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Freethought Review, Volume II, Issue 21, 1 June 1885, Page 1

Roman Catholic Churches, Cathedrals, Convents, Schools, Colleges, &c., all built from the hard-earned wages of a comparatively small section of the community ! Is it any wonder that the Roman Catholics of the colony are as a rule poor? —“ Hewers of wood, “ and drawers of water.” The following is one of many similar cases : —A large stone convent had to be built, and the money had to be provided by a not very large parish ; the priest made out a list of his congregation, and opposite each name placed the sum he considered they could pay. We know of one who by thrift and hard work had accumulated property to the outside value of about £7OO, who was assessed to the tune of £7O ! And we have it on reliable authority that another faithful one raised his donation by mortgaging his growing crops. It is undeniable that fear is the motive power which moves these people to give so liberally. Fear, which is the result of a blind unreasoning faith ! Let a people believe that their priests (no matter of what religion) have the power to shut the gates of a heaven and to throw open the gates of a hell; and that people will maintain, in more or less splendour, their priests and their temples. This is why the Roman Catholic Church so bitterly opposes the growing disbelief in a material and a burning hell ! and tries with all its power to stifle free enquiry and scientific research —knowing full well that with the advance of knowledge, men will rid themselves of this frightful hell fire bugbear, and in doing so will, —well, will not contribute so freely ! This applies, though with less force, to the Protestant sects, and one cannot but be struck in travelling through the country with the number of Churches and comfortable parsons’ houses— every little township is to be seen one or more of these houses of God. A great deal has been written and spoken about the ruinous expense of our secular national education system, and the cost, per head of population, has been figured with an admirable mathematical nicety ; but, we wonder if the calculation has ever been made of the tax per head to build these many Churches, residences, &c. ; and to maintain the many hundreds of social drones. We believe the statement would astonish some of our political economists —and that in the future it will be no inconsiderable tax removed from the industry of the colony. From many a Christian pulpit has been preached the funeral sermon of General Gordon, the Christian soldier. The religious papers have also used his name “ to point a moral or adorn a tale ” ; and have urged their readers “ to go and do likewise.” We admire the brave soldier, the man who sacrificed his life to his sense of duty ; but when we come to consider his character as a Christian gentleman what do we find ? We find a gloomy fanatic with peculiar views, a man who shoots with his own hand some treacherous Sheiks, and in the same exultant telegram informing his friends of the act entreats them to pray for the poor

Soudanese ! We have it on the best authoritythe authority of a comrade in —that he was a morose and gloomy religious enthusiast, intolerant of opinions that differed from his views. General Gordon was evidently more inspired by the Old than the New Testament —by Joshua than Jesus ! “ Ivo,” in a recent lecture he gave in Wellington, made some very sensible and telling remarks on the subject of “ Gospel Temperance.” He said that total abstinence from strong drink was not a question of creeds, it belonged to all alike ; Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, and Freethinkers, and that to make a Christian guild of it, like the blue ribbon movement, deterred many (who did not believe in the Christian faith) from joining ; and thereby damaged the cause. Indeed we cannot but think that, in the fitness of things, if any sect is entitled to claim temperance as a tenet, it is Mohammedanism, for the Koran absolutely prohibits the use of intoxicating drinksbut we do not think that the cleverest casuist can claim the same for the Christian Bible. The fact is, that the Church was first of all, by outside pressure, forced to take up the temperance question ; and now hopes to regain lost ground by patronising so practical and useful a cause. But we think that the cause of “ temperance” will be benefited when its advocates prove its worth from social and economic grounds alone, disassociated from any creed. The passage from a speech of Sir Julius Vogel, quoted and commented upon by Mr. Rae, in our last number, is well worth further consideration. Sir Julius’s words were :—“ Those who have the interest of “ religion at heart, no matter what their faith or creed, “ should not let differences between themselves so “ interfere with what they all have at heart, as to allow “ those who believe in nothing to creep in, and create “ such a spirit as the dreadful one I have described.” This dreadful spirit appears to be want of faith in “ God or religion,” which absence of belief Sir Julius thinks will not be “ for the happiness of the country.” From the reference he makes to different creeds, it is evident Sir Julius holds broad views on theological questions. He would be quite content, so long as the people of the colony held some form of belief in the supernatural, but he objects to people “ who believe in “ nothing.” So do we. Fortunately, this particular form of belief is rare, or perhaps non-existent. In the course of its evolution the human race has had a good many beliefs impressed upon it under pain of extinction if disbelieved. These are the beliefs which people “ who t! believe in nothing ” really hold most tenaciously. What they object to is the attempt of theology to substitute for these real beliefs in real things what in our day has become a sort of half belief in figments of the human imagination.

