<h2 id="id00326">IS CHRISTIANITY REAL?</h2>
<p id="id00327" style="margin-top: 3em">It is assumed, without foundation, as I hope to show, that the
religion of Jesus alone can save the world. We are not surprised at
the claim, because there has never been a religion which has been too
modest to make a similar claim. No religion has ever been satisfied to
be <i>one</i> of the saviors of man. Each religion wants to be the <i>only</i>
savior of man. There is no monopoly like religious monopoly. The
industrial corporations with all their greed are less exacting than
the Catholic church, for instance, which keeps heaven itself under
lock and key.</p>
<p id="id00328">But what is meant by salvation? Let us consider its religious meaning
first. An unbiased investigation of the dogmas and their supposed
historical foundations will prove that the salvation which
Christianity offers, and the means by which it proposes to effect the
world's salvation, are extremely fanciful in nature. If this point
could be made clear, there will be less reluctance on the part of the
public to listen to the evidence on the un-historicity of the founder
of Christianity.</p>
<p id="id00329">We are told that God, who is perfect, created this world about half a
hundred centuries ago. Of course, being perfect himself the world
which he created was perfect, too. But the world did not stay perfect
very long. Nay, from the heights it fell, not slowly, but suddenly,
into the lowest depths of degradation. How a world which God had
created perfect, could in the twinkling of an eye become so vile as to
be cursed by the same being who a moment before had pronounced it
"good," and besides be handed over to the devil as fuel for eternal
burnings, only credulity can explain. I am giving the story of what is
called the "plan of salvation," in order to show its mythical nature.
In the preceding pages we have discussed the question, Is Jesus a
Myth, but I believe that when we have reflected upon the story of
man's fall and his supposed subsequent salvation by the blood of
Jesus, we shall conclude that the function, or the office, which Jesus
is said to perform, is as mythical as his person.</p>
<p id="id00330">The story of Eden possesses all the marks of an allegory. Adam and
Eve, and a perfect world <i>suddenly</i> plunged from a snowy whiteness
into the blackness of hell, are the thoughts of a child who
exaggerates because of an as yet undisciplined fancy. Yet, if Adam and
Eve are unreal, theologically speaking, Jesus is unreal. If they are
allegory and myth, so is Jesus. It is claimed that it was the fall of
Adam which necessitated the death of Jesus, but if Adam's fall be a
fiction, as we know it is, Jesus' death as an atonement must also be a
fiction.</p>
<p id="id00331">In the fall of Adam, we are told, humanity itself fell. Could anything
be more fanciful than that? And what was Adam's sin? He coveted
knowledge. He wished to improve his mind. He experimented with
forbidden things. He dared to take the initiative. And for that
imaginary crime, even the generations not yet born are to be forever
blighted. Even the animals, the flowers and vegetables were cursed for
it. Can you conceive of anything more mythical than that? One of the
English divines of the age of Calvin declared that original sin,—Adam's
sin imputed to us,—was so awful, that "if a man had never been born
he would yet have been damned for it." It is from this mythical sin
that a mythical Savior saves us. And how does he do it? In a very
mythical way, as we shall see.</p>
<p id="id00332">When the world fell, it fell into the devil's hands. To redeem a part
of it, at least, the deity concludes to give up his only son for a
ransom. This is interesting. God is represented as being greatly
offended, because the world which he had created perfect was all in a
heap before him. To placate himself he sacrificed his son—not
himself.</p>
<p id="id00333">But, as intimated above, he does not intend to restore the whole world
to its pristine purity, but only a part of it. This is alarming. He
creates the whole world perfect, but now he is satisfied to have only
a portion of it redeemed from the devil. If he can save at all, pray,
why not save all? This is not an irrelevant question when it is
remembered that the whole world was created perfect in the first
place.</p>
<p id="id00334">The refusal of the deity to save all of his world from the devil would
lead one to believe that even when God created the world perfect he
did not mean to keep all of it to himself, but meant that some of it,
the greater part of it, as some theologians contend, should go to the
devil! Surely this is nothing but myth. Let us hope for the sake of
our ideals that all this is no more than the childish prattle of
primitive man.</p>
<p id="id00335">But let us return to the story of the fall of man; God decides to save
a part of his ruined perfect world by the sacrifice of his son. The
latter is supposed to have said to his father: "Punish me, kill me,
accept my blood, and let it pay for the sins of man." He thus
interceded for the <i>elect</i>, and the deity was mollified. As Jesus
is also God, it follows that one God tried to pacify another, which is
pure myth. Some theologians have another theory—there is room here
for many theories. According to these, God gave up his son as a
ransom, not to himself, but to the devil, who now claimed the world as
his own. I heard a distinguished minister explain this in the
following manner: A poor man whose house is mortgaged hears that some
philanthropist has redeemed the property by paying off the mortgage.
