Born Again - Alfred William Lawson (fantasy books to read txt) 📗

lions and tigers. All these tortures and innumerable others, did these brave men suffer that they might impress upon the Apeman the real meaning of courage and unselfishness. And through the power of mind sight we used to see these heroic volunteers unflinchingly suffer these indignities for the cause of righteousness, notwithstanding we had the power to annihilate the entire Apeman species, if we had so desired. Our chemists could have turned on currents of poisonous air and asphyxiated whole nations of them at once; our electricians could have sent an electric shock around the earth that would have left a path of destruction a thousand miles in width; our scientists could have concentrated the full force of the sun's rays upon any particular city they might choose and burn it up instantly; but they did not. We had the power to destroy, but the courage of forbearance. The highest honor our nation could bestow upon a man was to allow him to leave his heavenly country and become a martyr to his own unselfishness in trying to uplift the Apeman species. And had it not been for the unfortunate catastrophe which I shall explain to you later, our plans would have succeeded and the earth today would have been heaven with no such creature in existence as the Apeman."

CHAPTER XI

"Next to selfishness, religion has been the greatest drawback towards progress the Apeman has had to contend with in all ages," continued Arletta.

"Religion is the outgrowth of ignorance and the Apeman, just starting up the ladder of human knowledge, adopted it as an explanation of things of which he knew nothing. All religions were created by the Apeman; and wherein lies the difference between the god built of stone or from the imagination? In constructing the numberless religions, the Apeman invariably made them to suit his own habits and customs. He built his gods to please his own fancy and gave his own ideas as those of his deities. His own knowledge is likewise the extent of the wisdom contained by his gods, whom lie manufactured to be twisted and turned in any direction and made to answer any purpose he might see fit. No one religion is any worse than all the rest. They are all founded on ignorance, superstition and selfishness. To believe in any of these petty religions is to cast insults upon the real Creator of the universe, for a god created by the Apeman must naturally be a very inferior being. Each devout worshiper can point out the errors and absurdities of every other religion excepting his own. He is capable of utilizing his reasoning powers until directed against himself, and narrowed down to a few words he feels that he is all right but everybody else is all wrong. Of the several hundred religions now extant, would it not be more reasonable to suppose that they were all wrong than to believe they were all right? Take your own religion for instance; you are worshiping a most unnatural god. In fact your Bible puts him in the position of a vain-glorious tyrant. According to the Bible an Apeman can be no worse than his god no matter how bad he may be. The main reason why. the Apeman believes in religion is because he is an inveterate coward and fears some dire punishment if he investigates the matter. But believe me, if the Creator gave you the power to reason, he certainly will not condemn you for making use of your reasoning faculties in not accepting opinions which appear untenable. So let us look into this matter from an impartial point of view. In the first place the offer of rewards for doing good, which is the foundation of all religions is wrong, for it carries selfishness right to the very gates of the imaginary heavens. Goodness is very shallow indeed if it cannot exist without rewards being offered for it. I shall enumerate a few things your god was supposed to have said or allowed, according to the Bible, which would make no Apeman living, any worse in his moral conduct.

"Enmity.--'And I will put enmity between thee and the woman.' Gen. iii, 15.

"Unkindness.--'Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.' Gen. iii, 16.

"Flesh Eaters.--'Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.' Gen. ix, 3.

"Revenge.--'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.' Gen. ix, 6.

"Drunkenness.--'And he drank of the wine, and was drunken.' Gen. ix, 21.

"Partiality.--'God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant.' Gen. ix, 27.

"Hunting--'He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.' Gen. x, 9.

"A curser.--'And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curseth thee.' Gen. xii, 3.

"Fraud.--'By fraud, Jacob received the blessing intended for Esau and then God blessed him and made him prosperous forever afterward. Gen. xxvii to xxix.

"Fornication.--'And Bilhah, Rachel's maid, conceived again and bare Jacob a second son.' Gen. xxx, 7.

"Anger.--'And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.' Exodus iv, 14.

"Thievery.--'Speak now into the ears of the people and let every man borrow of his neighbor and every woman of her neighbor jewels of silver and jewels of gold.' Exodus xi, 2.

"Carnage.--'For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; I am the Lord.' Exodus xii, 12.