Quite unconsciously, apparently, Sir Julius Vogel draws a distinction between religion and “ faith or “ creed,” and hadhekeptthis distinction steadily in view, he would not have laid himself open to the charge of inconsistency if not of insincerity. Deep down in the human consciousness there is a clear perception that this distinction is real. We all of us know people who in spite of their creed or want of creed we instinctively recognise as “ religious ” in the best sense of that much abused term. On the other hand, we all know people who have the most thorough belief in the whole scheme of Christianity, whose faith indeed is as a grain of mustard seed of the most pungent kind, whom we as instinctively perceive not to be properly religious at all. Not to take extreme cases it is evident that the phrase “ a religious person ” which would include a Watson, Bishop of Landaff, and exclude a George Ehot, must have a very indefinite meaning. To minds not rendered utterly distorted and unhealthy by a long course of theological tight-lacing, religion still preserves so much of its original character as being that which binds men together, not that which divides. It has been well defined as “ morality touched with emotion.” The religion which Sir Julius really meant, when he said it would not conduce to the happiness of the country to be “ without religion,” was of this kind. It includes the love of truth and right and that clear perception of common interests and common duties which, based on positive knowledge and actuated by sympathy, grows up in a free state to be a very real and powerful “religion of humanity.”

Theologians, and statesmen, misled by conceptions due to theological survivals, are naturally alarmed at the prevailing anarchy of opinion which they regard as dangerous to the social order. That it is so is unquestionable, but the path of safety is not to be found in any reactionary attempt to return to theological and metaphysical methods, but in pushing on boldly in those of positive science. To do otherwise—to depart from the secular system, for instance, in the case of State education, in the supposed interests of that mass of moral sentiment which is alone worthy of the name of religion—is only to prolong that mental and moral anarchy which is deplored. For in what does it essentially consist but in the conflict, often in the same mind, of modes of thought between which agreement is impossible. The man who is quite sure that he knows the will of God about any particular subject, or is quite sure that his conscience will reveal it to him, or that at the lowest his own mind is an infallible guide, will not greatly trouble himself about facts and reasons. The man to whom fact and reason stand in the place of God finds himself in constant discord with the other. To agree means for one of the two to adopt the method of his opponent. As a temporary expedient this is constantly done. To ensure a permanent peace either the theological or the positive method must triumph. When the right happens to be also the strong side, compromise is folly.

The importance attached to religious sanctions, so far as their influence on morality and social order is concerned, has always been much exaggerated. As a matter of fact, supernatural rewards and punishments which arc a long way off and may be forfeited or evaded, do not exert much direct influence on the mind of the average man. Even when that belief in

the supernatural, which is now dying away, existed in full force, the private lives of the Popes were a scandal to Europe. As Dr. Draper says, “The signal “ peculiarity of the Papacy is that, though its history “ may be imposing, its biography is infamous.” That a time came when the Catholic Church effected a great moral and social reform, only proves that theological beliefs are not an essential element of progress. In the course of his discussion of this question, Comte makes the profound remark, that “ the moral power of “ Catholicism was due to its suitability as an organ of “general opinions, which must have become the more “ powerfully universal from their active reproduction by “ an independent and venerated clergy ; and that “personal interest in a future life has had, comparatively, “ very little influence at any time upon practical “ conduct.”

