This lecture was delivered in Mercantile Hall, Boston,
on April l0, 1861,
and was later published in pamphlet form by the F P Mendip, (Boston)
Investigator office. This is its first appearance in book form -
from Women Without Religion"No Gods,No Masters" edited by Annie
Laurie Gaylor and published by the Freedom From Religion Foundation
MY FRIENDS: -IN UNDERTAKING THE INQUIRY of
the existence of a God, I am fully conscious of the difficulties I have to
encounter. I am well aware that the very question produces in most minds a
feeling of awe, as if stepping on forbidden ground, too holy and sacred
for mortals to approach. The very question strikes them with horror, and
it is owing to this prejudice so deeply implanted by education, and also
strengthened by public sentiment, that so few are willing to give it a
fair and impartial investigation, knowing but too well that it casts a
stigma and reproach upon any person bold enough to undertake the task,
unless his previously known opinions are a guarantee that his conclusions
would be in accordance and harmony with the popular demand. But believing
as I do, that Truth only is beneficial, and Error, from whatever source,
and under whatever name, is pernicious to man, I consider no place too
holy, no subject too sacred, for man's earnest investigation; for by so
doing only can we arrive at Truth, learn to discriminate it from Error,
and be able to accept the one and reject the other.
Nor is this the only impediment in the way
of this inquiry. The question arises. Where shall we begin? We have been
told, that "by searching none can find out God," which has so
far proved true; for, as yet, no one has ever been able to find him. The
most strenuous believer has to acknowledge that it is only a belief, but
he knows nothing on the subject. Where, then, shall we search for his
existence? Enter the material world; ask the Sciences whether they can
disclose the mystery? Geology speaks of the structure of the Earth, the
formation of the different strata, of coal, of granite, of the whole
mineral kingdom.-It reveals the remains and traces of animals long
extinct, but gives us no clue whereby we may prove the existence of a God.
Natural history gives us a knowledge of the
animal kingdom in general; the different organisms, structures, and powers
of the various species. Physiology teaches the nature of man, the laws
that govern his being, the functions of the vital organs, and the
conditions upon which alone health and life depend. ... But in the whole
animal economy-though the brain is considered to be a
"microcosm," in which may be traced a resemblance or
relationship with everything in Nature-not a spot can be found to indicate
the existence of a God.
Mathematics lays the foundation of all the
exact sciences. It teaches the art of combining numbers, of calculating
and measuring distances, how to solve problems, to weigh mountains, to
fathom the depths of the ocean; but gives no directions how to ascertain
the existence of a God.
Enter Nature's great
laboratory-Chemistry.-She will speak to you of the various elements, their
combinations and uses, of the gases constantly evolving and combining in
different proportions, producing all the varied objects, the interesting
and important phenomena we behold. She proves the indestructibility of
matter, and its inherent property-motion; but in all her operations, no
demonstrable fact can be obtained to indicate the existence of a God.
Astronomy tells us of the wonders of the
Solar System-the eternally revolving planets, the rapidity and certainty
of their motions, the distance from planet to planet, from star to star.
It predicts with astonishing and marvellous precision the phenomena of
eclipses, the visibility upon our Earth of comets, and proves the
immutable law of gravitation, but is entirely silent on the existence of a
God.
In fine, descend into the bowels of the
Earth, and you will learn what it contains; into the depths of the ocean,
and you will find the inhabitants of the great deep; but neither in the
Earth above, nor the waters below, can you obtain any knowledge of his
existence. Ascend into the heavens, and enter the "milky way,"
go from planet to planet to the remotest star, and ask the eternally
revolving systems, Where is God? and Echo answers, Where?
The Universe of Matter gives us no record
of his existence. Where next shall we search? Enter the Universe of Mind,
read the millions of volumes written on the subject, and in all the
speculations, the assertions, the assumptions, the theories, and the
creeds, you can only find Man stamped in an indelible impress his own mind
on every page. In describing his God, he delineated his own character: the
picture he drew represents in living and ineffaceable colours the epoch of
his existence-the period he lived in. It was a great mistake to say that
God made man in his image. Man, in all ages, made his God in his own
image; and we find that just in accordance with his civilization, his
knowledge, his experience, his taste, his refinement, his sense of right,
of justice, of freedom, and humanity, so has he made his God. But whether
coarse or refined; cruel and vindictive, or kind and generous; an
implacable tyrant, or a gentle and loving father; it still was the
emanation of his own mind-the picture of himself.
