An Atheist Manifesto - Joseph Lewis (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📗
- Author: Joseph Lewis
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To Nature matters of "great importance" and matters of "little consequence" are on an equal basis. The one is not "favored" above the other. It is the survival of the fittest, and not the most desirable that survives.
When conditions are favorable to the "wild" animals, they thrive by killing the other forms of life upon which they live, and when conditions are favorable to man, he kills and lives upon the forms of life which he considers exist solely for his pleasure and benefit.
To nature the germs of disease, as a form of life, are equally as important as the other forms of life that "breathe and have their being."
When conditions are favorable to the virus of influenza and pneumonia, we have what is known as an epidemic, and when conditions are favorable to the growth of cancer, it has what we might term a "Roman Holiday" by destroying a third of our population.
Germs of disease are merely invisible wild animals.
They are forms of life that thrive upon the soil of the human body.
Prayer has about as much effect upon them as it would have upon the hungry tiger ready to devour you.
A bullet from a gun would be far more effective against the tiger, and knowledge of the nature of the germs of disease, and the discovery of the methods of destroying them, are comparable to the invention of the gun and its use against the ferocious animal.
The knowledge of the one protects you against the invisible enemies of destruction, while the invention of the gun protects you against being destroyed by the wild beasts.
The germs of disease and the hungry tiger are both determined upon the same objective—your destruction—one by eating you in "chunks" and the other by minutely gnawing you away "piecemeal."
The results are identical.
It is not necessary to moralize upon the difference.
But this we know, that in our present scheme of life, as Ingersoll so eloquently states, "The hands that help are better far than lips that pray."
Our bodies are as much "meat" for the disease germs that eat us as the animal that furnishes the meat for our appetites.
Or as Shakespeare puts it:
In a broader and more comprehensive concept of disease, Shakespeare says, it is, as if a
Who are you to say which one is the more favored in this scheme of life—the germs of disease or man—which one is preferred by nature; which one is more important than the other, since the ends accomplished are the same?
The life of the disease germ came into existence by the same process as did the life of man.
It is just as much a part of nature as is the dimpled babe.
If we cannot live without sunshine and water, neither can the germs of disease.
It might well be that we are nothing more than "disease germs" in the environment in which we live. The same basic construction by which they live forms the same pattern upon which our life is built.
To nature the night is just as important as the day, and the life of the germ we call disease is as important as the life of the body upon which it feeds.
It follows the same law of life; it is born, reproduces and dies.
There are forms of life that live by night that are equally as favored by nature as those which live by day.
Freaks of all kinds exist in nature—from the utterly ridiculous to the terrifying monstrosities. This is proof of the lack of design in Nature as far as man is concerned.
When man comes to the realization that he is not the "favorite" of God; that he was not specially created, that the universe was not made for his benefit, and that he is subject to the same laws of nature as all other forms of life, then, and not until then, will he understand that he must rely upon himself, and himself alone, for whatever benefits he is to enjoy; and devote his time and energies to helping himself and his fellow men to meet the exigencies of life and to set about to solve the difficult and intricate problems of living.
The recognition of a problem is the first step to its solution—
We are not "fallen" angels, nor were we "created" perfect.
On the contrary, we are the product of millions of years of an unpurposed evolution.
We are the descendants and inheritors of all the defects of our primitive ancestry—the evolution of the myriad forms of life from the infinitesimal to the mammoth—from the worm to the dinosaur.
The most important step in the development of man is the recognition of the fact that we are born without knowledge, and that the acquisition of knowledge is a slow and painful process.
If all man needed upon earth was a "knowledge of God," then why the necessity of establishing educational institutions?
Unless a child is taught to talk, it will never be able to speak the language of our tongue. Without teaching the child the rudiments of speech, he would be unable to communicate his thoughts to others. Without proper training his "grunts" of expression would be meaningless, and the only way he could express himself would be by the primitive instinct of making signs and by pointing.
The brain needs the same kind of training as any other part of the body that requires exercise for development. Nourishment for the mind is just as necessary as nourishment for the body.
