Chapman Cohen

“ If human life is but a by-product of the unconscious play of physical force, like a candle flame soon to be blown out or burnt out, what a paltry thing it is!
But the questions of where human life came from, or where it will end, are quite apart from the question of the value and capabilities of human life now. That there are immense possibilities in this life none but a fool will deny. ”

“ Seeing that man is the goal towards which everything has tended from the beginning, seeing that the same eternal and infinite Energy has laboured through the ages at the production of man, and man is the heir of the ages, nothing conceivable seems too great or glorious to believe concerning his destiny.... If there is no limit to human growth in knowledge and wisdom, in love and constructive power, in beauty and joy, we are invested with a magnificent worth and dignity. ”

“ When we take man as a member of a group we have the same principle in operation, even though the form of its expression undergoes alteration. To begin with, the mere fact of living in a group implies the growth of a certain restraint in one's relations to, and of reciprocity in dealing with, others. Men can no more live together without some amount of trust and confidence in each other, or without a crude sense of justice in their dealings with each other, than an individual man can maintain his life by eating deadly poisons. ”

“ History, anthropology, and psychology have combined to place in the hands of the modern Freethinker more deadly weapons than those of previous generations were able to employ. Before these weapons the defences of the faith crumble like wooden forts before modern artillery. It is no longer a question of debating whether religious beliefs are true. So long as we give a straightforward and honest meaning to those beliefs we know that they are not true. It is, to-day, mainly a question of making plain the nature of the forces which led men and women to regard them as being true. ”

“ If we bring up the young with the successful soldier or money-maker before them as examples, while we continue to treat the scientist as a crank, and the reformer as a dangerous criminal, we shall be continuing the policy of forcing the expression of human capacity on a lower level than would otherwise be the case. If we encourage the dominance of a religion which while making a profession of disinterested loftiness continues to irradiate a narrow egotism and a pessimistic view of life, we are doing our best to perpetuate an environment which emphasizes only the poorer aspects of human motive. ”

“ If an animal is to live it must be adapted to its surroundings to at least the extent of being able to overcome or to neutralize the forces that threaten its existence. That is quite a common-place, since all it says is that to live an animal must be fit to live, but all great truths are common-places—when one sees them. Still, if there were only adaptations to consider, and if the environment to which adaptation is to be secured, remained constant, all we should have would be the deaths of those not able to live, with the survival of those more fortunately endowed. ”

“ But, on the other hand, we know that our own belief in God is descended from his belief. We know that we can trace it back without a break through generations of social culture, until we reach the savage stage of social existence. It is he who, so to speak, discovers God, he establishes it as a part of the social institutions that govern the lives of every member of the group; we find it in our immaturity established as one of those many thought-forms which determine so powerfully our intellectual development. The belief in God meets each newcomer into the social arena. ”

“ Our art, our inventions, our institutions, are all so many illustrations of the power of mind in transforming the environment. A history of civilization, as distinguished from a mere record of biologic growth, is necessarily a history of the growing power of mind. It is the cumulative ideas of the past expressed in inventions and institutions that form the driving power behind the man of to-day. These ideas form the most valuable part of man's heritage, make him what he is, and contain the promise of all that he may become. ”

“ Human society would continue, all the glories of art, the greatness of science, all the marvels and wonders of the universe would be there whether we believed in a God or not. The only difference would be that we should no longer associate these things with the existence of a God. And in that respect we should be following the same course of development that has been followed in many other departments of life. We do not nowadays associate the existence of spirits with a good or a bad harvest, the anger of God with an epidemic, or the good-will of deity with a spell of fine weather. ”

“ Early religion is never concerned with the morality of its teaching, nor are the worshippers concerned with the morality of their gods. The sole question is what the gods desire and how best to satisfy them. We cannot even conceive man ascribing ethical qualities to his gods until he has first of all conceived them in regard to his fellow men. The savage has no moral reverence for his gods; they are magnified men, but not perfect ones. He worships not because he admires, but because he fears. Fear is, indeed, one of the root causes of religious belief. ”