But, you ask, how came it that man thought
or wrote about God at all? The answer is very simple. Ignorance is the
mother of Superstition. In proportion to man's ignorance is he
superstitious-does he believe in the mysterious. The very name has a charm
for him. Being unacquainted with the nature and laws of things around him,
with the true causes of the effects he witnessed, he ascribed them to
false ones-to supernatural agencies. The savage, ignorant of the mechanism
of a watch, attributes the ticking to a spirit. The so-called civilized
man, equally ignorant of the mechanism of the Universe, and the laws which
govern it, ascribes it to the same erroneous cause. Before electricity was
discovered, a thunderstorm was said to come from the wrath of an offended
Deity. To this fiction of man's uncultivated mind, has been attributed all
of good and of evil, of wisdom and of folly. Man has talked about him,
written about him, disputed about him, fought about him,-sacrificed
himself, and extirpated his fellow man. Rivers of blood and oceans of
tears have been shed to please him, yet no one has ever been able to
demonstrate his existence.
But the Bible, we are told, reveals this
great mystery. Where Nature is dumb, and Man ignorant, Revelation speaks
in the authoritative voice of prophecy. Then let us see whether that
Revelation can stand the test of reason and of truth. God, we are told, is
omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent,-all wise, all just, and all good;
that he is perfect. So far, so well; for less than perfection were
unworthy of a God. The first act recorded of him is, that he created the
world out of nothing; but unfortunately the revelation of
Science-Chemistry-which is based not on written words, but demonstrable
facts, says that Nothing has no existence, and therefore out of Nothing,
Nothing could be made. Revelation tells us that the world was created in
six days. Here Geology steps in and says, that it requires thousands of
ages to form the various strata of the earth. The Bible tells us that the
earth was flat and stationary, and the sun moves around the earth.
Copernicus and Galileo flatly deny this flat assertion, and demonstrate by
Astronomy that the earth is spherical, and revolves around the sun.
Revelation tells us that on the fourth day God created the sun, moon, and
stars. This, Astronomy calls a moon story, and says that the first three
days, before the great torchlight was manufactured and suspended in the
great lantern above, must have been rather dark.
The division of the waters above from the
waters below, and the creation of the minor objects, I pass by, and come
at once to the sixth day.
Having finished, in five days, this
stupendous production, with its mighty mountains, its vast seas, its
fields and woods; supplied the waters with fishes-from the whale that
Jonah swallowed to the little Dutch herring; peopled the woods with
inhabitants-from the tiger, the lion, the bear, the elephant with his
trunk, the dromedary with his hump, the deer with his antlers, the
nightingale with her melodies, down to the serpent which tempted mother
Eve; covered the fields with vegetation, decorated the gardens with
flowers, hung the trees with fruits; and surveying this glorious world as
it lay spread out like a map before him, the question naturally suggested
itself. What is it all for, unless there were beings capable of admiring,
of appreciating, and of enjoying the delights this beautiful world could
afford? And suiting the action to the impulse, he said, "Let us make
man." "So God created man in his own image; in the image of God
created he him, male and female created he them."
I presume by the term
"image" we are not to understand a near resemblance of face or
form, but in the image or likeness of his knowledge, his power, his
wisdom, and perfection. Having thus made man, he placed him (them) in the
garden of Eden-the loveliest and most enchanting spot at the very head of
creation, and bade them (with the single restriction not to eat of the
tree of knowledge), to live, to love, and to be happy.
What a delightful picture,
could we only rest here! But did these beings, fresh from the hand of
omnipotent wisdom, in whose image they were made, answer the great object
of their creation? Alas! no. No sooner were they installed in their
Paradises home, than they violated the first, the only injunction given
them, and fell from their high estate; and not only they, but by a
singular justice of that very merciful Creator, their innocent posterity
to all coming generations, fell with them! Does that bespeak wisdom and
perfection in the Creator, or in the creature? But what was the cause of
this tremendous fall, which frustrated the whole design of the creation?
The Serpent tempted mother Eve, and she, like a good wife, tempted her
husband. But did God not know when he created the Serpent, that it would
tempt the woman, and that she was made out of such frail materials, (the
rib of Adam,) as not to be able to resist the temptation? If he did not
know, then his knowledge was at fault; if he did, but could not prevent
that calamity, then his power was at fault; if he knew and could, but
would not, then his goodness was at fault. Choose which you please, and it
remains alike fatal to the rest.