"Jealousy.--'For I the Lord thy God am jealous God.' Exodus xx, 5.

"Slavery.--'Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.' Exodus xxi, 6.

"Witchcraft.--'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Exodus xxii, 18.

"Murder.--'And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with my sword and your wives shall be widows and your children fatherless.' Exodus xxii, 24.

"Changeability.--'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.' Numbers xxv, 10, 11.

"Brutality.--'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.' Leviticus xxiv, 13, 14.

"Savage Cruelty.--'And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtle doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off its head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the ides of the altar.' Leviticus i, 14, 15.

"An Ass.--'And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me these three times?' Numbers xxii, 28.

"I have brought a few of these absurd writings to your attention," said Arletta, "hoping that later on you will go over them carefully and give them the same rational consideration you bestow upon other subjects. There is one commendable feature about your Bible however, and that is, it shows that once there existed among your species a noble mortal who devoted his life trying to teach the Apeman human kindness in somewhat the same manner our men used to do, with the exception of the supernatural dogmas. I refer to Jesus Christ. The fact that the same lessons he expounded were taught thousands of years before he was born, or that he failed to grasp nature's beautiful ideas without confounding them with supernatural fancies, does not detract in any way from his nobility of purpose and his name should be mentioned in the future history of the world as one of the great benefactors of the human race. It seems a pity that his over-zealous followers have tried to place him in the light of a deity, for in time to come, when your species begin to reason, they might possibly regard him as an impostor. This should not be the case however, for although Christ no doubt really believed in a religious god, it is unjust to believe that he ever pretended to be anything more than a mere human being himself, or that he knew anything about the wonderful miracles it was subsequently claimed he had performed.

"Any earthly being," said Arletta, as her face fairly beamed with intelligence, "whether it be a man, an Apeman or a monkey, who claims to be related to the Creator of the universe, or to be His prophet, or His specially appointed spokesman, or in any way tries to lead others to believe that he possesses supernatural powers, is either an impostor or an idiot.

"When all earthly beings make use of the reasoning faculties nature endows them with, all religions will perish through the agency of their own untruths."

CHAPTER XII

"Then am I to understand that your people were Atheists?" inquired I of Arletta.

"Not at all," replied she. "We believed in Natural Law but not in religion. Our most intellectual men decided that by no stretch of the imagination could they build a god for religious purposes as great as the Creator of the universe must naturally be, and knowing that it remains for man himself to reach his highest state of perfection without any supernatural influence whatsoever, they therefore abolished all forms of religious worship and established a code of ethics which was termed Natural Law.

"Religion teaches one to believe in an unnatural god who apparently must be ever ready to answer anybody's prayerful cry and act as a general servant to humanity by distributing good things to those who beg for them; a sort of meddlesome god who enters into all the petty quarrels of hunan beings and generally settles them in the wrong way.

"Natural Law teaches that there exists on grand supreme ruler who guides the entire machinery of the universe; the Deity who created the principle of life, and one who does not deviate from His eternal and immutable laws; an all-wise, everlasting and unchangeable being far beyond the faintest conception the brain of man has ever been able to formulate. His power unlimited; His laws supreme; His goodness incalculable.

"Natural Law explains that He created the principle from which humanity evolved, but that it remains for all living things to make better or worse their own conditions. His laws may be studied and practiced by all human beings, but to claim to know the reasons of the Creator's actions would be to assume His wisdom and knowledge. His purposes, therefore, are unfathomable.

"Natural Law sets forth that notwithstanding the earth is but a mere speck in the universe, still, it being a part of the vast machinery governed by the Almighty, there is a reason for its existence and a work for it to perform. Like other bodies in space, it contains particles of living matter which are constantly passing through a course of development with methodical changes from life to death and from death to life. But while all living things live and die, the material thereof is used over and over again indefinitely. Human beings are a species of these particles. All living things are composed of three parts, matter, energy and soul. The matter is the machinery; energy the motion and soul the engineer. The mind is that part of the machinery having power to control its movements. The soul is the spark of life and acts as a moral guide to the mind. Soul and conscience are synonymous. The soul, always pure, is continually striving to improve the condition of the mind. The mind alone is responsible for the disposition