“ And, on the other hand, it is really absurd to say that religion must be forced upon the child, but we are outraging the rights of the individual and perpetuating an intolerable wrong if we force it upon the adult. Surely the dawning and developing individuality of the child has claims on the community that are not less urgent than those of the adult.
Finally, the resolve to rescue the child from the clutches of the priest is in the interest of civilization itself. All human experience shows that a civilization that is under the control of a priesthood is doomed. ”

“ At any rate, it is the same human nature that meets us in religion that fronts us in other matters, and there is no mistaking the fact that intolerance is far more pronounced in relation to religion than to any other subject. In secular matters—politics, science, literature, or art—opinions may differ, feelings run high, and a degree of intolerance be exhibited, but the right to differ remains unquestioned. Moreover, the settlement of opinion by discussion is recognized. In religion it is the very right of difference that is challenged, it is the right of discussion that is denied. ”

“ Have modern nations shown a more intense or a purer patriotism than ancient Greece and Rome, where men did not pretend to derive inspiration for their deeds of devotion in the thoughts of their gods.... The fruitful deeds of heroism are at bottom inspired not by the thought of God or a future life, but by innate tendencies or promptings that have reference to humanity. Self sacrifice, generosity, is rooted in nothing less superficial and accidental than social instincts older than the human race, for they are already present in a rudimentary form in the higher animals. ”

“ And if Christianity be true he is correct in thinking himself such. I have no hesitation in saying that if Christianity be true persecution becomes the most important of duties. A community that is thoroughly Christian is bound to persecute, and as a mere matter of historic fact every wholly Christian community has persecuted. The community which says that a man may take any religion he pleases, or go without one altogether if he so chooses, proclaims its disbelief in the importance of religion. The measure of religious freedom is also the measure of religious indifference. ”

“ What is called scientific knowledge is, to-day, the commonest of acquisitions, and what most people appear to understand by that is the accumulation of a large number of positive facts which do, indeed, form the raw material of science. But the getting of mere facts is like the getting of money. The value of its accumulation depends upon the use made thereof. It is the power of generalization, the perception and application of principles that is all-important, and to this the grasp of a right method of investigation, the existence of a right mental attitude, is essential. ”

“ A Freethinker can easily appreciate the readiness of a clergyman to help a mind that is suffering from a great sorrow, but it is the deliberate exploitation of human grief in the name and in the interests of religion, the manufacturing of cases of death-bed consolation and repentance, the citation of evidence to which the experience of all gives the lie, that fill one with a feeling akin to disgust. ”

“ But it is nonsense to say that life is a "paltry thing" merely because it ends at the grave. It is unrestricted egotism manifesting itself in the form of religious conviction. One might as well argue that a sunset ceases to be beautiful because it does not continue all night.
If I cannot live for ever, then is the universe a failure! That is really all that the religious argument amounts to. And so to state it, to reduce it to plain terms, and divest it of its disguising verbiage, almost removes the need for further refutation. ”

“ It might with some show of reason be maintained that no belief has done so much to retard the economic and thereby the social progress of mankind as the belief in the immortality of the soul; for this belief has led race after race, generation after generation, to sacrifice the real wants of the living to the imaginary wants of the dead. ”

“ Advancing civilization sees the process continued and quickened, nay, that is civilization; for until nature is rid of her "haughty lords" and man realizes that there are at least some natural forces that come within the control of his intelligence, civilization cannot really be said to have commenced. Continued advance sees the gods so diminished in power and so weakened in numbers that their very impotency is apt to breed for them the kind of pity that one feels for a millionaire who becomes a pauper, or for an autocratic monarch reduced to the level of a voteless citizen. ”

“ The teaching of the rotundity of the earth and its revolution round the sun was suppressed for hundreds of years until it was revived in the 16th century. In the long run truth does emerge, but a lie may have a terribly lengthy innings. For the lie is accepted by the many, while the truth is seen only by the few. But it is the few to whom we turn when we look over the names of those who have made the world what is it. All the benefits to society come from the few, and society crucifies them to show its gratitude. ”