Revelation tells us that
God made man perfect, and found him imperfect; then he pronounced all
things good, and found them most desperately bad. "And God saw that
the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination
of the thought of his heart was evil continually. And it repented the Lord
that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."
"And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created, from the
face of the earth; both man and beasts, and the creeping things, and the
fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them." So he
destroyed everything, except Noah with his family, and a few household
pets. Why he saved them is hard to say, unless it was to reserve materials
as stock in hand to commence a new world with; but really, judging of the
character of those he saved, by their descendants, it strikes me it would
have been much better, and given him far less trouble, to have let them
slip also, and with his improved experience made a new world out of fresh
and superior materials.
As it was, this wholesale
destruction even, was a failure. The world was not one jot better after
the flood than before. His chosen children were just as bad as ever, and
he had to send his prophets, again and again, to threaten, to frighten, to
coax, to cajole, and to flatter them into good behaviour. But all to no
effect. They grew worse and worse; and having made a covenant with Noah
after he had sacrificed of "every clean beast and of every clean
fowl,"-"The Lord smelt the sweet savour; and the Lord said in
his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for
the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I
again smite any more everything living, as I have done." And so he
was forced to resort to the last sad alternative of sending "his only
begotten son," his second self, to save them. But alas! "his own
received him not," and so he was obliged to adopt the Gentiles, and
die to save the world. Did he succeed, even then? Is the world saved?
Saved! From what? From ignorance? It is all around us. From poverty, vice,
crime, sin, misery, and shame? It abounds everywhere. Look into your
poor-houses, your prisons, your lunatic asylums; contemplate the whip, the
instruments of torture, and of death; ask the murderer, or his victim;
listen to the ravings of the maniac, the shrieks of distress, the groans
of despair; mark the cruel deeds of the tyrant, the crimes of slavery, and
the suffering of the oppressed; count the millions of lives lost by fire,
by water, and by the sword; measure the blood spilled, the tears shed, the
sighs of agony drawn from the expiring victims on the altar of
fanaticism;-and tell me from what the world was saved? And why was it not
saved? Why does God still permit these horrors to afflict the race? Does
omniscience not know it? Could omnipotence not do it? Would infinite
wisdom, power, and goodness allow his children thus to live, to suffer,
and to die? No! Humanity revolts against such a supposition.
Ah! not now, not here, says the believer.
Hereafter will he save them. Save them hereafter! From what? From the
apple eaten by our mother Eve? What a mockery! If a rich parent were to
let his children live in ignorance, poverty, and wretchedness, all their
lives, and hold out to them the promise of a fortune at some time
hereafter, he would justly be considered a criminal, or a madman. The
parent is responsible to his offspring the Creator to the creature.
The testimony of Revelation has failed. Its
account of the creation of the material world is disproved by science. Its
account of the creation of man in the image of perfection, is disproved by
its own internal evidence. To test the Bible God by justice and
benevolence, he could not be good; to test him by reason and knowledge, he
could not be wise; to test him by the light of the truth, the rule of
consistency, we must come to the inevitable conclusion that, like the
Universe of matter and of mind, this pretended Revelation has also failed
to demonstrate the existence of a God.
Methinks I hear the believer say, you are
unreasonable; you demand an impossibility; we are finite, and therefore
cannot understand, much less define and demonstrate the infinite. Just so!
But if I am unreasonable in asking you to demonstrate the existence of the
being you wish me to believe in, are you not infinitely more unreasonable
to expect me to believe-blame, persecute, and punish me for not
believing-in what you have to acknowledge you cannot understand?
But, says the Christian, the world exists,
and therefore there must have been a God to create it. That does not
follow. The mere fact of its existence does not prove a Creator.
Then how came the Universe into existence?
We do not know but the ignorance of man is certainly no proof of the
existence of a God. Yet upon that very ignorance has it been predicated,
and is maintained. From the little knowledge we have, we are justified in
the assertion that the Universe never was created, from the simple fact
that not one atom of it can ever be annihilated. To suppose a Universe
created, is to suppose a time when it did not exist, and that is a
self-evident absurdity. Besides, where was the Creator before it was
created? Nay, where is he now? Outside of that Universe, which means the
all in all, above, below, and around? That is another absurdity. Is he
contained within? Then he can be only a part, for the whole includes all
the parts. If only a part, then he could not be its Creator, for a part
cannot create the whole. But the world could not have made itself. True;
nor could God have made himself; and if you must have a God to make the
world, you will be under the same necessity to have another to make him,
and others still to make them, and so on until reason and common sense are
at a stand-still.
The same argument applies to a First Cause.
We can no more admit of a first than a last cause. What is a first cause?
The one immediately preceding the last effect, which was an effect to a
cause in its turn-an effect to causes, themselves effects. All we know is
an eternal chain of cause and effect, without beginning as without end.
But is there no evidence of intelligence,
of design, and consequently of a designer? I see no evidence of either.
What is intelligence? It is not a thing, a substance, an existence in
itself, but simply a property of matter, manifesting itself through
organizations. We have no knowledge of, nor can we conceive of,
intelligence apart from organized matter; and we find that from the
smallest and simplest insect, through all the links and gradations in
Nature's great chain, up to Man-just in accordance with the organism, the
amount, and quality of brain, so are the capacities to receive
impressions, the power to retain them, and the abilities to manifest and
impart them to others; namely, to have its peculiar nature cultivated and
developed, so as to bear mental fruits, just as the cultivated earth bears
vegetation-physical fruits. Not being able to recognize an independent
intelligence, I can perceive no design or designer except in the works of
man.
But, says Paley, does the watch not prove a
watchmaker- a design, and therefore a designer? How much more then does
the Universe? Yes; the watch shows design, and the watchmaker did not
leave us in the dark on the subject, but clearly and distinctly stamped
his design on the face of the watch. Is it as clearly stamped on the
Universe? Where is the design, in the oak to grow to its majestic height?
or in the thunderbolt that rent it asunder? In the formation of the wing
of the bird, to enable it to fly, in accordance with the prompting of its
nature: or in the sportsman to shoot it down while long? In the butterfly
to dance in the sunshine: or its being crushed in the tiny fingers of a
child? Design in men's capacity for the acquisition of knowledge, or in
his groping in ignorance? In the necessity to obey the laws of health, or
in the violation of them, which produces diseases In the desire to he
happy, or in the causes that prevent it, and make him live in toil,
misery, and suffering
The watchmaker not only stamped his design
on the of the watch, but he teaches how to wind it up when run down; how
to repair the machinery when out of order; and how to put a new spring in
when the old one is broken, and leave the watch as good as ever. Does the
great Watch-maker, as he is called, show the same intelligence and power
in keeping, or teaching others to keep, this contemplated mechanism- man -
always in good order? and when the life-spring is broken replace it with
another, and leave him just the same? If an Infinite Intelligence deigned
man to possess knowledge, he could not be ignorant; to be healthy, he
could not he diseased; to he virtuous, he could not be vicious; to be
wise, he could not act so foolish as to trouble himself about the Gods,
and neglect his own best interests.
But, says the believer, here is a wonderful
adaptation of means to ends; the eye to see, the ear to hear etc. As, this
is very wonderful; but not one jot more so, than if the eye were made to
hear, and the car to see. The Supporters of Design use sometimes very
strange arguments. A friend of mine, a very intelligent man, with quite a
scientific taste, endeavoured once to convince me of a Providential
design, from the fact that a fish, which had always lived in the Mammoth
Cave of Kentucky, was entirely blind. Here, said he, is strong evidence;
in that dark cave, where nothing was to he seen, the fish needed no eyes,
and therefore it has none. He forgot the demonstrable fact that the
element of light is indispensable in the formation of the organ of sight,
"About which it could not be formed, and no Providence, or Gods,
could enable the fish to see. That fish story reminds me of the Methodist
preacher who proved the wisdom and benevolence of Providence in always
placing the rivers near large cities, and death at the end of life; for
Oh! my dear hearers, said he, what would have become of us had he placed
it at the beginning?
Everything is wonderful, and wonderful just
in proportion as we are ignorant; but that proves no "design" or
"designer." But did things come by chance? It exists only in the
perverted mind of the believer, who, while insisting that God was the
cause of everything, leaves Him without any cause. The Atheist believes as
little in the one as in the other. He knows that no effect could exist
without an adequate cause; that everything in the Universe is governed by
laws.
The Universe is one vast chemical
laboratory, in constant operation, by her internal forces. The laws or
principles of attraction, cohesion, and repulsion, produce in never-ending
succession the phenomena of composition, decomposition, and recomposition.