Freethinkers should glance through a little book called “ Father Lambert’s Notes on Ingersoll” if they want to see the lengths to which a certain class of theologians are prepared to go in the direction of sophistry and misrepresentation. It has lately been reprinted in Dunedin, and is regarded as a complete defence of the faith by the more ignorant among both Catholics and Protestants. The writer quotes a large number of garbled extracts from the reply of Colonel Ingersoll to an article in defence of Christianity by a Mr. Jeremiah T. Black, of Washington City, and comments upon each in a spirit of vulgar self-suffi-ciency which educated members of his own Church will surely be among the first to condemn. Father Lambert concludes his “Notes” in these words:— “ We have said enough to convince our readers that “Mr. Ingersoll is profligate of statement ; that he is not “ to be trusted ; that he is unscrupulous ; that as a “ logician and metaphysician he is beneath contempt; “ that he is ignorant and superficial—full of gas and “ gush ; in a word that he is a philosophical charlatan “ of the first water, who mistakes curious listeners for “ disciples and applause for approval.” A good deal must depend upon the “ readers ” who are to be “ convinced.” For our own part, after carefully reading these “ Notes,” we have come to the conclusion that the above quotation very fairly describes Father Lambert himself. Our only doubt is whether he ought more properly to be regarded as ignorant, or as impudently dishonest and extremely cunning.

We notice that persistent efforts arc being made by the various denominations to introduce the thin end of the wedge (which they hope will destroy the secular character of our system of State education) in the shape of reading the Bible in schools. Now as Freethinkers we have no more objection to the Bible being read in schools or elsewhere than any other book, though there is at least as much reason for wishing that an expurgated edition should be used as there is in the case of Terence, about which so much has been said lately. What we object to is, that this venerable collection of ancient writings, containing as they do much false history, much erroneous science, and much imperfect moral teaching, should be read as the word of God and therefore be regarded as absolutely true and of divine authority. We say that the State has no right to put its educational “ Hall-mark ” upon what so many regard as base metal, or at best pure gold mixed with a large amount of alloy. One Church

at least practically admits that the Bible must be refined in her crucibles before it can be permitted to become part of the moral circulating medium of mankind. To drop metaphor, so long as the Catholic Church holds that she alone is the inspired interpreter of Scripture, so long may she justly maintain that her children are excluded from schools in which the Bible is read. “ The Ladies Branch of the Society for the Preven- “ tion of Cruelty to Animals,” is entitled to much credit for having formed a juvenile branch of the Society in Wellington. Considering the enormous influence exercised by the sympathetic and benevolent feelings on individual and social life, every effort should be made to train and strengthen them. That this can be done quite as effectually by their practical exercise, and by bringing the force of public opinion, recognised as right, to bear upon them, as by any appeal to extra mundane considerations, is evident enough to anyone acquainted with human nature and the history of mankind. Cruelty of all sorts is due quite as much to want of thought as to want of heart, and as Dr. Hutchinson said at the “children’s meeting” when “ boys illtreated animals it was generally because they “ did not think anything about it.” There is, of course, the brutal boy who grows up into the brutal man, because he has a bad and violent temper which he was never taught to control, but the man who is cruel in word and deed is often so from mere inability to realise in idea what another person suffers in reality. The formation of good moral and intellectual habits is a better guarantee of good behaviour throughout life than is the fear of punishment and hope of reward temporal or eternal. On this ground, if on no other, such organisations as the one we have referred to should be warmly encouraged. It seems that the Wellington ‘ Evening Post ’ took exception to the speeches delivered on the occasion of the formation of the “ Children’s Branch” alluded to above, chiefly on the ground that there was no special reference to the Christian religion in any of them, and hardly any to supernaturalism at all. To this the ‘ Times 7 makes a spirited reply, and points out that animals when cruelly treated are quite indifferent as to the creed of their tormentors. We imagine this is pretty much the same with all living beings, man included. If we had to choose between being burned by a good Catholic or a sound Protestant we should be sorely puzzled which to prefer. As to the ‘Post’s’ contention that such societies are “ foreign to a child’s “nature, and that their influence is to cramp and confine “ sympathies which should be free as air,” we doubt the fact. All depends on their object and mode of working. Social organisation is a great power, and may be well or ill-used. As to “ cramping and confining “ sympathies ” we don’t see how training in universal benevolence can do this, If it does, our general want of wide culture is to blame, and who can resist this almost cosmic influence, when a man of genius like Carlyle, can write of ‘ Darwin’s Origin of Species,’ as he does in his ‘ Reminiscences,’ “ Wonderful to me as “ indicating the capricious stupidity of mankind ; never “ could read a page of it, or waste the least thought upon it.” !!!