The soul of man was by the fall of Adam mortgaged to the devil. God
has raised the mortgage by abandoning his son to be killed to satisfy
the devil who held the mortgage. The debt which we owed has been paid
by Jesus. By this arrangement the devil loses his legal right to our
souls and we are saved. All we need to do is to believe in this story
and we'll be sure to go to heaven. And to think that intelligent
Americans not only accept all this as inspired, but denounce the man
who ventures to intimate modestly that it might be a myth, as a
blasphemer! "O, judgment!" cries Shakespeare, "thou hast fled to
brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason."</p>
<p id="id00336">The morality which the Christian church teaches is of as mythical a
nature as the story of the fall, and the blood-atonement. It is not
natural morality, but something quite unintelligible and fictitious.
For instance, we are told that we cannot of ourselves be righteous. We
must first have the grace of God. Then we are told that we cannot have
the grace of God unless he gives it to us. And he will not give it to
us unless we ask for it. But we cannot ask for it, unless he moves us
to ask for it. And there we are. We shall be damned if we do not come
to God, and we cannot come to God unless he calls us. Besides, could
anything be more mythical than a righteousness which can only be
imputed to us,—any righteousness of our own being but "filthy rags?"</p>
<p id="id00337">The Christian religion has the appearance of being one great myth,
constructed out of many minor myths. It is the same with
Mohammedanism, or Judaism, which latter is the mischievous parent of
both the Mohammedan and the Christian faiths. It is the same with all
supernatural creeds. Myth is the dominating element in them all.
Compared with these Asiatic religions how glorious is science! How
wholesome, helpful, and luminous, are her commandments!</p>
<p id="id00338">If I were to command you to believe that Mount Olympus was once
tenanted by blue-eyed gods and their consorts,—sipping nectar and
ambrosia the live-long day,—you will answer, "Oh, that is only
mythology." If I were to tell you that you cannot be saved unless you
believe that Minerva was born full-fledged from the brain of Jupiter,
you will laugh at me. If I were to tell you that you must punish your
innocent sons for the guilt of their brothers and sisters, you will
answer that I insult your moral sense. And yet, every Sunday, the
preacher repeats the myth of Adam and Eve, and how God killed his
innocent son to please himself, or to satisfy the devil, and with
bated breath, and on your knees, you whisper, <i>Amen.</i></p>
<p id="id00339">How is it that when you read the literature of the Greeks, the
literature of the Persians, the literature of Hindoostan, or of the
Mohammedan world, you discriminate between fact and fiction, between
history and myth, but when it comes to the literature of the Jews, you
stammer, you stutter, you bite your lips, you turn pale, and fall upon
your face before it as the savage before his fetish? You would
consider it unreasonable to believe that everything a Greek, or a
Roman, or an Arab ever said was inspired. And yet, men have been
hounded to death for not believing that everything that a Jew ever
said in olden times was inspired.</p>
<p id="id00340">I do not have to use arguments, I hope, to prove to an intelligent
public that an infallible book is as much a myth as the Garden of
Eden, or the Star of Bethlehem.</p>
<p id="id00341">A mythical Savior, a mythical Bible, a mythical plan of salvation!</p>
<p id="id00342">When we subject what are called religious truths to the same tests by
which we determine scientific or historical truths, we discover that
they are not truths at all; they are only opinions. Any statement
which snaps under the strain of reason is unworthy of credence. But it
is claimed that religious truth is discovered by intuition and not by
investigation. The believer, it is claimed, feels in his own soul—he
has the witness of the spirit, that the Bible is infallible, and that
Jesus is the Savior of man. The Christian does not have to look into
the arguments for or against his religion, it is said, before he makes
up his mind; he knows by an inward assurance; he has proved it to his
own deepermost being that Jesus is real and that he is the only
Savior. But what is that but another kind of argument? The argument is
quite inadequate to inspire assurance, as you will presently see, but
it is an argument nevertheless. To say that we must believe and not
reason is a kind of reasoning, This device of reasoning against
reasoning is resorted to by people who have been compelled by modern
thought to give up, one after another, the strongholds of their
position. They run under shelter of what they call faith, or the
"inward witness of the spirit," or the intuitive argument, hoping
thereby to escape the enemy's fire, if I may use so objectionable a
phrase.</p>
<p id="id00343">What is called faith, then, or an intuitive spiritual assurance, is a
species of reasoning; let its worth be tested honestly.</p>
<p id="id00344">In the first place, faith or the intuitive argument would prove too
much. If Jesus is real, notwithstanding that there is no reliable
historical data to warrant the belief, because the believer feels in
his own soul that He is real and divine, I answer that, the same mode
of reasoning—and let us not forget, it is a kind of <i>reasoning</i>—would
prove Mohammed a divine savior, and the wooden idol of the savage a god.
