The truth not legend, reason not superstition

Chapter I

In any discussion having to do with the exploitation of newly discovered or but half acknowledged truths, or with the demolition of errors long established, and whose origin antedates the emancipation of the human mind from the fetters of the ignorance and superstition essential to the control of a bigoted and tolerant church, two fundamental principles must be recognized.

First: — The accuracy of all statements made, a logical sequence in the presentation of the arguments, illustrations both apt and convincing, and the establishing of a heart interest on the part of the readers, which interest can only be created by their conviction of an absolute belief in his utterances on the author's part. In other words, having the argument, its power to convince, and to convert, must always remain in exact ratio to the sincerity with which it is presented.

Secondly: — Granting the correctness of the 5 premises on which the argument is founded, are the truths and theories advanced helpful or inimical to those accepting them? Will their adoption tend to the uplifting of human kind or to its greater uneasiness and despair? Does the world need and is it ready for the change?

Bearing always in mind these requirements as essential to the successful advocation of the suggestions hereinafter advanced, we may proceed with a reasonable hope of establishing in the reader's mind an interest sufficiently strong to induce his ultimate co-operation with us in our progress toward a higher, broader and unfettered human life.

We have entered a new era. The age of superstition, of faith in traditions and legends, is rapidly passing away. Only those whom the church is able to hold in ignorance, can be deceived. There are thousands of people today, not necessarily college graduates, who cannot be deceived. They read and study for themselves; and to conceive of a human being as ever having been God, or of God as ever having been a human being, is to them a mental condition bordering on the irresponsible. There are thousands of good people, many

Reason A T ot Superstition

nominal church members and assuredly not atheists, who believe in an omnipotent, supreme Ruler, but do not fear Him, do not worship Him, and have no hope for a future life, neither do they credit the promise of a future reward for the good, nor an eternal punishment for the wicked; because they cannot believe that the Bible is God's word.

What we need — we, who believe as these people do — is a church, a clergy, that will preach the truth, that there is no revealed word of God, but that there is a just God who will reward the good, and punish the wicked; a church that will accept the conscience as the word of God, and the Bible as the will of God, and Jesus as our example for the proper mode of life for a Son of God to lead, the brotherhood of the human family, and not of a creed, or of a people. This is the kind of church we need to guide the thinkers, the liberal minded, and keep them in the path of rectitude.

As an illustration, let us consider the arguments and opinions of a common man, a miner, a toiler in the bowels of the earth. There came to Preston No. 5, some time during the eightys of the last century, two young men who started to work one of the breasts in the mine. The taller of the two was an expert miner, the other was his helper. The helper was one of the most highly educated men that ever came to this place. He brought with him a fine library and numerous manuscripts of his own composition. Yet there was something very mysterious about this person. Every one coming in contact with him realized this. They watched him whereever he was and many were heard to say, "Wait and see, you will find that there is something unusual about that person. " He was always ready for an argument, and every afternoon as the miners gathered at the bottom after the day's work and while waiting for a car to be hoisted to the surface, they would ask him to explain how mining should be conducted scientifically, and often he would argue with them on various subjects. Monday was always a great day for argument on religion. After having been to church on Sunday, and listened to the sermon, there was always something to criticize. There was none worse on religion than myself. I had a big opinion of my knowledge on this subject and indeed was pretty well booked on the Bible, but soon learned how little I knew.

Chapter II

The following was not his first argument, but it was the first that I took down. It was started by some one saying: "I heard the best damned sermon yesterday I ever heard/'

"What was the subject? What was it all about?"

"I have forgotten the text, but the theme of the sermon was unbelief."

"How can you be a church member, or a christian and use profanity? No man should be profane and least of all a christian. While I am an infidel, I yet claim to be a christian and would never think of permitting myself to use such vulgarity."

" An infidel christian, is that what is called a paradox?"

" Let it be what you choose to call it. I know that profanity and Christianity do not mix."

" But an infidel denies that there is a God, and therefore cannot be a christian."

" The atheist does not believe there is a God, but an infidel does, though he does not believe that the Bible is God's word. The existence of God is to me indubitable."

" In your opinion, what will God appear to us to be like when we get to see him — when we get to Heaven?"

