Lysander Spooner

“ Every motive of duty, and every argument of expediency would seem to have conspired to induce this man to show himself to the world, if he were alive—yet he did not. Is it possible for the ingenuity of man to conceive of a reason why he should remain on the earth forty days, unless it were for the express purpose of exhibiting himself openly, and thus furnishing as much testimony as possible, for the benefit of succeeding generations, of the reality of his resuriection? ”

“ If they knew that Jesus was alive, they could not but have been assured that the fact would be immediately known; and they must also have been aware that as soon as the fact should have become public, the falsehood of the soldiers would be exposed, and their own knavery in the greatest danger of detection. The absurdity of pretending that men would act thus, under such circumstances, is so gross as to be perfectly disgusting.
I here take it for granted that it has been established, by evidence, which Christians must abide by, that, if there were a watch at this tomb, they were asleep. ”

“ It is a little remarkable that any, professing to believe the Bible, should abandon, as insufficient, the evidence which its authors represent to have been expressly designed to convince men of its truth, and should thus seize upon an after circumstance of so doubtful a character as this. Yet one, who attempts to meet believers on their own grounds, must of necessity answer many arguments no more rational than this, or suffer them to believe on; for very slight and flimsy evidence is sufficient to satisfy the minds of such as are both determined to believe, and afraid to disbelieve. ”

“ Can any one doubt, that if the handkerchiefs of another person had been used, and had been called Paul’s, so as to deceive the diseased person, the same miracles would have been wrought? Or can a man of common sense want any further proof that this affair of being possessed of devils, of which there are so many stories in the New Testament, and the supposed miraculous cures of diseases, were all shams—the mere works of the imaginations of those, who were of the number of the veriest simpletons that ever bore the name of men? ”

“ Was he “doing good,” when he sneaked up to the feast at Jerusalem in secret? Was he “doing good,” when he rode an ass’s colt to Jerusalem, to make the people believe that he had been appointed by the Almighty to be their king? Was he “doing good,” when he told his followers to arm themselves with swords? Was he “doing good,” when practising the mean evasions, the subterfuges and the secresy, which have been before referred to? “Why, no, perhaps not,” the Christian will probably answer, “but then he healed a great many sick folks, and cast out a great, great many devils.” ”

“ When they are pressed with arguments against the truth of Christianity, they attempt to divert the public mind to the question of its utility, as if its truth was not the first thing to be settled. Why this mean unmanly practice of subterfuge and shuffling? this refusal to meet argument? This shrinking from the responsibilities of their station? It is, as I believe, because that, like other hired troops, they have no principles which require them to put at hazard their interests. It is because their cowardice, selfishness or prejudices are too strong for their consciences and reason. ”

“ It would have been better for their case to have omitted the whole of their other accounts of the supposed miracles and wonderful works of Jesus, than to have omitted this single one, for without this, the rest, under the circumstances, are utterly incredible, and good for nothing. There is no excuse for attempting to support a story of this kind on the mere hearsay declarations of Mark and Luke, who could have known nothing of the fact, when the alleged eye-witnesses are silent. The imposition is too gross to deserve the toleration of society for a moment. ”

“ If any further evidence be wanted that the spread of Christianity was not supernatural, look at the spread of Mormonism, and see how, even at this day, and in this country, a miserable vagabond of a “Joe Smith,” in a short space of time, can put a large community in an uproar, and raise up a numerous sect of followers, full of faith and fanaticism, eager to believe any thing marvellous in relation to the book of Mormon, and the Mormon prophet, and ready to make any effort and any sacrifice for the propagation of the momentous truths of their Revelation. ”

“ They wish to believe it; they think it best to believe it (because they think it useful) —they dread to disbelieve it—they have a sort of lingering reverence for it—they perhaps persuade themselves that, on the whole, they do believe it—yet they do not in reality. They have a prejudice in its favor—not a conviction of its truth founded on evidence. They cannot help suspecting that it is a thing not to be inquired into; that it is neither reasonable in itself, nor founded on reasonable evidence. ”

“ The testimony of the whole Jewish nation, who did not also believe in Jesus, would not have made them credit it for a moment. If the same thing had been stated in any other book than the Bible, men now would no more credit it, than they would an assertion that men were inhabited by the spirits of oxen and horses. Yet such is the unparalleled gullibility of some men in relation to every thing related in the Bible, or connected with Christianity.
There are indeed many Christians now, who do not pretend to believe in this matter literally. ”

“ I trust the time is not far distant, when the moral courage of the more intelligent and independent portion of the community will be sufficiently aroused to expose, without reserve, the dishonest and cowardly practices of these men; when their attempts to dissuade weak and timid minds from the examination of evidence; to keep the reasons and arguments of their opponents out of sight; and to so fill the minds of their dupes with vulgar and superstitious fears and prejudices as to deprive them of all mental liberty on this subject, will receive their merited condemnation ”

