ISTo greater evil exists in human society than a superstition which makes mental and moral slaves of men, drowning reason in fanaticism, and making men fear to use legitimately the powers and faculties which the God of Nature has bestowed upon them.

This work is designed to impress the minds of men, not by addressing their love of the mysterious and wonderful, but by appeals to those powers of the mind with whose dictates the views herein presented are in perfect harmony. The religious world is in a state of transition, consequent on which there is great commotion and apparent confusion. The same state of things existed soon after the breaking out of the Protestant Keformation, in view of which some timid men like Melancthon and Erasmus, threatened to abandon the cause and go back to the Mother Church. We have the same class of timid souls now. They fear that free investigation will unsettle the very foundations of religious belief, and leave men without any religion at all. But men of strong faith know better. The number of brave, free-born minds is very greatly on the increase. They do not fail to lay the axe at the root of the tree, to strike at the very foundation of superstition, bigotry and intolerance. They realize that the present commotion cannot always continue ; that the storm will ultimately settle into a calm ; and that when the strife is over, on surveying the situation, it will be foun J a very great advance has been made in religious thought and ideas.

The Pro and Con of Supernatural Eeligion.

PART I.

A brief history of the four great Religions claiming a Supernatural Origin — Paganism, Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism.

Is Religion a special revelation from God to man ? This is an important question. If the affirmative is true, it ought to be known and believed by all men. If the negative answer is the true one, the sooner the fact is made known to the world the better. In answer to the question, millions of voices will loudly exclaim Yes! On the other hand millions of men with equal confidence and emphasis will answer No! Both cannot be right Both are ready to adduce arguments to justify their respective opinions. I propose at this time to array the arguments of the contending parties before you. I will give them an open field and fair play, and allow you to judge which comes off victor in the contest. Nearly all great battles are preceded by skirmishes — by the skirmish lines of the respective armies. And so, before I bring on the onset between the opposing arguments of the affirmative and negative, it will be necessary in order that you may have a clear view of the battle to clear the field by stating a few preliminaries.

By supernatural we understand an event, occur rence, or phenomenon, produced by a special, direct and miraculous act of Divine power.

By Nature, we mean the Universe, with ail its varied physical, intellectual, and moral phenomena.

The four principal religions in the world claiming a supernatural origin are, the Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan. Paganism was the religion of all the nations of the earth previous to the establishment of Judaism, and is now the religion of more than one half of mankind. We can trace its history backward into the darkness of remote ages when no human records were made. It is the most ancient, the most wide spread and has endured the longest of any religion in the world. Dr. Justin observes, that, *'It was the religion of the greatest, the wisest, and the politest nations, of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, the parents of civil government, and of arts and sciences." It held its power over the minds of men until a century of the time of Christ, at which period it began to wane. At the time of the appearance of Christ universal skepticism prevailed throughout all Greece, and Rome, among all their poets, philosophers, statesmen, and priests. The forms however were kept up, and the common people who were sunk in ignorance still continued to adhere to it. In this they were encouraged by their educated men and priests, among whom it was a maxim, that, there were many things true in religion which it was not convenient for the vulvar to know ; and some things, which, though false, it was expedient for them to believe. Those who should have been the instructors of the people were their deceivers. Hence, two kinds of philosophy and religion were taught by them ; the Esoteric and Exoteric, the first to be taught to the educated, the other to the masses of the uneducated people.

Judaism has existed over three thousand years. It was the religion of one nation only, and that comparatively small and inhabiting only a small portion of the earth. It is a very prevalent opinion in our day that the Jews throughout their whole history have maintained a steady and uniform faith in their religion. This is a very great mistake. Unbelievers were by no means uncommon among them. They had their Paines and Yoltaires as well as we. At a very early period after the establishment of their religion by Moses, Koran, Dathan, and Abiram, "and two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown/' rose up in rebellion against him, and disputed his right to exercise authority over them. It is impossible to account for this fact only on the supposition that these men had no faith in the Divine appointment and authority of Moses. Reason asserted itself in the minds of these dissenters ; but its voice was silenced by the popular clamor, and Koran and his company were sacrificed to the fury of their more credulous and practical countrymen. Aaron, a brother of Moses, and the first priest of the new religion, and his wife Miriam, rebelled against Moses, claiming that he had no superiority over them as a teacher of the Lord.