"How can God be visible to us? God is everywhere, and it is impossible for him to be at one spot a visible being, and at the same time be everywhere."

"But is it not the opinion of almost all intelligent people, that we will see him after our death?"

" If we have more than one God we may see one or more."

" But we claim to have but one God and He a spirit everywhere present."

" The Jews have but one God, but He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and as is remarked, a person dwelling in a City having Golden Streets and Jasper Walls."

"The Jews have always been fond of gold."

" Yes, they have always been money getters, yet they took time to study their relationship to God."

"The Jews were monotheists, but they did 10 not understand it, for to them God did make Himself visible; He appeared to Adam, Enoch, Moses, Elihja and others, and yet the Bible says, no man can see God and live."

"The Bible would then contradict itself?"

"It certainly does, not only here, but in different places. The Jews were God's chosen people, and He their God only, and not of other peoples/ 7

"So you think the Jews thought that God had no use for the Gentiles? It appears to have been so, and that shows how ignorant they were at that time."

"But how much more intelligent are we? We believe that God was a human being at one time, or that a human being was God at one time. We believe that Jesus, a Jew, was God when He lived. But in fact, the christians have three Gods. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit."

"If Jesus was not God, he was the Son of God."

"Yes, and so are we the Sons of God. Jesus was perhaps the most humane and sympathetic, and in every way one of the best men that ever lived, but it is too simple, too childish, 11 too foolish to imagine that he was the Supreme

i Ruler of the Universe."

" But the Bible asserts that he was, and that He was the Son of God."

"I know it does, and it seems to me very absurd, it seems to me an impossibility. He must have been his own father, but He does not claim to have been God, which I am sure He would have done if He had thought so."

At this time a car was waiting for us and we went home. Arguments like the foregoing were an almost daily occurrence; not always on the same subject, not always on the Bible, but on mining, on citizenship, on socialism, or hygiene or any subject that suggested itself. But I confined myself to religion only in my notes that I propose to present here.

At our next meeting I said, " What do you know today?"

11 Let me talk to you about God again, as a diversion today. The very ancient in their wars, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say in their feuds, viewed the successful party as having been aided by the Gods. The leaders of the victorious must have been in league with some invisible power, with some spirit or God, or they had the power to com- 12 municate with God who assisted them. Moses assumed this role, and so did Joshua. God gave Joshua instructions to kill or drive out all the inhabitants of Palestine. While the Jews were too far advanced in intelligence and civilization to believe Joshua to have been a God, they still believed that he could communicate with God, and that God assisted him in his struggles with the enemy."

" God assisted Joshua in robbing the Philistines of their homes because He was the God of the Jews, and their enemy was His enemy."

"But the less civilized people of an earlier period, when the leader of a tribe died after having triumphed over the enemy, thought he must have been a God, and the followers sought to consult with his spirit. They sought and implored his spirit for aid in their wars."

"It was in this way that man was led to ancestor worship, and idol worship."

"But with nearly all peoples, as with the Jews, there was an invisible, all-seeing eye above them. This invisible spirit or power they were anxious to discover — to behold. Man has invented many theories to accomplish this. Many assertions were made that individuals had accomplished this. But Man 13 has never found anything more definite about God, this great Power, than that which nature reveals to us. All nature proclaims an All Wise Creator, and an ever present Sustainer. All nature asserts that there is a God. But the human eye cannot see a spirit, nor can a spirit communicate with Man."

a While we feel positive that there must be a great first Cause, a Supreme Ruler, a God, who deserves of our adoration, yet we cannot teach our children, truthfully, that any one particular mode of worship, or any particular denomination among the many, has the preference, or approval of God. Nor can we prove that those who do not worship at all, if they live a life of chastity, honesty and humanity, offend God.

"Yet we feel that God's many blessings should prompt us to reverence and adore him, and teach our children to do the same. If God did so control men, inspire them, that they wrote what He desired them to write, if God can control men and make them do such good deeds, is he not unjust if he does not control men or lead men that are inclined to do evil acts?"

"That is my opinion. God would be unjust 14 if He permitted a man to do wrong, if He could prevent it, and afterward punish him for his misdeeds."

"If it is wicked to be an infidel, why does not God control such persons, and lead them to become believers? Why does He not control me and prevent me from offending Him, in making this refutation of the Bible as His word? I am sure I desire to be good, and to honor Him, and please Him, just as much as any one. I cannot understand why it should make me wicked, to doubt that which to me is not true, even if my neighbor accepts it to be God's word."

"I am convinced my neighbor is mistaken, and feel justified in expressing my convictions, by making use of my mental faculties, of my reasoning powers that God has given me, I have convinced myself that we have no word of God, and I can not see that I should be offensive to God for this, especially if He can control us."

"I am sure God can control an infidel just as well as He can inspire and control any one else."

" God is not almighty if He can control and inspire one person and not another."

" God is the same yesterday, today and forever."

" God is no respector of persons."

"If God was able to appear to man, make Himself visible, in the past dark ages of superstition, He is able to appear to us at the present time."

" Even if we do not see God, we see His love for us, and His kindness toward us all around us, and it is our duty to recognize and acknowledge His kindness. God's love is manifested in giving us the five senses, and it behooves us to be thankful for these blessings, but above all those, the sense of consciousness, the voice of God to us, to guide us in paths of rectitude is perhaps the greatest of all blessings."

"This voice of God, our conscience, makes us humane; we see in our fellowman the brother."

"And there will be no greater blessing for the human family to enjoy than that which will eventually result in the establishment of a true universal brotherhood. Such a brotherhood will banish cruelty, which is savagery, and strifes and most of the suffering from us forever."

"But we also behold God's goodness in the innumerable blessings that He gives us through nature."

"We feast upon the beauties of nature all around us every day with our wonderful eyes. And upon the sweet fragrance and upon the delicious taste of the many various fruits and upon the soothing music of birds and instruments, sufficient to wake in us an unceasing flow of praise and gratitude and a true worship of God."

11 These wonders, and this love of God manifested toward us must be taught our children."

With these words I started for home.

Chapter III

When we met again I asked him what he thought of Jesus.

" The self sacrificing and heroic work of Jesus, and of the martyrs for conscious convictions, have been to us of the greatest value, and this should be impressed upon the minds of our children."

"It was through these that we have made such great strides in civilization, and as we are apt to retrograde and become heathens again, their good deeds and sacrifices must always be kept before the people/ '

"It is therefore of the utmost importance that we be united into a brotherhood, into a Church, .into a body to reverence and honor God, and teach our children to do the same. That is what God created us for, to become more intelligent every day, to become more humane and brotherly and to teach our children and assist each other in bearing and performing our duties to God."

" That is my conception of the whole matter."

"God is love. All nature, all creation proclaims this, and this love toward us, His most intelligent creatures, calls forth our deepest, most heartfelt gratitude, and awakens in us a sense of our obligation to worship, to adore, and to reverence Him."

"If God is love, which I believe is true, what about the terrible accidents and the fearful suffering that we have all around us continually?"

"Yes, I know, we have ills, and at times some of us are most terribly afflicted, and some have at times most excruciating pains on account of diseases and accidents, but these are not visitations of God's wrath. It is only the ignorant and superstitious that believe that God gets angry at us, and seeks to punish us by such dire afflictions."

" It is most always our own fault. By our ignorance, self-abuse, and folly, and by our indifference and carelessness, we bring most of our suffering upon us."

" It is true that God made it possible for us to suffer, and he knew when he created us that we would have to suffer at times, but this is necessary to teach us our dependence on Him, and it brings us to realize and value His blessings, and recognize His love toward us, which we would not comprehend otherwise."

"We suffer because we, or our fellow men, have violated the laws of nature, or on account of accidents. God is not responsible for our misdeeds, nor for our diseases or accidents. We violate the laws of nature because we are ignorant, and evil results follow as a consequence."

"If we were more civilized, we would have less paupers, and consequently much less suffering, for most of our suffering could be averted if we were properly educated."

A car being ready we went to the surface and when we touched upon the subject again I asked him about sociableness.

"If we realized more how much we are dependent upon each other, we would associate much more, and consult with each other much more. We should be a universal brotherhood, organized to assist each other, and educate the children and the illiterate, and to honor and reverence God."