Just as there are some foods which have been so adulterated and refined that when eaten they add no nourishment to the body, so there are truths which have been adulterated by religion and superstition so as to be utterly valueless in nourishing the mind with intelligence.
Education becomes the primary object of civilization.
As Thomas Paine says: "Wisdom is not the purchase of a day."
The church knows that an educated man is an unbeliever.
That is why there is a continual struggle on the part of the clergy to adulterate education with superstition. To maintain their untenable position they must keep the people shackled to a form of mental slavery.
Both fear and superstition are forms of a contagious disease.
The ignorance of man produced natural fears of the elements of nature. What he could not understand he attributed to malevolent spirits whose primary purpose was to punish and harm him. Under this spell it seems almost incredible that he ever advanced from his state of primitive ignorance.
His fears produced such fantastic monsters of the air that it was first necessary to relieve his tormented mind of these terrifying myths of ghosts and gods before he was able to acquire even the simplest rudiments of knowledge.
Man's ignorance and fears made him an easy prey of priests.
His gullibility was such that he believed everything he was told.
He soon became a slave to these liars and hypocrites.
And what did the priests tell him?
They told him that God had made a special revelation in a book called the Bible, and that it was necessary to believe every word in that book in order that he might save his soul. They told him that if he disobeyed their commands, he would suffer eternal damnation in a hell where "the fire never ceases, and where the worm never dies."
They also told him that it was a sin for him to read that book, and that the priest was especially ordained by God to interpret the meaning of each and every word.
And what was the priest's interpretation of the text of that book?
It was that man was a corrupt and sinful being, and that in order to be saved from punishment after death, he had to give a substantial part of the fruits of his labor to the priest to pray for him, and intercede with God on his behalf, so as to mitigate the punishment to which he had already been doomed.
What a diabolical scheme of fraud by which to live upon the sweat and labor of others.
It was such a profitable scheme that the priests began to maintain their power by the force of arms.
As a result there came into existence the twin tyrannies of church and state.
It seems incredible that such nonsense was ever imposed upon suffering humanity, and nonsense it would be were it not so tragic.
So fearful did he become that he thought that he could not live without the "protection" of the priests, and as Ingersoll said, "as long as people wanted Popes, plenty of hypocrites will be found to take their place...."
Ingersoll further declared: "The priests pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. He came back with a command, with authority and power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave."
As long as there is one person suffering an injustice; as long as one person is forced to bear an unnecessary sorrow; as long as one person is subject to an undeserved pain, the worship of a God is a demoralizing humiliation.
As long as there is one mistake in the universe; as long as one wrong is permitted to exist; as long as there is hatred and antagonism among mankind, the existence of a God is a moral impossibility.
Ingersoll said: "Injustice upon earth renders the justice of heaven impossible."
Man's inhumanity to man will continue as long as man loves God more than he loves his fellow man.
The love of God means wasted love.
"For God and Country" means a divided allegiance—a 50 per cent patriot.
The most abused word in the language of man is the word "God."
The reason for this is that it is subject to so much abuse.
There is no other word in the human language that is as meaningless and incapable of explanation as is the word "God."
It is the beginning and end of nothing.
It is the Alpha and Omega of Ignorance.
It has as many meanings as there are minds. And as each person has an opinion of what the word God ought to mean, it is a word without premise, without foundation, and without substance.
It is without validity.
It is all things to all people, and is as meaningless as it is indefinable.
It is the most dangerous in the hands of the unscrupulous, and is the joker that trumps the ace.
It is the poisoned word that has paralyzed the brain of man.
"The fear of the Lord" is not the beginning of wisdom; on the contrary, it has made man a groveling slave; it has made raving lunatics of those who have attempted to interpret what God "is" and what is supposed to be our "duty" to God.
It has made man prostitute the most precious things of life—it has made him sacrifice wife, and child, and home.
"In the name of God" means in the name of nothing—it has caused man to be a wastrel with the precious elixir of life, because there is no God.
Ingersoll could not understand the mind of those who, once having been told the truth, preferred to remain under the spell of superstition and in ignorance. He could not understand why people would not accept "new truths with gladness."
He also knew, however, that once a person's mind had been poisoned with religious superstition, it was almost impossible to
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