The frequent murmurings and rebellions of the Jews against Moses, shows that their confidence in his divine authority was often shaken and sometimes well nigh abandoned. Absalom, too, rebelled against his own father David, and sought to supplant him on the throne, and he had many adherents. Solomon apostatized from the religion of his fathers, and adopted that of the Pagans. After the death of Solomon, ten of the Hebrew tribe set up a kingdom of their own, renounced Judaism and embraced and practiced Paganism. This continued for a period of two hundred and fifty years. In the mean time, the kingdom of Judah vacillated between the two religions, sometimes practicing the one, then the other. During the reigns of Hezekiah, and Josiah, Judaism was revived and flourished for a short time, but soon sank again with the fall of the nation. It is now well nigh extinct ; a great majority of the Jews of the present day no longer regard it as a supernatural religion. At that time, and long before the appearance of Christ, the Jews were divided into different sects, much skepticism prevailed, and some of it was tolerated. The Essenes discarded all forms and ceremonies, and utterly denied the authority of the letter of the Jewish sacred books. The Samaritans and Sadducees denied the inspiration of all the books of the Old Testament, except the Pentateuch ; and the latter had no faith in a future state of existence. And yet, Sadducees, and Pharisees, alike sat in Hoses' seat and filled the office of the great High Priest of the Jewish religion.

Christianity, has existed over eighteen and a half centur.es. It is intimately connected with Judaism, but has been made to supersede it. Judaism, however, might be true even although Christianism should be proved false. But if Judaism is proved false it would shake Christianism to its very center. The first converts to Christianity were from the " common people." To this class Christ chiefly confined his teaching, and with them he mainly associated. He exposed the rottenness and corruption of the Jewish Church, and the hypocrisy of its priesthood ar.d other Church dignitaries and members. This was very pleasing to a class of people who were treated with scorn and contempt by the Church, and made him an acceptable teacher among them. The new religion was accepted in Greece, and Rome, for a similar reason. It exposed the frauds and impositions of the Pagan priests, and inculcated the exercise of a spirit of good will even to those who were in the lower ranks of life. The Pagan philosophers, seeing in it a system of pure Theism, which was then the prevalent belief among them, and, admiring its beautiful system of moral ethics did not discourage its reception, but rather encouraged it, and some of them embraced it. Some of these converts, however, denied its supernatural origin, and wrote against it. Porphyry, a Platonist, who lived in the very midsl of Christians of the second century, and who accepted the moral teachings of Christianity, nevertheless wrote a book to disprove its miraculous origin. So also, did Celsus, and Julian, one of the Roman Emperors, who once professed it, afterwards renounced it. For this, these men were branded as apostates and Infidels. Under Constantine, Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire, established by law. It soon became con up ted, and in this corrupted form held sway over the public mind of Europe and other countries all through the Dark Ages. On the revival of learning, skepticism began to make its appearance again. It increased more and more in proportion as the arts and sciences flourished, and as progress was made in education and civilization. As the science of the laws and phenomena of Nature were made known to men, they became sceptical in regard to the supernatural and miraculous, and that skepticism they applied to Christianity. At- the present time a wide spread unbelief in all supernatural occurrences and events pervades the minds of all ranks, classes, and conditions of men. It has gained an entrance into the Church itself, and many of its clergymen and laymen join with men of literature, learning and science, in utterly repudiating the idea that there ever was, is now, or ever will be any interruption of, or interference with the steady, uniform, and uninterrupted operation of Nature and her laws ; and also, in the belief that we must have a religious system based on scientific facts, and not on the mere dreams and visions of visionary men.

Mohammedanism, originated in the seventh century of the Christian era. It was designed not to supersede Christianity, nor Judaism, but to supplement both. According to Mahomet, Christ undertook to make men religious by preaching a doctrine of love, and failed. He was commissioned of God to propagate religion by fire and sword, to convert men by force of arms. Mohammedanism spread wiih astonishing rapidity. It was established in Arabia, Turkey, Persia, and among several nations in Africa and India. It was planted in the sacred land trodden by the feet of Christ and his Apostles, and supplanted Christianity on its own soil. Mahomet had as manv, if not more followers than Christ, and although his religion is six hundi ed years younger than Christianiay, yet there are more real Mohammedans than there are real Christians.

All four of these religions claim a heavenly origin in a special and direct sense. They do not mutually exclude each other. Judaism, it is true, denies the claims of all the rest, Christianity admits the claims of Judaism, but denies the pretence of the other two ; whereas Paganism admits the supernatural origin of them all, and claims only that it is the purest and best of them all.