The African Bushman trembles before an image, because he feels in his
own soul that the thing is real. Does that make it real? The Moslem
cries unto Mohammed, because he believes in his innermost heart that
Mohammed is near and can hear him. He will risk his life on that assurance.
To quote to him history and science to prove that Mohammed is dead and
unable to save, would be of no avail, for he has the witness of the
spirit in him, an intuitive assurance, that the great prophet sits on
the right hand of Allah. An argument which proves too much, proves
nothing.</p>
<p id="id00345">In the second place, an intuition is not communicable. I may have an
intuition that I see spirits all about me this morning. They come,
they go, they nod, they brush my forehead with their wings. But do
<i>you</i> see them, too, because I see them? There is the difference
between a scientific demonstration and a purely metaphysical
assumption. I could go to the blackboard and assure you, as I am
myself assured, that two parallel lines running in the same direction
will not and cannot meet. That is demonstration. A fever patient when
in a state of delirium, and a frightened child in the dark, see
things. We do not deny that they do, but their testimony does not
prove that the things they see are real.</p>
<p id="id00346">"What is this I see before me?" cries Macbeth, the murderer, and he
shrieks and shakes from head to foot—he draws his sword and rushes
upon Banquo's ghost, which he sees coldly staring at him. But is that
any proof that what he saw we could see also? Yes, we could, if we
were in the same frenzy! And it is the revivalist's aim, by creating a
general excitement, to make everybody <i>see things</i>. "Doctor, Doctor,
help! they are coming to kill me; there they are—the assassins,—one,
two, three—oh, help," and the patient jumps out of bed to escape the
banditti crowding in upon him. But is that any reason why the
attending physician, his pulse normal and his brow cool, should
believe that the room is filling up with assassins? I observe people
jump up and down, as they do in holiness meetings; I hear them say
they see angels, they see Jesus, they feel his presence. But is that
any evidence for you or me? An intuitive argument is not communicable,
and, therefore, it is no argument at all.</p>
<p id="id00347">Our orthodox friends are finally driven by modern thought, which is
growing bolder every day, to the only refuge left for them. It is the
one already mentioned. Granted that Jesus was an imaginary character,
even then, as an ideal, they argue, he is an inspiration, and the most
effective moral force the world has ever known. We do not care, they
say, whether the story of his birth, trial, death, and resurrection is
myth or actual history; such a man as Jesus may never have existed,
the things he is reported as saying may have been put in his mouth by
others, but what of that—is not the picture of his character perfect?
Are not the Beatitudes beautiful—no matter who said them? To
strengthen this position they call our attention to Shakespeare's
creations, the majority of whom—Hamlet, Othello, Lear, Portia,
Imogen, Desdemona, are fictitious. Yet where are there grander men, or
finer women? These children of Shakespeare may never have lived, but,
surely, they will never die. In the same sense, Jesus may be just as
ideal a character as those of Shakespeare, they say, and still be "the
light of the world." A New York preacher is reported as saying that if
Christianity is a lie, it is a "glorious lie."</p>
<p id="id00348">My answer to the above is that such an argument evades instead of
facing the question. It is receding from a position under cover of a
rhetorical manoeuvre. It is a retreat in disguise. If Christianity is
a "glorious lie," then call it such. The question under discussion is,
Is Jesus Historical? To answer that it is immaterial whether or not he
is historical, is to admit that there is no evidence that he is
historical. To urge that, unhistorical though he be, he is,
nevertheless, the only savior of the world, is, I regret to say, not
only evasive,—not only does it beg the question, but it is also
clearly dishonest. How long will the tremendous ecclesiastical
machinery last, if it were candidly avowed that it is doubtful whether
there ever was such a historical character as Jesus, or that in all
probability he is no more real than one of Shakespeare's creations?