The how, we are too ignorant to understand, too modest to presume, and too
honest to profess. Had man been a patient and impartial inquirer, and not
with childish presumption attributed everything he could not understand,
to supernatural causes, given names to hide his ignorance, but observed
the operations of Nature, he would undoubtedly have known more, been
wiser, and happier.
As it is, Superstition has ever been the
great impediment to the acquisition of knowledge. Every progressive step
of man clashed against the two-edged sword of Religion, to whose narrow
restrictions he had but too often to succumb, or march onward at the
expense of interest, reputation, and even life itself.
But, we are told, that Religion is natural;
the belief in a God universal. Were it natural, then it would indeed be
universal; but it is not. We have ample evidence to the contrary.
According to Dr. Livingstone, there are whole tribes or nations,
civilized, moral, and virtuous; yes, so honest that they expose their
goods for sale without guard or value set upon them, trusting to the
honour of the purchaser to pay its proper price.
Yet these people have not the remotest idea
of a God, and he found it impossible to impart it to them. And in all ages
of the world, some of the most civilized, the wisest, and the best, were
entire unbelievers; only they dared not openly avow it, except at the risk
of their lives. Proscription, the torture and the stake, were found most
efficient means to seal the lips of heretics; and though the march of
progress has broken the infernal machines, and extinguished the fires of
the Inquisition, the proscription, and more refined but not less cruel and
bitter persecutions of an intolerant and bigoted public opinion, in
Protestant countries, as well as in Catholic, on account of belief, are
quite enough to prevent men from honestly avowing their true sentiments
upon the subject. Hence there are few possessed of the moral courage of a
Humboldt.
If the belief in a god were natural, there
would be no need to teach it. Children would possess it as well as adults,
the layman as the priest, the heathen as much as the missionary. We don't
have to teach the general elements of human nature;-the five senses,
seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. They are universal; so
would religion be were it natural, but it is not. On the contrary, it is
an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are Atheists, and
were religion not inculcated into their minds they would remain so. Even
as it is, they are great sceptics, until made sensible of the potent
weapon by which religion has ever been propagated, namely, fear-fear of
the lash of public opinion here, and of jealous, vindictive God hereafter.
No; there is no religion in human nature, nor human nature in religion. It
is purely artificial, the result of education, while Atheism is natural,
and, were the human mind not perverted and bewildered by the mysteries and
follies of superstition, would be universal.
But the people have been made to believe
that were it not for religion, the world would be destroyed:-man would
become a monster, chaos and confusion would reign supreme. These erroneous
notions conceived in ignorance, propagated by superstition, and kept alive
by an interested and corrupt priesthood who fatten the credulity of the
public, are very difficult to be eradicated.
But sweep all the belief in the
supernatural from the face of the earth, and the world would remain just
the same. The seasons would follow each other in their regular succession;
the stars would shine in the firmament; the sun would shed his benign and
vivifying influence of light and heat upon us; the clouds would discharge
their burden in gentle and refreshing showers; and cultivated fields would
bring forth vegetation; summer would ripen the golden grain, ready for
harvest; the trees would bear fruits; the birds would sing in accordance
with their happy instinct, and all Nature would smile as joyously around
us as ever. Nor would man degenerate, Oh! no. His nature, too would remain
the same. He would have to be obedient to the physical, mental, and moral
laws of his being, or to suffer the natural penalty for their violation;
observe the mandates of society, or receive the punishment. His affections
would be just as warm, the love of self-preservation as strong, the desire
for happiness and the fear of pain as great. He would love freedom,
justice, and truth, and hate oppression, fraud, and falsehood, as much as
ever.
Sweep all belief in the supernatural from
the globe, and you would chase away the whole fraternity of spectres,
ghosts, and hobgoblins, which have so befogged and bewildered the human
mind, that hardly a clear ray of the light of Reason can penetrate it. You
would cleanse and purify the heart of the noxious, poisonous weeds of
superstition, with its bitter, deadly fruits-hypocrisy, bigotry, and
intolerance, and fill it with charity and forbearance towards erring
humanity. You would give man courage to sustain him in trials and
misfortune, sweeten his temper, give him a new zest for the duties, the
virtues, and the pleasures of life.