In this country the popular opinion is that the religions of Paganism, and Mohammedanism, are spurious and false ; but that the claims of Judaism, and Christianity, are based on an impregnable foundation of truth. On the other hand a large and respectable minority of our citizens deny the claims of each one of them. It is only with the assumption of Judaism, and Christianity, that we have now to do. Those who accept these religions as supernatural revelations from God, do so on the authority of the Hebrew, and Christian Bibles, which they claim constitute an infallible standard of religious truth. Everything here, then, depends on the truth or falsity of the assumption in regard to that book. The question is : Is the Bible a special, direct, supernat-n ral, and infallible revelation ? The skirmish is now over, and the battle of opposing arguments begins. Let us examine with carefulness and candor what the disputants have to offer.

PART II.

Reviews of the Arguments in favor of Supernatural Religion.

1. On the affirmative it is urged that * c a revelation from God is possible." This we do not dispute. What we deny is that the fact of a thing being possible with God proves that the thing has been or will be done. God has power to do many things that he does not do. If I were to say that God has power to make all his creatures happy, therefore, all are, or will be happy, many of the advocates of the Bible would see the fallacy of such reasoning. But the argument is just as good as this for the Bible.

2. "A revelation from God is desirable." To this we reply. First, that the fact of a thing being desirable is no proof that the desire will be gratified. Men have a thousand desires that are not granted. There are no desires more universal among men than the desire to live and be happy ; and yet men die and are not perfectly happy. The argument in favor of universal salvation, founded on the universal desire of happiness, is just as good as this for the Bible. Second, however desirable it may be to have a revelation from God, that fact does not prove that the revelation would be in book form, nor that the Bible is that book. We have a number of books claiming to be revelations, and the argument is just as good iu favor of each one of them as it is for the Bible. Besides, a book revelation would not be adapted to satisfy the desires of only a small portion of those who have lived in the past, inasmuch, as not more than one quarter of them could read it.

3. "A revelation from God is necessary." Necessary for what ? * ' To teach us the existence of God, of a future state of being, and the principles of morality and virtue/' we are told. But all these were known and taught by men who never saw or heard of the Bible. If a revelation was necessary at all, it was just as necessary for one man as another, for one nation as another. But nearly all knowledge of the Bible was for thousands of years confined to a very small minority of the human race. The believers in several books claiming to be revelations, may plead in favor of each the necessity of it, with as much propriety and force as that plea is made for the Bible.

3. ''The truths contained in the Bible prove it to be a revelation." So think the believers in other books called revelations, and the argument is equally conclusive for each. But is every book a revelation that contains truth ? Then the world is full of revelations. Common sense teaches us that a book that teaches truth is not necessarily a revelation, else Daboll's arithmetic is as perfect a revelation as God ever made.

5. "The wonderful Prophecies contained in the Bible are conclusive in proof of its divine origin." Most of the biblical prophecies are general in their nature, based on the idea of retribution, and consisting of promises to the Jews, of prosperity if they were obedient, and warnings of calamity in case of disobedience. It is the easiest thing in the world to make predictions in this way, and to have them verified to the very letter. True prophecies, also, may be based on our knowledge of the history of the past, of the laws of nature, and the law of cause and effect. If I were to predict that one hundred years from this time there would be wars and rumorc of wars, that mankind would marry and be given in marriage, that murders would be committed, that there would be storms, tempests an(J earthquakes, the prediction would undoubtedly be verified in due time. Many of the so-called prophecies are couched in vague, indefinite and obscure language. So much is this the case, that they are susceptible of a great variety of interpretations and applications, and have actually been applied in a hundred different ways. Nothing is more obscure in he Bible than its supposed prophecies. No argument based on them is therefore of any force. Besides, we have outside of the Bible many prophecies more definite, positive, unmistakable and better authenticated than any in it. It is generally supposed that the Old Testament contains a number of prophecies which relate to Jesus Christ. I hesitate not to say that there is not one that can be proved to have any relation to him whatever.

6. ' l The extraordinary miracles recorded in the Bible p ove its divinity." Is every book that contains" a record of miracles a divine book ? If so, then the Koran, the sacred book of the Hindoos, Gulliver's Travels, the Arabian Nights Entertainment, and Jack the Giant-Killer must be divin:. If these alleged miracles could be proved, the argument based on them would have force. But they have never been proved. The authenticity of the historical portions of the Bible has not been proved, and to undertake to prove the miracles by the Bible, and then the Bible by the miracles, is only reasoning in a circle, a inode of reasoning which no honest, intelligent man will adopt.