“ Before proceeding to the examination of the alleged miracles of Jesus, it is desirable that we form an established opinion in relation to his personal nature and character; for if we suppose him a mere man, we shall be the more ready to suspect that his alleged miracles were not real; on the other hand, if we give him a super-human nature, we shall be more inclined to believe the contrary. What evidence then is there, previous to his beginning to work miracles, that tends to show that he was possessed of any other than a human nature? ”

“ But if any will still insist that Christianity is a revelation from God, made to men to save their souls, let him, if he can, account for the fact that God did not cause it to be spread over the whole world at once, in a year, or day. It was as important, if this system be true, that it should be spread, as that it should be revealed, and God could have miraculously spread it, as easily as he could have miraculously revealed it. There is no sense in saying that he has committed to men the business of spreading this religion ”

“ The individual, whom they supposed to be Jesus, did not show himself as such to the multitude, although, if he were really Jesus, and a belief in him as a Saviour were necessary to their future happiness, he would seem to have been bound by the strongest principles of moral obligation to have thus shown himself, that he might have inevitably convinced those who had before been incredulous—and the fact that he did not show himself to the world as the one who had been dead, is very strong evidence of itself that he was not the real Jesus. ”

“ They, in short, say substantially, that the very idea of the Son of God and the Saviour of the world being put to death ignominiously and like a criminal, is on the face of it so absurd, and so repugnant to all men’s notions of what is probable, and of what would consist with the proper character for such a being to assume, that unless some supernatural influence had been exerted to aid in gaining for it belief, men never would have believed it. ”

“ Some Christians believe that the Jews will sometime be converted to Christianity—but where is the foundation for such a belief? Jesus can never answer the description given of the Messiah any better than he did while on earth, and therefore there is no reason why the Jews should ever believe him to have been the Messiah. Even if we suppose that the Jews, at the time when Jesus was alive, were mistaken as to his character, still, if eighteen centuries do not afford a sufficient time for them to discover their mistake, how long a time will probably be necessary? ”

“ It is, in short, because Christianity is nothing but a miserable and disgusting superstition; because its pretended evidences are false, many of them grossly and glaringly false; because the Clergy seem to understand all this, and yet have the audacity to impose upon men by pretending the contrary, and to degrade and govern them by thus imposing upon them, that I would awaken opposition to the Clergy and Christianity.
I here admit, for the sake of the argument, that Jesus did predict that he should rise again, and that this fact was known abroad, as Matthew (27—63) represents it to have been. ”

“ Could any man be so destitute of common sense, as to suppose that reasonable men would believe that a corpse came to life, on the bare assertion of those ignorant fishermen, who had all along been viewed, by the most enlightened part of the community, as deluded fanatics?—and that too, when no good reason could be imagined why, if the man were really alive, he should not exhibit himself personally? ”

“ The fact that Isaiah expected a Messiah, or that he dreamed or imagined that the Lord told him a Messiah was to come, does not prove at all that there ever was to be a Messiah. The fact, that the whole Jewish nation expected a Messiah, is no evidence that a Messiah was actually to come. ”

“ Why, it proves that the apparent death was only a temporary suspension of animation, and that they have never been really dead. It proves those facts positively, and it proves nothing more. Now will any man say that, in the case of Jesus, a supernatural [51] event is proved by evidence, which, in other cases, proves only a natural one? Or that, in his case, we are to presume an event to have been supernatural, when there have been millions of natural ones precisely like it? If not, then he must admit, that the re-appearance of Jesus, is, of itself, positive proof that he had never been dead. ”

“ This is not the language of a purely spiritual deliverer—it is precisely such language as we might reasonably expect to hear from a man, who wished to make himself the ruler of a people, but who, on being rejected as such, should endeavour to alarm their fears for the safety of their City. Or it is such language as we might reasonably expect to hear from a man so deluded as to imagine that God had specially appointed him to be the deliverer of a people, and the preserver of a City. ”

“ The Apostles undoubtedly supposed they had seen Jesus perform miracles, and that, in circulating their accounts of him, they were telling the truth. They undoubtedly believed that they themselves could perform miracles of a certain kind, such as casting out devils, and healing the sick; although in reality, as I think has been shewn, the imagination must have, in many instances, and probably in all, created the malady, and as really, in all cases effected the cure, if there were any cure. But the Apostles, being simple men, understood nothing of the power of the imagination ”

“ If men were but to read the New Testament with the same tone and emphasis, with which [3] they do other books, and were to keep out of mind the idea of its being sacred, they would be disgusted with the credulity, and the want of intellect, reason and judgment, that is apparent in it. The imaginations of believers have dressed up and exaggerated the excellence of the style and matter of the New Testament generally, in the same manner, in which they have the moral instructions of Jesus. ”

“ Isaiah 11—10. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek.
Isaiah 11—12. And He (the Lord) shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Isaiah 55—4 and 5. Behold I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee. ”