"The savage were such, because they were ignorant and because they were ignorant they were cruel. Ignorance leads to cruelty, and 20 cruelty is savagery. So then, it behooves us to seek to attain the highest and best education , and to assist our brothers, our fellowmen to attain to the same plane of sociability. "

"Education has revealed to man the fact that idols are inert and powerless, inanimate and devoid of potencv, simply matter devoid of life."

"Education has discovered to us, though an impalpable, and intangible an all pervading power or life, and this life or spirit is our God."

"We believe in a God that permeates the Universe as our life permeates our body, and not in an anthropomorphous being."

"Is it your opinion that God can lead the intelligent better than the illiterate?"

" God has established the laws of nature to control us, and everything else, and it is by these laws that we are controlled, and not directly by God."

"This planet has been here a long time — millions of years, and when Man first appeared here he must have been very ignorant, but God, by the law^s of nature, led him from one plane of civilization upward to another, a higher, until we have reached our present stage. But before this world was created, 21

Man or a similar creature was in existence. The stellar Universe is here from eternity and so is Man, or intelligent beings. "

"But how could Man exist if there was no world?"

" From eternity how many worlds may have been here, and passed away, is hard to tell. But we must believe that as a solar system, occupying the same space as that occupied by our solar system of today; became exhausted and turned into chaos, it reformed and a new system was the result.* And it is only natural that man, or a similar creature, occupied at least one planet of each system. It is my opinion that intelligent beings are not only found on this planet, but upon innumerable other bodies, made for the sustenance of life, throughout the entire stellar universe."

"By that argument the Bible story of the creation of all things about six thousand years ago is entirely repudiated."

" Yes, that certainly is a story. In this age of intelligence and knowledge, it does not require much study to convince one that it can not be entertained. Man may have inhabi-

*The duration of eternity.

tated this earth more than fifty millions of years already."

At this time we separated again.

At our next meeting I called his attention to the assertion that man was here for so long a period and is only now emerging from savagery.

" That is a fact, but when we study the thing over a little we can only see it in that way. Want is the mother of invention, and as primitive Man had but few wants he made but little progress in inventions. He made no improvements as long as he felt the need of none. The more the population increased, and the more dense it became, the more the inventive trait developed and new modes of providing for himself and of protecting himself and family were devised."

" He had the same mental capacity then that he now has, but as long as he was not compelled to improve himself he made no efforts to do so. But as soon as difficulties arose he tried to overcome them by new inventions, and where he was unable to overcome them, he instinctively sought the aid of a higher power. Here was the nucleus of religion and of civilization."

"If, when he sought the aid of a higher power he succeeded in overcoming his difficulty, his prayer had been answered. "

" It was evident that he could influence this superhuman power, and after his death his spirit was sought at his grave, and implored to aid the survivers in their struggles."

"To be able to protect his grave, and find the correct spot, a marker was placed to it, perhaps a stone or some other object. While some worshiped the dead ancestor, others forgot the buried person, and worshiped the stone marker, establishing both ancestor and idol worship."

" Don't you think that God did often answer their prayers?"

" No, I do not believe that God will answer the prayer of any one."

" God has made us free agents, and will not help any one because he prays."

"In this respect Man is superior to the animal. We know wrong and can do it. Man can do wrong if he chooses."

" Adam chose to do wrong, and fell; so do we fall when we do wrong."

"We admit that all deliberate wrong doers should be punished. As we are made in the 24 image of God, and as we punish wrong doers, so will God who has made us, punish us."

"We can, therefore, expect nothing but punishment from Him for our deliberate evil deeds. We know what is right and it is our duty to do it. We do pardon evil deeds when the act was unintentional or accidental, and this is what we may expect from our Heavenly Father who knows the very motives of the heart." _

The time for separation had arrived.

Chapter IV

At our next meeting the same subject being under consideration he said: —

" It is an undeniable duty to honor God by a life void of offense toward God."

" What about the atheist?"

" The atheist does not believe that there is a God, and to teach a man that he is not responsible for his acts to a higher power, is to make the evil inclined a worse being than an animal. Nothing is too mean, too low, too brutal for a character having no fear of punishment. The atheist must be an abnormal thinker. For this reason has God made us conscious of His presence and conscious of the wrong of evil acts, and made us to fear His wrath."

"Conscience is God's voice."

"How was it that primitive Man could not understand God's voice? If conscience is God's voice, they had a conscience?"

