THE FOUNDATIONS OF FAITH.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Ingersoll, Robert Green and Widger, David
That word fills all the future with the shrieks of the damned.
That word brutalizes the New Testament, changes the Sermon on the Mount to hypocrisy and cant, and pollutes and hardens the very heart of Christ.
That word adds an infinite horror to death, and makes the cradle as terrible as the coffin.
That word is the assassin of joy, the mocking murderer of hope. That word extinguishes the light of life and wraps the world in gloom. That word drives reason from his throne, and gives the crown to madness.
That word drove pity from the hearts of men, stained countless swords with blood, lighted fagots, forged chains, built dungeons, erected scaffolds, and filled the world with poverty and pain.
That word is a coiled serpent in the mother's breast, that lifts its fanged head and hisses in her ear:—"Your child will be the fuel of eternal fire."
That word blots from the firmament the star of hope and leaves the heavens black.
That word makes the Christian's God an eternal torturer, an everlasting inquisitor—an infinite wild beast.
This is the Christian prophecy of the eternal future:
No hope in hell.
No pity in heaven.
No mercy in the heart of God.
VIII. CONCLUSION
THE Old Testament is absurd, ignorant and cruel,—the New Testament is a mingling of the false and true—it is good and bad.
The Jehovah of the Jews is an impossible monster. The Trinity absurd and idiotic, Christ is a myth or a man.
The fall of man is contradicted by every fact concerning human history that we know. The scheme of redemption—through the atonement—is immoral and senseless. Hell was imagined by revenge, and the orthodox heaven is the selfish dream of heartless serfs and slaves. The foundations of the faith have crumbled and faded away. They were miracles, mistakes, and myths, ignorant and untrue, absurd, impossible, immoral, unnatural, cruel, childish, savage. Beneath the gaze of the scientist they vanished, confronted by facts they disappeared. The orthodox religion of our day has no foundation in truth. Beneath the superstructure can be found no fact.
Some may ask, "Are you trying to take our religion away?"
I answer, No—superstition is not religion. Belief without evidence is not religion. Faith without facts is not religion.
To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits—to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms, to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art, in nature, to cultivate the mind, to be familiar with the mighty thoughts that genius has expressed, the noble deeds of all the world, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness, to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts, the warmth of loving words, to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm beyond the storm, the dawn beyond the night, to do the best that can be done and then to be resigned this is the religion of reason, the creed of science. This satisfies the brain and heart.
But, says the prejudiced priest, the malicious minister, "You take away a future life."
I am not trying to destroy another world, but I am endeavoring to prevent the theologians from destroying this.
If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and that fact does not depend on bibles, or Christs, or priests or creeds.
The hope of another life was in the heart, long before the "sacred books" were written, and will remain there long after all the "sacred books" are known to be the work of savage and superstitious men. Hope is the consolation of the world.
The wanderers hope for home.—Hope builds the house and plants the flowers and fills the air with song.
The sick and suffering hope for health.—Hope gives them health and paints the roses in their cheeks.
The lonely, the forsaken, hope for love.—Hope brings the lover to their arms. They feel the kisses on their eager lips.
The poor in tenements and huts, in spite of rags and hunger hope for wealth.—Hope fills their thin and trembling hands with gold.
The dying hopes that death is but another birth, and Love leans above the pallid face and whispers, "We shall meet again."
Hope is the consolation of the world.
Let us hope, if there be a God that he is wise and good.
Let us hope that if there be another life it will bring peace and joy to all the children of men.
And let us hope that this poor earth on which we live, may be a perfect world—a world without a crime—without a tear.