“ The truth is that all the gods, like their human creators, have in their birth the promise of death. The nature of their birth gives them life, but cannot promise them immortality. However much man commences by worshipping gods, he sooner or later turns his back upon them. Like the biblical deity he may look at his creation and declare it good, but he also resembles this deity in presently feeling the impulse to destroy what he has made. To the products of his mind man can no more give immortality than he can to the work of his hands. ”

“ If, then, instead of treating the individual and society as two distinct things, either of which may profit at the expense of the other, we treat them as two sides of the same thing, each an abstraction when treated alone, the problem is simplified, and the solution becomes appreciably easier. For the essential truth here is that just as there is no such thing as a society in the absence of the individuals composing it, so the individual, as we know him, disappears when we strip him of all that he is in virtue of his being a part of the social structure. ”

“ Whether an idea will survive or not must, in the end, be determined by circumstances, but in itself a new idea may be taken as the mental analogue of the variation which takes place in physical structures, and which forms the raw material of natural selection. And if that is so, it is evident that any attempt to prevent the play of new ideas on old institutions is striking at the very fact of progress. For if we are to encourage variation we must permit it in all directions, up as well as down, for evil as well as for good. ”

“ We pray to God to cure a fever, but never to put on again a severed limb. We associate God with the production of a good harvest, but not with a better coal output. We use "God only knows" as the equivalent of our own ignorance, and call on God for help only where our own helplessness is manifest. The idea remains true to itself throughout. Born in ignorance and cradled in fear, it makes its appeal to the same elements to the end. And if it apes the language of philosophy, it does so only as do those who purchase a ready-made pedigree in order to hide the obscurity of their origin. ”

“ For while all rebellion is not reform, yet in the widest sense of the word, there is no reform without rebellion. To fight for reform is to rebel against the existing order and is part of the eternal and fundamentally healthful struggle of the new against the old, and of the living present against the dead past. ”

“ If I am weakly, and go out on a cold, wet night to help someone in distress, nature does not act differently than it would if I had gone out to commit a murder. I stand exactly the same chances in either case of contracting a deadly chill. It is not the moral value of an action with which natural forces are concerned, but merely with the action, and in that respect nature never discriminates between the good man and the bad, between the sinner and the saint. ”

“ The truth is that society is held together, as is any phase of social life, by a bond of agreement. The agreement is not of the conscious, documentary order, but it is there, and it consists in sharing a common life created and maintained by having a common tradition, and a common stock of ideas and ideals. It is this that makes a man a member of one social group rather than of another—Chinese, American, French, German, or Choctaw. ”

“ If Freethinkers are to command the respect of the religious world they must show not only that they can get along without religion, but that they can dispense with the name also. If strength does not command respect weakness will certainly fail to secure it. And those of us who are genuinely anxious that the world should be done with false ideas and mischievous frames of mind ought to at least take care that our own speech and thought are as free from ambiguity as is possible. ”

“ Freedom of thought and freedom of speech stand to each other as the two halves of a pair of scissors. Without freedom of speech freedom of thought is robbed of the better part of its utility, even if its existence is not threatened. ”

“ The modern mind is really not looking round for evidence to disprove the truth of Christian legends. It knows they are not true. There is no greater need to prove that the miracles of Christianity never occurred, than there is to prove that an old woman never raised a storm to wreck one of the kings of England. The issue has been changed from one of history to one of psychology. It is the present that of necessity sits in judgment on the past, and it is in the light of the knowledge of the present that the religions of the past stand condemned. ”

“ Apologetically, it is an attempt so to state religion that it may evade criticism of its essential character. From one point of view this may be gratifying enough, but it is no help to an understanding of the nature of religion. And how little religion does help to a fuller life will be seen by anyone who knows the part played by organized religion in mental development and how blindly obstructive it is to new ideas in all departments of life. All these attempts to define religion in terms of ethics, of metaphysics, or as the craving after an ideal are wholly misleading. ”