7. *' The good influence of the Bible in the world shows that it came from God" That the influence of the Bible, both for good and evil, has been very great is true. Its good influence we attribute to the good that we admit it contains. Its bad effects we charge not so much to its errors as to the belief in its infallibility. Were it not for this belief, its errors would long since have been discarded and all its good retained, without being to a great extent neutralized by its errors and this pernicious belief. Besides, the fact that a book has exerted a powerful influence in the world, is very far from proving that it is a book of God. The influence of the Bible has scarcely been greater than that of the Koran, the Veda, or the Shaster, but none of these are God's book. The Bible alone is not a successful civilizer nor moralizer of men. We have been trying the experiment for years. We have sent our Bibles and missionaries into every barbarous and semibarbarous nation. We have given them a surfeit of each. At last the discovery has been made that schools, and education and knowledge of science and the arts are as efficacious civilizers as the Bible. It is true the Bible and civilization in modern times have accompanied each other. But in ancient times civilization existed in places where the Bible was unknown, and, indeed, before it had an existence. It is also true that in countries the most civilized, there we find the greatest number of unbelievers in the infallibility of the Bible. Civilization is to a great extent a matter of climate, race, circumstances and condition. The inferior races of men, and the inhabitants of the torrid and frigid zones never attain to the same degree of civilization as those who live in more temperate climates.

8. " The character of the men who wrote the Bible proms it to be an inspired book. They were evidently honest men, and they claim to have been inspired. If we say they were not, we accuse honest men of attempting to deceive." We answer, 1. Only a few of the writers claim to have been inspired as writers. None of the writers of the New Testament make this claim except the author of the book of Revelations. Neither Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, James, nor Paul claimed any authority from God or Christ to write what they did. 2. It is quite possible for honest men to suppose themselves to be inspired when they are not. Past history furnishes numerous examples of this kind. To question their inspiration is not to question their honesty. 3. We know nothing about the character of the biblical writers, for we do not know who they were. This we shall show in the proper place.

9. "The riumerous persons who have laid down their lives and become martyrs in the cause of the Bible, is an evidence in its favor." If all the men in the world should lay down their lives to defend a falsehood, it would not make the falsehood true. Every form of religion has had its martyrs, and almost every sect in Christendom has had them too. If the argument from martyrdom proves anything, it proves that all forms of religion are true, and that every sect in the world is right. The argument proves too much, and is, therefore, good for nothing. Martyrdom proves only the honesty of the martyr, and honest men are often mistaken.

10. "The fact that the Bible is accepted by so many learned, wise and good men is much in its favor" This argument, like the preceding, proves too much. Many as good men as any have accepted the Bibles of other religions. Some as good as the best have rejected the claims to a supernatural origin of them all. Of course they could not all be right, therefore their respective beliefs prove nothing in regard to the truth or falsity of their belief.

11. "The steady and tenacious belief of the Jews in the Old Testament, and of Christians in both the Old and Neio Testaments, cannot be accounted for except on the supposition that the events recorded in them actually occurred" 1. Here again the argument proves too much. How came the Greeks and Komans and other Pagan nations to believe in the wonders and prodigies recorded in their mythology ? or the Hindoos to believe in the Veda, and the Mohammedans in the Koran? It is just as easy to account for the belief of one as the other. 2. We have seen that there never was a uniform and universal belief among the Jews, in the divine origin of their sacred books. Throughout the whole period of their history unbelievers were found among them, and at times a majority of the nation were so. The same is true of the belief in the New Testament. At a very early period after the compilation of that book, its authority was questioned, has been questioned ever since, and is being questioned more and more.

12. "The fact that a belief in the Bible enables its possessor to die in peace, and in the comforting assurance of a blissful immortality evinces its divine origin." 1. The argument t r >ves too much again. How dies the moral man of every form of religion and of every sect ?

Is it not with the same calmness and peace, and the same comforting hopes ? Does this prove that they are all right in their belief ? Certainly not, but only that they are honest in their belief. The manner of one's death is no test of the truth or falsity of his opinions, but only of the sincerity of the dying man, and the strength of 7ii8 convictions. Some of the greatest skeptics have met death with as much courage, calmness and peace as was ever manifested by the strongest believers in the Bible. 2. Nor is it true that believers in the Bible always die in peace. Instances are not wanting of their dying in the agonies of utter despair. The manner of one's death depends very much on the temperament, disposition and organization of the individual, the nature of his disease, and whether he is naturally courageous and hopeful or timid and fearful.