"The untutored savage could not compre- 26 hend an invisible God; to them it had to be something tangible, something palpable. Yet he had a certain fear, a partial conception of that voice. "

" But God, in our creation, had not intended that we should know all these things. Man was given a mind; he must develop his mind, he must discover and invent. While Man in the savage stage had the mental capacity just as we have, he had not discovered that God is an all pervading spirit, nor had he developed mentally far enough to understand his relationship to such a God."

"When we study it over, the heathen must be very dense to imagine that they might derive benefit from worshipping idols."

" Some of us accept unto ourselves Jesus, a man, as God. We pray to Jesus as the great God of the Universe. Is that any better?"

" If Jesus is not God is it wrong to worship Him?"

" No, but it is very foolish; what is it to God what or who you worship?"

"What God expects of us is a correct life, chastity, honesty, humanity. If we were not intelligent beings, we would not commit sin."

"It is our knowing it, when we do a wrong

. 27 act, that makes it a wrong, or a sin. We intelligent creatrues are conscious of the fact, when we do wrong, and cannot escape this consciousness, this God's voice that is a monitor to keep us from f ailing/ '

" By our intelligence we know that when we steal a thing we need not work for it, but it is also by our intelligence that we know that it is wrong to steal and so God knew in the creation that Man as an intelligent creature would also often be a wicked creature."

"By your argument it seems that God desired that we should be evil doers."

" The All Wise God knew that some of us would be wicked, but he does not desire that we should sin. By the laws of nature God controls all things. It is natural for us to do wrong, even if it requires of us to stifle our conscience, and we naturally know it when we do a wrong act. We free agents might do better, but we yield against better judgment, against conscious convictions of wrong doing, and follow the natural inclination and do the wrong, especially when we can derive some material benefit from it."

"Man, to ease his conscience, makes laws legalizing the taking of his neighbor's goods, 28 but God does not approve of such laws, nor does he absolve the perpetrator and violator of his laws."

"Why did God put the temptation to do wrong before us?"

"It is necessary for us to have the evil present, otherwise we would not recognize and appreciate the good."

"By adversities we learn to value blessings; by sickness we learn to value health and to protect and take care of ourselves; by accidents we learn to fear and avoid danger."

"The All Wise God has made all things for our good."

" It is a great blessing to be intelligent, but it brings with it its responsibilities. If we were not so we would not be conscious of trouble, we would never worry about evil and misfortune; we could not be sinners."

"As much as it is in our power, we should make it impossible for evil, adversity, enmity, cruelty, diseases, fraud and all such things that tend to disquietude, to exist."

"It seems to me that the Church should expose all evil and all evil doers."

" That is what the new Church will do. We will be a universal brotherhood as far as 29 possible. We will be true christians, as Jesus taught and gave us an example of what we should be."

"What is, in vour opinion, a true christian?"

"The true christian is one who does just as Jesus did and as He taught us to do, or as the Bible says that He did and taught."

"We should do to others as we would have them do to us; love our neighbor as ourselves, do just exactly right. And when finally the great account book is opened, conscience will reveal to us our past life at last, and we all will be judged accordingly."

" So you mean to tell me that our conscience is not only God's voice to us, but that it also is God's book of remembrance?"

"Yes, it is all that, and more, for our conscience is also our guide, our monitor, to keep us from falling."

"It is for this reason that we must have schools. We must be educated to be able to act intelligently. We must have schools and churches, teachers and preachers, Sunday-schools and libraries, religious or sacred and scientific books of all kinds to aid us in learning to understand what God desires of us, and it will be our duty in all diligence to seek to observe it."

"You seem to think that an education is necessary to a man's salvation."

" I certainly do, every man must be educated to be what God intended him to be. We cannot help but see that God would have us to be intelligent and enlightened, a universal brotherhood, all equal as near as possible, all evil and suffering banished as much as possible."

" You have an idea that Man can attain that intelligence that he will be able to banish all diseases and suffering?"

" Yes, I am sure if each individual is properly educated from childhood up, raised in such an hygienic atmosphere, and receives proper nourishment, shelter and protection, such as intelligent parents can give their children from infancy, and assisted by a universal brotherhood in the rearing and educating, that diseases can be almost totally banished, barring old age or the wearing out of the body."