Morality does not depend on the belief in
any religion. History gives ample evidence that the more belief the less
virtue and goodness. Nor need we go back to ancient times to see the
crimes and atrocities perpetrated under its sanction. We have enough in
our own times. Look at the present crisis-at the South with 4,000,000 of
human beings in slavery, bought and sold like brute chattels under the
sanction of religion and of God, which the Reverends Van Dykes and the
Raphalls of the North fully endorse, and the South complains that the
reforms in the North are owing to Infidelity. Morality depends on an
accurate knowledge of the nature of man, of the laws that govern his
being, the principles of right, of justice, and humanity, and the
conditions requisite to make him healthy, rational, virtuous, and happy.
The belief in a God has failed to produce
this desirable end. On the contrary, while it could not make man better,
it has made him worse; for in preferring blind faith in things unseen and
unknown to virtue and morality, in directing his attention from the known
to the unknown, from the real to the imaginary, from the certain here to a
fancied hereafter, from the fear of himself, of the natural result of vice
and crime, to some whimsical despot, it perverted his judgment, degraded
him in his own estimation, corrupted his feelings, destroyed his sense of
right, of justice, and of truth, and made him a moral coward and a
hypocrite. The lash of a hereafter is no guide for us here. Distant fear
cannot control present passion. It is much easier to confess your sins in
the dark, than to acknowledge them in the light; to make it up with a God
you don't see, than with a man whom you do. Besides, religion has always
left a back door open for sinners to creep out of at the eleventh hour.
But teach man to do right, to love justice, to revere truth, to be
virtuous, not because a God would reward or punish him hereafter, but
because it is right; and as every act brings its own reward or its own
punishment, it would best promote his interest by promoting the welfare of
society. Let him feel the great truth that our highest happiness consists
in making all around us happy; and it would be an infinitely truer and
safer guide for man to a life of usefulness, virtue, and morality, than
all the beliefs in all the Gods ever imagined.
The more refined and transcendental
religionists have often said to me, if you do away with religion, you
would destroy the most beautiful element of human nature-the feeling of
devotion and reverence, ideality, and sublimity. This, too, is an error.
These sentiments would be cultivated just the same, only we would transfer
the devotion from the unknown to the known; from the Gods, who, if they
existed, could not need it, to man who does. Instead of reverencing an
imaginary existence, man would learn to revere justice and truth. Ideality
and sublimity would refine his feelings, and enable him to admire and
enjoy the ever-changing beauties of Nature; the various and almost
unlimited powers and capacities of the human mind; the exquisite and
indescribable charms of a well cultivated, highly refined, virtuous, noble
man.
But not only have the priests tried to make
the very term Atheism odious, as if it would destroy all of good and
beautiful in Nature, but some of the reformers, not having the moral
courage to avow their own sentiments, wishing to be popular, fearing least
their reforms would be considered Infidel, (as all reforms assuredly are,)
shield themselves from the stigma, by joining in the tirade against
Atheism, and associate it with everything that is vile, with the crime of
slavery, the corruptions of the Church, and all the vices imaginable. This
is false, and they know it. Atheism protests against this injustice. No
one has a right to give the term a false, a forced interpretation, to suit
his own purposes, (this applies also to some of the Infidels who stretch
and force the term Atheist out of its legitimate significance). As well
might we use the terms Episcopalian, Unitarian, Universalist, to signify
vice and corruption, as the term Atheist, which means simply a disbelief
in a God, because finding no demonstration of his existence, man's reason
will not allow him to believe, nor his conviction to play the hypocrite,
and profess what he does not believe. Give it its true significance, and
he will abide the consequence; but don't fasten upon it the vices
belonging to yourselves. Hypocrisy is the prolific mother of a large
family!
In conclusion, the Atheist says to the
honest conscientious believer, Though I cannot believe in your God whom
you have failed to demonstrate, I believe in man; if I have no faith in
your religion, I have faith, unbounded, unshaken faith in the principles
of right, of justice, and humanity. Whatever good you are willing to do
for the sake of your God, I am full as willing to do for the sake of man.
But the monstrous crimes the believer perpetrated in persecuting and
exterminating his fellowman on account of difference of belief, the
Atheist, knowing that belief is not voluntary, but depends on evidence,
and therefore there can be no merit in the belief of any religions, nor
demerit in a disbelief in all of them, could never be guilty of. Whatever
good you would do out of fear of punishment, or hope of reward hereafter,
the Atheist would do simply because it is good; and being so, he would
receive the far surer and more certain reward, springing from well-doing,
which would constitute his pleasure, and promote his happiness.
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