Secularism

Southland Times, Issue 19681, 7 October 1905, Page 3 (Supplement)

Secularism

(To the Editor). Sir,—lt is too late,” says Joseph McCabe, “to speak oi the welfare of the race depending on u religion which the ...rent majority have for ever abandoned. Scepticism l is in the atmosphere of the v. orkl to-day. Tlie more we educate the more we extend its influence. If this is o the true humanitarian will desire the change to be effected as speedily as possible, and the moral ideal to be swiftly disentangled from its decaying frame, of dogma.” “ Christianity,” says R. Blatchford, “ spread rapidly because the Homan Empire was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling powers. Tt throve because it came with the tempting bribe >f Heaven in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell In the other. The ' older religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to conjure with. hnistianity overcame opposition \by murdering or cursing all who resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge, and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free -speech, and by rewarding philosophers I and discoverers with the faggot and the hain. It held its power for centuries , by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and the sword and the greatest of these was ignorance.” I can well understand how it is that “ C.J.’’ cannot see he is in any difiiculy. That is precisely the reason he gets over them so easily. By not defining clearly what he means by Christianity it s quite easy for him to disclaim all the v.il it has wrought. Ho iprofesscs to judge of the tree by the fruit, and when 1 point out some of the bad fruit, he simply says I am not judging Christianity. Although T have aske'd him to deine what ho claims as Christianity he ’’.as not replied except to say that justiIcation by faith is an essential feature >f it. I have shown this very faith (upon which our salvation is supposed to Upend) to bo the basis of religious perecution. Huxley says: “I verily believe that the great good which has been effected in the world by Christdan,:ty has been largely counteracted by the nestilent doctrine on which all churches have insisted, that hone’st disbelief in their more or less astonishing creeds is i moral offence, indeed a sin nf the deepest dye, deserving and involving the same future retribution as murder and ••obbery. If we could only see, in one .Jew, the torrents of hypocrisy and cruelty, the lies, the slaughter, the violations of every obligation of humanity, which have flowed from this source along 'he course of the history of Christian mtions, dur worst imaginations of hell would pale beside the vision.” I would "emind “ C.J.” that others have been as sure as he that - what they believed was Christianity and have dealt in slavery, persecution for opinion’s sake and punishment of men and women for the Imuossible crime br = ''witchcraft. I have quoted texts supporting slavery (“C.J.” has not 'dealt with them), and I was quite prepared to give others which have been the cause of death and torture of thousands of innocent people. The Bible is either the word of God or it is not, and it is too late to' say that part of it. is and part is not, for in that case it is "left to each man to pick out what suits himself. Good and bad-, beautiful ind ugly, are wonderfully mixed up in the Bible. A’ text may be found for or against' anything. Hence the number of different Christian sects. Thanks to the ;ood in humanity, our social, ethical and educational advancement and the ’ontinual criticism by secularists, the rood is generally chosen. Yes, Sir, secu’arism has undoubtedly done a great leal in purifying Christianity, and ev;en “ C.J.” has not escaped its influence. One reason why lam doing my little best for secularism is that I do not want to see Faith' put before Reason, credulity treated as a virtue, and unbe’ief as a crime, for persecution would ;urely be the o'utcome of it.

Mr Henry Thomas Buckle says, in his “ History of Civilisation ” : “ To scepticism we owe that spirit of enquiry., which, during the last two centuries, has gradually encroached on every possible subject, has reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge,

! has weakened the authority of the privi- | leged classes, and has thus placed liberty on a surer foundation, has restrained the arrogance of nobler, and has even diminished the prejudices of th!d clergy.” ” C.J.’’ asks, ” What is truth ?” I answer : ” That which is conformable to fact ” : and the dogmas of Christianity are not. It does not follow that because many well-educated men have become dissipated, that ignorance is not out greatest curse. Our education is not perfect now, and people who were thought well edui cated a few years ago often nad not the knowledge that is thought necessary now in our public schools. I would advise I '' C.J.” to read Herbert Spencer’s little work on ” Education.” Our own system is gradually working towards what Was advocated by the author in that work many years ago. Ingersoll said : ” Ileal education is the hope of the future, the development of the brain, the civilisation of the heart, will drive want and crime from the world. The school house is the real cathedral, and science the only possible saviour of the human race. Education, real education, is the friend of honesty, of morality, of temperance.” ” C.J.” says : ” It is not God’s method to cause men to do right by absolute compulsion.” This sounds to me very like presumption, to talk of God’s method as if he knew the Deity as well as his next-door neighbour. As I have, pointed out, it is not a case of twisting and distorting Scripture. Men have based their right to persecute on plain texts that cannot be distorted. The Bible says : ” Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”- Tnis has been quoted in law courts, and thousands have had to suffer death through it. Jonn Wesley said to give up belief in withcraft was to give up belief in the Bible. I have been quite prepared to quote other texts from the Bible to support my contentions without twisting or distorting them. Even now there are plenty of people who think they are good Christians, and who think it right to treat those who object to their faith with social ostracism.

I must. congratulate ” C.J.” cn his share in this controversy. He has avoided personalities and has made the best of a bad case; He has the advantage of me in education, and had he been defending secularism instead of faith would have come out best. As it is, we see what straits he has been driven to in his reply to my arguments on the evolution of the idea of God. Man feels, sees and hears with his brain, and the things that .affect these senses are all natural, and it is simply childish to try and draw an analogy between the known and the unknown. Then he argues that -“the Christian having the highest conception of God, must have the right one.” He forgets that the Christian idea of God as drawn from the Bible is not a high one, and according to Christianity, is unchangeable, and if the idea has evolved to what it is, it niay change again It is better and more moral to say we do not know ; it is more honest than to dogmatise on mysteries the human mind has not fathomed.

I have to thank you, Mr Editor, for the latitude you have allowed us in this discussion, and with your permission will close with a few words to Gordon Brown. He says : “I cannot refute the divinity and statements of Christ.” I have not been called upon Io do so, and it would take up too much space to deal effectively with it now. I may toll him, though, that the good teachings of Christ had been taught by other philosophers thousands of years before. His divinity lias been disproved time after time. For proof of this I would ask him to read Laing’s “ Modern Science and Modern Thought ” and Reran’s “ Life ofi Christ,” which will show him the unsound basis of the New J’cs’tament, which was written in a time when a miracle was a common occurrence and nothing was thought of exaggeration on the side of superstition. My reasons for taking the part I have in this controversy are better expressed by W. B. Columbine in the June issue of the “Literary Guide.” “The altar.” he says, “ from which we draw our inspiration is the altar of truth ; the passion which warms our hearts and guides our lives is the love of truth and corresponding hatred for insincerity and falsehood. . . . Against the man and the teacher who, 'however dimly, is shadowed ferth in the pages of the Gospels, we make no warfare. Let Jesus be placed in the ranks of the prophets, by the side of Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed • and, whi'h exercising the right to criticise his recorded life and utterances, we should not exhibit a spirit of passionate vehemence against him. But when we arc pointed to the hill of Calvary and to the Roman cross, from which there bangs a dying God, who was born of a virgin and had worked miracles, who rose bodily and ascended into heaven, heart and intellect alike arise against this monstrous accretion of pagan and Jewish ( myths and conceptions.” One of Christ’s statements., carries its own refutation. Speaking of his second coming, he said, “ Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till these things be fulfilled.” These prophecies of his return to earth may be found in the Gosnels of Matthew and Luke.. They are distinct and definite and untrue. Generation after generation has passed, and they remain unfulfilled. —I am, etc., -31st August. VTI.

(This correspondence is now closed.— Ed.)