M. M. Mangasarian

“ The health of the body is cultivated for its own beautiful sake. Health is joy, it is power, it is beauty, it is strength. Are not these enough to make it sacred to all men? But if the health of the body does not need the prop of future rewards to commend itself to us, what good reason have we to think that morality, which is the health of the mind, is a wretched investment if there be no other life? Morality is temperance. How can our ideas about the unseen world change the nature of temperance so that instead of being a virtue it would become a stupid and irksome restraint? ”

“ If the heathen, so called by Christians, can be as moral as ourselves, then Christianity can not claim to be the only divine faith, but if it is, as the preachers claim, the only power that can save, then think of the gloom and the despair which must be the portion of every sensitive soul who realizes the hopelessness of the situation! For thousands of years our humanity was denied the Christian religion, and even now, twenty centuries after the birth of Jesus, only a handful, compared with the earth's population, have accepted the only true religion. ”

“ I never imagined that this fearful Asiatic creed could smite or sting an otherwise wholesome soul into such a contortion. What is there in this Palestinian Jew whom our famous preacher worships as his god that can tempt a man to bear even false witness for his sake? Heavens! How can a man with the example of heroic Japan fresh and fragrant before him, think of this earth as a hell without his "shibboleth?" Victor Hugo says "It is a terrible thing to have been a priest once;" it is not less terrible to be an orthodox protestant preacher to-day. ”

“ It is not enough to say there is a God,—we must agree about his character. Yet that question is even more in dispute than his existence. If the mere belief in a God is enough, why is not the Mohammedan God enough? The Christian god has a son, and you cannot approach him except through his son. The Mohammedan god has no son. How can they be the same being? The god of the Christian believes in the atoning blood of Christ. The Mohammedan god repudiates such an idea. How can they be the same being? What are we going to do,—if we associate morality with a being whose character is in dispute? ”

“ In our attempt to reconcile God's conduct with morality, we resort to sophistry. We say God is not bound by the same moral law that we are: He can take away life, land, or property from one man and give it to another. He is above all law. He is good even when he does that which if we did it would make us criminals, and so on. Thus, sophistry becomes a profession. We develop Jesuitical powers; we become intellectual gymnasts, dancing on ropes and splitting hairs to prove that God can break all the moral commandments and still be our model and pattern for morality. ”

“ If we feel uncomfortable when we see an animal maltreated, how can we have the heart to subscribe to a doctrine that denies to the great majority of our human fellows, not only future bliss, but even the right to be moral? If instead of being a religion of love, Christianity were a religion of hate, could it be less generous? ”

“ We resist evil. In politics, in commerce, in every department of life we find that in resistance alone is our salvation, and yet Jesus, the Oriental monk, believing the end of the world to be close at hand, would tie our hands, paralyze our will and give evil, physical or moral, a free field. If we do not resist evil we will soon be so incapacitated for effort, so emptied of energy and ambition that we will become the victim not only of every physical pest but also of every moral iniquity. "Resist not" is just what a priest would say to his people, and a king to his subjects. ”

“ It is precisely the same with religion. The priest says "God made the world in six days." If he can prove it we have to believe it. If he can not prove it, we are not to be blamed for saying "not proven." The priest says Jesus was born of a Virgin. We don't deny it—we ask for evidence. If a doctrine or proposition should be accepted as true in the absence of convincing evidence, why then is not Mohammedanism as true as Christianity? Why is not a bit of blue glass as good as a God? To believe intelligently, one must have evidence; to believe blindly, one religion is as good as another. ”

“ It is artificial morality that pines for rewards and sickens and dies when the expected reward is questioned. If there is no future glory, who will abstain from meat on Friday, or sprinkle his children, or read the Bible or listen to sermons? But the natural virtues will spring up like flowers in the human soil. Men and women will love, will sacrifice, will perform heroic deeds of devotion, whatever may be their theories concerning the hereafter. ”

“ God or no God, a future life or no future life, is not temperance better than intemperance? To ask why a man should practice temperance even if it be granted that it is better than intemperance is to go back to the terrible charge that man is by nature a monster, and that he will not behave well unless he is promised enormous returns in the shape of eternal rewards—palaces, mansions, crowns, thrones, in the next world. ”

“ If in one moment, and by a mere profession, a thief and a murderer can step ahead of the righteous and the honest, then the Christian religion is right, righteousness is but "filthy rags." No deeper accusation could be brought against Christianity than that it calls righteousness "filthy rags." But is such a religion—is the example of the malefactor taken to heaven, and his victims permitted to go to everlasting destruction—calculated to command the respect of noble minds? ”

“ It gives me pain to say, but say I must, that a greater slight upon morality could not have been placed. Think of saying to a malefactor whom the laws of society were justly punishing,—that his life of guilt and crime, that the thefts and perhaps murders which he had committed,—were all forgiven him. Is the moral life as easy as that? Is it possible that by simply calling Jesus "Lord," and by accepting him as the Son of God, a malefactor can enter heaven, while the man whose whole life has been above reproach must go to perdition if he has not the faith of the malefactor? ”

“ How noble is human nature! And it is this nobility which makes theology jealous. The dying mother should be thinking of her God,—her soul, her creed—she should be trembling with fear, and be filled with consternation, instead of thinking lovingly and tearfully of her little ones! And when theology can not get horrible death bed scenes, she invents them. In Theron Ware, the deacons of the Methodist church say to their minister, "Give us more of the death-bed scenes of Voltaire and Thomas Paine." ”

