Jacob Hartmann

“ It is the noblest work of man to make himself free—to make himself equal, not muscular—free from prejudice, free from superstitions, free from bigotry, free from ignorance, free from vice, free from passions, free from wrong-doing either to yourself or to your fellow-man. Equal you can be in brain power, brain culture, in brain force, by brain culture, education, in the improvement and perfection of the intellectual faculties, so that we may exercise our understanding and judgment, free and untrammeled, to the benefit of ourselves and to the benefit of our neighbors. ”

“ But in order to be saved, to go to heaven—an imaginary abode in the atmosphere, a sort of ethereal paradise in the upper strata of the air that surrounds this globe, either with or without sunlight—in order to get one up there some clown of a priest will mumble off masses, a sort of ribald fustian composition that will raise your spirit or your soul right up into the pure upper strata of this terrestrial atmospheric crust. ”

“ Prayers can avail you nothing, nor blessings. Every man, to be a man, must act the man! Training, education, culture, makes him one. Free yourself from priestly influence and church dominion, if you would be free. Think and reason. Throw off the shackles of ecclesiastical slavery. Let your own brain work out your own salvation. Never mind the Jehova, the God of barbarism, the Christ of delusion, or the Holy Ghost of the imagination. Shake off the dust of superstition and ignorance if you would be free. ”

“ The God-Christ-Holy-Ghost idea has ever been a source of greed, selfishness, intolerance, bigotry, quarrel, hatred, licentiousness, cruelty, and crime. Bickering and quarreling are still going on. And the grasping hand of greed holds the ignorant bigot by the throat to squeeze the last cent out of him, to enrich and aggrandize the most pernicious organization humanity was ever plagued with. Heresy, blasphemy, is as fashionable to-day as it was in the rankest days of popery. ”

“ Has not the time arrived for a grand and human reformation? For new methods of teaching, for new and more accurate ideas, for a more precise knowledge of the natural, for instructions in absolute facts, for a more thorough understanding of natural laws, for a broader comprehension of man himself and his surroundings, for an abandonment of all the supernatural subterfuge, ignorance, and superstition, of religious fables, miracles, false theories, and misleading doctrines as to God, with their immense sacrifice of human life. ”

“ Vegetable and animal life may disappear, but the component parts of the earth cannot be destroyed or changed. Furthermore, whatever is produced upon this earth by the inventive power of man’s faculties, in the arts and sciences mechanical, the natural, and what is thought to be supernatural, whatsoever shape or character it may take, whether phase or phenomenon, an idea, thought, or imagination—in fact, every thing, every essence, from an angel to the devil, from a saint to a sinner, from a brass button to a god or gods, holy ghosts or divinities, all, all, are part and parcel of this earth. ”

“ Is it not high time for man and woman to learn that their dependence on any supernatural aid is futile, their prayers and appeals to an imaginary God worse than useless, their cringing fear for the so-called sacred authority cowardly, their submission to priestly rule and authority slavish, and the inculcating of biblical church lore stupefying? Is it not time for man and woman to comprehend themselves, their powers, the uses of their several organs, their functions, and the natural laws that govern them? ”

“ And over these many solar system gods, somewhere in the immensity of space, a god of immense magnitude may preside. So you may go on multiplying gods, sub-gods and superior gods, without end.
Where do we find that a man, or a set of men, have a right to arrogate to themselves the power or privilege to assume that this terrestrial God has anything at all to say or to dictate on any other planet? This earthly God has no more right to interfere with the business of Mars or Mercury than the god of Saturn has a right to interfere with our earthly affairs. ”

“ The imagination of man supplied us with Gods or a God on earth; the imagination is justified in supplying other planets with a god or gods. The god of Jupiter, Mars, or Saturn, etc., may with as much force and propriety say, “I am that I am; I am the great I am, the creator of all things. You, Planet Earth, may be a little older, riper, more solidified, have a solid crust, yet remember our god is just as good as yours, and better. You have only one moon—a fossil world, a mere cinder. ”

“ Do not believe in the divinity of any man, whether he be called Moses, Jesus Christ, or Martin Luther. Do not believe that the book called the Bible, sacred scripture, and Testaments, new or old, is sacred, holy, or inspired by any supernatural being. Do not believe the story of the creation as recited [431] in the five books of Moses—they are not true. It is a fiction, a sort of fairy tale. It is the work of the imagination of man. Do not believe in any miracle. No man can perform a miracle, except to the ignorant and stupid. No man in the Bible ever performed a miracle. ”

“ Supposing all the churches and buildings assigned to the worship of God or gods, and all the priests and preachers, disappeared from the surface of this terrestrial globe, would this planet come to a standstill, or the sun cease to shine? Would the elements entering into the composition of the numerous substances found on or within this earth change their relative proportion, construction, or chemical relation? We need not have the slightest apprehension. New systems of ideas have always displaced and replaced the old systems. ”

“ He rears, as I have said, the whole vegetable world, and through it the animal; the lilies of the field are his workmanship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. He forms the muscle, he urges the blood, he builds the [66] brain. His fleetness is in the lion’s foot; he springs in the panther, he soars in the eagle, he slides in the snake. He builds the forest, and hews it down, the power which raised the tree and that which wields the axe being one and the same. ”

“ Science did it. Hell is out of fashion. Heaven we have on earth, if we have the means to do it with. We can be angels if we wish to, saints if necessary, and holy if desirable. Every man makes his own heaven, his own hell, his own angels, his own bliss, and his own god. Yes, he has his own saints and his own divinities. A woman does precisely the same thing. The imagination supplies all the necessary material for their production, selected from natural objects and put together in a manner most pleasing, acceptable, and satisfactory to each one. ”

“ These rambling fireworks of the imagination have little meaning and less sense, except that they portray their feelings, emotions, and practical impressions for the time being. Eliminate the facts out of their writings, and you obtain a residue of wild, incoherent ravings of an over-excited, over-heated brain.
We hear nothing of any great mental disturbance or loss of equilibrium, until we reach a new crisis. For nearly four hundred years not a vision, not an angel, not a prophet, is heard of. ”

“ Our globe has a diameter of ninety thousand miles. And we have four satellites, or moons. Our largest is as big as your whole earth. Therefore, it is ridiculous for you to claim superiority. As to my neighbor Saturn, with his eight moons and belts, his god smiles at your presumption. I, the god of Jupiter, agree with the great god of Saturn and others, that your terrestrial affected greatness is too ridiculous to be worthy of our serious consideration. In fact, it is absurd for your earthly godship to claim to have made the sun that great luminary that gives us all heat, light, and life. ”

“ Every phase, every phenomenon, is a manifestation of matter. Thunderstorm, lightning, electricity, or thought—whatsoever it may be, call it by any other name, designate it or describe it how you will, we cannot separate any object from this terrestrial globe of matter. The elements composing this world gave birth to life, life manifests its energies in many forms, then returns again to the great ocean of elements whence it came. ”

“ Is not the kneeling and praying before some daub of a picture or the figure of some supposed God or saint debasing and degrading to the individual? Is not the act of prayer a humiliating acknowledgement either of an enfeebled mind or of a contemptible slave? Is not the will power subdued and deteriorated and the natural energy destroyed? Are not the functions of the brain seriously interfered with, the mental faculties checked in the normal process of development, and the powers of reason stifled by the asphyxiating influences of prayer? ”

“ Is it not the dawn of love, the transitory period, that bridge of nervous exaltation that leads from puberty to maternity? She has her own god, a figure to her notion as pure, refined, and beautiful as she can picture in the visions of her waking or sleeping dreamland mind. ”

“ How do we know that the inhabitants of other planets have not had angels, saints, and saviors? How do we know that they have not had beings who pretended to know all about their god, and were as brutal, as savage, and as demented as some of the persons figuring in scripture, or the tyrannical, bloody papists of the Dark Ages? ”

“ In the plant the atoms are separated, in the animal they recombine. And as surely as the force which moves a clock’s hands is derived from the arm which winds the clock, so surely is all terrestrial power drawn from the sun. Leaving out of account the eruption of volcanoes and the ebb and flow of the tides, every mechanical action on the earth’s surface, every manifestation of power, organic and inorganic, vital or physical, is produced by the sun. His warmth keeps the sea liquid, and the atmosphere a gas, and all the storms which agitate both are blown by the mechanical force of the sun. ”

“ These men gave us, though not a complete, a very ample revelation of nature, unfolding its mysteries, explaining its phenomena, making known the truth as far as men had been able to discover up to their time.
Nature with its laws man had to observe carefully in order to learn to unravel its secrets, its workings, its forces. There is no way to reveal them except through the mind of man. There are no means of knowing or discovering the intricacies and subtleties of nature’s hidden and inexhaustible resources but by careful thought, reason, constant study and application. ”

“ For many years it has been a recognized fact that the Bible is a composition of fable, fiction, facts, misunderstanding, and misstatement. We only need glance at the absurd trials that are now going on at this present time. These gentlemen, Briggs and Smith, are not the first to doubt the truth of the book. Hundreds have doubted before them. It is skepticism that produces evolution and revolution in the accepted form of worship and faith and belief. Abraham, Socrates, Christ, Luther, and hundreds have doubted. ”

“ It seems almost unaccountable, even from a theological, Christian standpoint, that God, Jehova, the Lord almighty, should not be able to exhibit his wonderful powers regularly, systematically, instead of by fits and starts, on special occasions, after intervening centuries. Why should a God come and go by leaps and jumps, appearing and disappearing at distant ages, now helping and then punishing? Why lead and mislead? Why permit people to be so foolish and senseless as to create rival gods? ”

“ But when the masses shall have learned more of nature, then the visionary, the imaginary god, the heirloom and heritage of our antiquated forefathers, will be thrown aside as the images were by Abraham, the idols dismissed or discarded later. The relics, the remnants, of this barbarism still have a hold on the minds of men.
Our entire religious fabric rests upon the creation as related in the Bible, handed down to us as the universally acknowledged text-book of all knowledge. ”

“ The atmosphere that surrounds this earth is like a shell that is two hundred to three hundred or more miles in thickness. We live at the bottom of an immense ocean of gaseous matter, which envelops everything, and presses upon everything with a force which appears, at first, perfectly incredible, but whose actual amount admits of easy proof. Gravity being, so far as is known, common to all matter, it is natural to expect that gases, being material substances, should be acted upon by the earth’s attraction, as well as solids and liquids. ”