Joseph McCabe

“ For in spite of the desertion of science, in spite of the abandonment of the traditional anti- clericalism of Labor in many countries, in spite of the disowning of its great skeptical pioneers by the feminist-movement of our time, in spite of an alliance of the clergy with violence and all the maneuvers I described in the first chapter, Atheism has made a hundred times more progress in the last 10 years than any religion ever made. ”

“ In Brazil and Argentina Atheism spreads equally. Only the fact that the middle class and wealthy have a common interest with the clergy in opposing it, on account of its general alliance with Communism or Socialism, keeps it, in cheek. Trade unions, missionaries complain, are sometimes so aggressively atheistic that they will not admit a Christian worker. In 20 years between 10,000,000 and 20,000,000 Atheists have appeared in Latin America. The Church frantically appeals for violent suppression or, as in Mexico, bloody revolt, but the movement spreads year by year. ”

“ All Communists in Europe are Atheists, and from Great Britain, where the old anti-clerical tradition of Labor has been abandoned for the sake of enlarging the party, Socialists are with few exceptions Atheists. In Austria, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, and Belgium, Socialism is under the ban of the ruling Church, and religious workers do not adopt it. I have, however, made allowance for whatever proportion of theistic workers there may be in the Socialist bodies of Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland by almost ignoring the very large amount of non- Socialistic Atheism. ”

“ Given the conditions for the operation of the historic law—freedom and knowledge—Atheism will in this century be the common attitude of civilized people. Non-Christians are the great majority in every free country today. Atheists number tens of millions, quite apart from Communist activity, in such countries. ”

“ It illustrates the dishonesty with which the interests of the Churches are promoted that neither press nor writers on religion ever refer to a fact which seems to people, when you draw their attention to it, one of the most singular developments of our time from the religious viewpoint: the fact that in the official publication of the last Census taken in the Union of South Africa of a total black population of about 5,000,000 more than half, or 3,062,669, are described as of no religion. ”

“ Educated Mexicans are in the large majority Atheists: the Church may boast that it still has the large majority of the illiterate.
With less yet very considerable success the movement has spread from Mexico to every part of Latin America. There the middle class has for decades been largely skeptical, and the new development is the rise of a very self-conscious body of workers who eagerly adopt Communism and Atheism and often have cultivated men supporting them. ”

“ The truth is that, as I found, three-fourths of the urban workers were Atheists in 1926 and forced the middle-class Atheists of the government to take action against the Church. The rapid extension of schooling to the peons and the relief from clerical exactions of masses who were never deeply Christian has given anti-clericalism a solid basis in popular sentiment. ”

“ We are concerned with the growth of Atheism and will take up the behavior of Atheists in a later number. Williams says that the situation is that 1,500,000 Atheists dominate 14,500,000 Catholics. We smile when he adds that if the atheistic one-tenth are "allowed" to continue in power, Mexico will become a Communist country. Allowed by whom? By Wall Street and Washington, of course. Notoriously the clergy have for years organized the armed revolt of the Cristeros—Williams' own article is full of the fact—yet these "nine-tenths" of the nation can do no more than commit outrages and raids. ”

“ French writers find the new thought threatening their position in the sphere they control and admit; as the English do in India, that their occupation is only a matter of time, and their Christian missions will then go up in smoke. ”

“ While I write I hear, for instance, that at the Census recently taken in Australia about 800,000—one-seventh of the entire population yet, presumably, all adults wrote themselves as having "no religion." ”