“ And when we remember that this Protestant religion did not exist before the sixteenth century—that it is only about three hundred years old, and that, if it is the only true religion, it waited a long time—until mankind had reached middle life—until the world had begun to turn gray—before it commenced to minister to its needs—we begin to realize that there is no thoroughfare to the alley to which the preacher has conducted us—for it is a blind alley, and we feel creeping upon us the chill of death and despair! ”

“ To think that the whole world, past and present, has been, is, and will be irrevocably lost, unless it accepts our three hundred years old and much-divided religion! What gentle and refined mind can stand the strain? Who can walk straight under the weight of such crushing pessimism? Is it not fortunate that only one day in seven is devoted to church-going? ”

“ The existence of God has always been disputed and is still in dispute today. A hundred books are written to prove his existence; a hundred others question his existence. A great thinker in the eighteenth century said "That which is the subject of eternal dispute cannot be a foundation for anything." The scientist, therefore, in striving to separate morality from theology (for it is theology and not true religion that we object to) is rendering a great service to the cause of righteousness. He is removing morality from the sphere of uncertainty and controversy into the air and light of day. ”

“ If we were to paint the globe in two colors—black and white—allowing the black to represent the "heathen," and the white the Christian, we would see spread before our eyes a limitless sea of inky blackness, with a few white dots floating in it. ”

“ Let us see how much truth there is in the preacher's estimate of human nature. Take the example of a father who is devoted to his little motherless girl. He lives for her, cares for her, protects her, and provides for her future that she may feel his blessing long after he has passed away. Will this father be less a father without the belief in future rewards? But to love and care for one's child is only natural morality, replies the clergyman. ”

“ If it will be a help to you to know in advance what position I will take on the subject of the proposed addresses, let me say as clearly as I can, that I will try to show that morality is independent of a belief in God or gods, and that, therefore, church attendance is not essential, but that, on the contrary, often church going retards both intellectual and moral progress; and further, that the countries in which a larger proportion of the people go to church, and the Ages of Faith, in which everybody went to church, are and have been, the least moral. ”

“ The scientist is far from denying even that there is at the heart of the universe a mystery,—an insoluble problem, at least a problem that hitherto has refused to reveal its secret to the human mind,—but he contends that to associate the moral life with this mystery, this insoluble problem, is to envelope it in darkness and uncertainty.
"No God, no morals," says the theologian. He even earnestly desires all unbelievers in his creed to be immoral. He is really grieved and disappointed when he finds goodness among unbelievers in his religion. he knows that the people must have morality. ”

“ I rejoice that some of his words have made twenty centuries of the world's life fragrant I would sooner die this instant than feel that I am guilty of misrepresenting the facts, of taking a fact and twisting it into an argument for my party. If I have any happiness in life, if I have any self-respect, it is from this source,—that I am honest with the facts. ”

“ But are there not examples of the highest morality in the Christian world? Yes, surely, and I am glad to admit it, but it is in spite of the Christian creed. It shows that,—listen to this,—theology is listened to only one day in the week, the other six days we listen to common sense. We are better than our beliefs, better than our creeds. The Asiatic theology which we call inspired has not succeeded in perverting Anglo-Saxon human nature. ”

“ Paul himself admitted that if the Christians believed in Christ for this life only "they were of all men the most miserable." Were the clergy to tell their flocks this morning that although they felt sure of the existence of God, they had their doubts about another life, how many of them would return to worship on the following Sunday? Yes, it is the mingled hope and fear of the future which gives the belief in a God its importance. If there were no death—if men could live here forever, they would not much concern themselves about spirits and invisible beings. ”

“ If Darwinism is false, on the other hand, all the painstaking and respect for human life on the part of Darwinian automobiles would not make it true. Darwinism does not stand or fall with the characters of automobilists. But this clergyman had no other way of answering Darwinism, so he said that. It is the argument of sheer desperation. He is trifling with a subject he feels is beyond him. Instead of discussing it, he calls it names. Small talk for small people!
The Christian religion in which we were brought up, teaches that to believe is a virtue, and—not to believe is a crime. ”

“ He knows that the world cannot last without morality, and if he can get the people to think that they can't have morality without his creed, the future of his creed will be secure.
He either denies that goodness without his creed is goodness at all, or he tries to show that the credit of it really belongs to his religion. These good unbelievers are really believers, without knowing it, argues the theologian. If the Japanese can be patriotic and honest, it is due to Christian missions, declares the preacher. ”

“ If we have an influence at all we shall see that these people who have denied themselves the pleasure of cutting their neighbors' throats, or of leading an intemperate, dishonest and brutal life, shall receive their reward.
There is no doubt that some people are kept from doing wrong by the fear of a distant hell, and others are provoked to good works by the hope of a heavenly crown. But the mistake of the theologian consists in thinking that anybody actuated by such motives can be moral. ”

“ A clergyman of Chicago, one of our leading, popular, successful, talented, and respected preachers—one who has had phenomenal success as a minister of the Gospel, and who addresses the largest Christian audiences in the country, speaking to the Young Men's Christian Association, declared that "this earth would have been a hell if Christ had not died on Golgotha." There must be something of the nature of a blight in a creed that can force from the lips of an educated and benevolent man such unlovely words. ”