What! all these prayers, these churches, these denominations, these
sectarian wars which have shed oceans of human blood—these
unfortunate persecutions which have blackened the face of man—the
fear of hell and the devil which has blasted millions of lives—all
these for a Christ who may, after all, be only a picture!</p>
<p id="id00349">Neither is it true that this pictorial Jesus saved the world. He has
had two thousand years to do it in, but as missionaries are still
being sent out, it follows that the world is yet to be saved. The
argument presented elsewhere in these pages may here be recapitulated.</p>
<p id="id00350">There was war before Christianity; has Jesus abolished war?</p>
<p id="id00351">There was poverty and misery in the world before Christianity; has<br/>
Jesus removed these evils?<br/></p>
<p id="id00352">There was ignorance in the world before Christianity; has Jesus
destroyed ignorance?</p>
<p id="id00353">There were disease, crime, persecution, oppression, slavery,
massacres, and bloodshed in the world before Christianity; alas, are
they not still with us?</p>
<p id="id00354"><i>When Jesus shall succeed in pacifying his own disciples; in healing
the sectarian world of its endless and bitter quarrels, then it will
be time to ask what else Jesus has done for humanity.</i></p>
<p id="id00355">If the world is improving at all, and we believe it is, the progress
is due to the fact that man pays now more attention to <i>this</i> life
than formerly. He is thinking less of the other world and more of
this. He no longer sings with the believer:</p>
<p id="id00356"> The world is all a fleeting show<br/>
For man's delusion given.<br/>
Its smiles of joy, its tears of woe,<br/>
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,<br/>
There's nothing true but heaven.<br/></p>
<p id="id00357">How could people with such feelings labor to improve a world they
hated? How could they be in the least interested in social or
political reforms when they were constantly repeating to themselves—</p>
<p id="id00358"> I'm a pilgrim, and I'm a stranger—<br/>
I can tarry, I can tarry, but a night.<br/></p>
<p id="id00359">That these same people should now claim not only a part of the credit
for the many improvements, but all of it—saying that, but for their
religion the "world would now have been a hell," [Footnote: Rev. Frank
Gunsaulus, of the Central Church, Chicago. See A New Catechism.—M. M.
Mangasarian.] is really a little too much for even the most serene
temperament.</p>
<p id="id00360">Which of the religions has persecuted as long and as relentlessly as<br/>
Christianity?<br/></p>
<p id="id00361">Which of the many faiths of the world has opposed Science as
stubbornly and as bitterly as Christianity?</p>
<p id="id00362">In the name of what other prophets have more people been burned at the
stake than in the names of Jesus and Moses?</p>
<p id="id00363">What other revelation has given rise to so many sects, hostile and
irreconcilable, as the Christian?</p>
<p id="id00364">Which religion has furnished as many effective texts for political
oppression, polygamy, slavery, and the subjection of woman as the
religion of Jesus and Paul?</p>
<p id="id00365">Is there,—has there ever been another creed which makes salvation
dependent on belief,—thereby encouraging hypocrisy, and making honest
inquiry a crime?</p>
<p id="id00366">To send a thief to heaven from the gallows because he believes, and an
honest man to hell because he doubts, is that the virtue which is
going to save the world?</p>
<p id="id00367">The claim that Jesus has saved the world is another myth.</p>
<p id="id00368">A <i>pictorial</i> Christ, then, has not done anything for humanity to
deserve the tremendous expenditure of time, energy, love, and
devotion, which has for two thousand years taxed the resources of
civilization.</p>
<p id="id00369">The passing away of this imaginary savior will relieve the world of an
unproductive investment.</p>
<p id="id00370">We conclude: Honesty, like charity, must begin at home. Unless we can
tell the truth in our churches we will never tell the truth in our
shops. Unless our teachers, the ministers of God, are honest, our
insurance companies and corporations will have to be watched. Permit
sham in your religious life, and the disease will spread to every
member of the social body. If you may keep religion in the dark, and
cry "hush," "hush," when people ask that it be brought out into the
light, why may not politics or business cultivate a similar partiality
for darkness? If the king cries, "rebel," when a citizen asks for
justice, it is because he has heard the priest cry, "infidel," when a
member of his church asked for evidence. Religious hypocrisy is the
mother of all hypocrisies. Cure a man of that, and the human world
will recover its health.</p>
<p id="id00371">Not so long ago, nearly everybody believed in the existence of a
personal devil. People saw him, heard him, described him, danced with
him, and claimed, besides, to have whipped him. Luther hurled his
inkstand at him, and American women accused as witches were put to
death in the name of the devil. Yet all this "evidence" has not saved
the devil from passing out of existence. What has happened to the
devil will happen to the gods. Man is the only real savior. If he is
not a savior, there is no other.</p>
<p id="id00372" style="margin-top: 4em">[Illustration: The Hindu Trinity.]</p>
<h1 id="id00373" style="margin-top: 5em">PART II.</h1>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />