The Necessity of Atheism Part 7

Most men have to accept their religions ready made. Their daily tasks leave them no time or opportunity for a personal search. The toil for bread is incessant, there is not sufficient leisure to verify the sources of their religious beliefs. Moreover, the ecclesiastic's answers to the riddles of life are easier, by far, to grasp than the answers of science. These two factors, of innate mental inertia and force of repet.i.tion, are well manifested by the present tactics of advertising.

The manufacturer of any product well knows that constant repet.i.tion and the dangling of his product before the eyes of the public will lead to a widespread acceptance of the advertising slogans propounded for his article.

The force of so-called authority has aggravated this mental inertia. It takes a tremendous amount of will power and mental courage for any individual to a.s.sert an opinion that runs counter to the accepted mode of thinking. It is much easier and much more pleasant to give oneself pa.s.sively to that delusion of grandeur, that delusion that pleasantly drugs the mind with the a.s.sumption that there is a supreme being who is personally interested in our well-being; a providence who, like a school master, at his pleasure dispenses rewards and punishments; as immortality, Heaven and h.e.l.l. So firmly has this become entrenched in the minds of men that the irrationalities which manifest themselves against such a conception make no impression. Schopenhauer well states, "Nothing is more provoking, when we are arguing against a man with reasons and explanations, and taking all pains to convince him, than to discover at last that he _will_ not understand, that we have to do with his _will_."

The Martian, knowing the widespread extent of religious beliefs and their supposed influence in our daily lives, is prepared to find in our annals a vast literature that would attest to the overwhelming benefits that mankind had derived from his religious beliefs.

He is amazed to find that the little good which religion had accomplished, had occurred at the time when our race was in its infancy.

Just as fear is instilled into the mind of the child to protect it from the dangers of its environment before the child has reached the age when it can use its reason for protection, just so had religion, by its implantation of fear, served its purpose in the days of our racial childhood. The child, however, as soon as it learns to reason, replaces those fears by a logical comprehension of the laws governing his environment. But in religious matters this fear has clung to man tenaciously; and while at first serving a protective function, at the present stage of civilization const.i.tutes an embryonic impediment. The a.s.sertion of ecclesiastics that without the aid of religious learning and influence our civilization would have been r.e.t.a.r.ded is a statement that a study of the development of man shows to be directly opposed to the facts; that religion has been the greatest impediment in the road to progress. This will be shown in the subsequent chapters. The oft-repeated a.s.sertion that, during the Middle Ages, ecclesiastic influence was the saving grace is well refuted by Dr. William J.

Robinson:

"We are told by the Church apologists that during the Middle Ages the priests and monks kept up the torch of learning, that, being the only literate people, they brought back the study of the cla.s.sics.

Historically speaking, this is about the most impudent statement that one could imagine. It was the Church that r.e.t.a.r.ded human progress at least one thousand years, it is the Church that put a thick, impenetrable pall over the sun of learning and science, so that humanity was enveloped in utter darkness, and if the priests and monks later learned to read and write (from the Arabs, Jews, and Greeks exiled from Constantinople after 1453), it is because they wanted to keep the power in their hands; the people they did not permit to learn either to read or write. _Even the reading of the Bible, bear in mind, was considered a crime._ We are told that the priests and monks built hospitals and gave alms to the poor. Having gotten enormous tracts of the best land into their hands, so that the people were starving, they were willing to throw a bone occasionally to the latter. It cost them nothing and it gave them a reputation for charity. They built enormous monasteries with well filled cellars, and lived on the fat of the land, while the people lived in wretched hovels, working their lives away for a crust of bread.

The beasts, the domestic animals lived a more comfortable life than did the men, women, and children of the people. And the Church never, never raised a finger to ameliorate their condition. It kept them in superst.i.tious darkness and helped the temporal lords--for a long period the spiritual were also the temporal lords--to keep them in fear, subjection and slavery."

The Martian being an impartial observer examined what had been done by Christianity for the intellectual and material advancement of humanity during her long reign, and what had been done by science and purely secular knowledge in its brief period of activity, the period when science and secular knowledge had partially liberated themselves from ecclesiastical domination. He came to the conclusion that in inst.i.tuting a comparison he had established a contrast.

CHAPTER VI

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

_Science, then, commands our respect, not on the basis that its present a.s.sumptions and deductions are absolutely and for all time true, but on the ground that its method is for all time true--the method of discovery, the method of observation, research, experimentation, comparison, examination, testing, a.n.a.lysis and synthesis._

MAYNARD SHIPLEY, "The War on Modern Science."

_In the bare three and one-half centuries since modern science began, the churches had conducted an unremitting crusade against it.

That much of this crusade had turned into a rear-guard action was due less to the weakness of the defenders of the faith than to the invulnerability of their non-resistant victim._

HORACE M. KALLEN, "Why Religion?"

Some sixty years ago in the "Dogmatic Const.i.tution of the Catholic Faith," the Church stated, "But never can reason be rendered capable of thoroughly understanding mysteries as it does those truths which form its proper subject. We, therefore, p.r.o.nounce false every a.s.sertion which is contrary to the enlightened truth of faith.... Hence, all the Christian faithful are not only forbidden to defend as legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, especially when condemned by the Church, but are rather absolutely bound to hold them for errors wearing the deceitful appearance of truth. Let him be anathema....

"Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that one may be allowed to hold true their a.s.sertions even when opposed to revealed doctrine."

Can anything stronger be said to discourage research, investigation, experiment, and r.e.t.a.r.d progress? And only sixty years ago! It is but the restatement of what the Church has uttered so many times and for so long--that all knowledge, material as well as spiritual, is to be found in the Bible as interpreted by the Church. It was this myth which had stultified the mind of man for 1500 years (during the period in which the Church was dominant); it was this that had killed the urge to search and seek for the truth, which is the goal of all science, the means by which humanity is set on the road to progress. This was the d.a.m.nable precept foisted on the minds of men which enslaved them throughout the ages, and from which we are just emerging. This was the precept that plunged the world into the Dark Ages, and r.e.t.a.r.ded the advance of mankind for centuries.

This is the reason that it is utterly impossible for the intellectually honest scientist, and for that matter any individual, to reconcile science with religion. On the one hand, that of religion, we have the forces of intolerance, superst.i.tion, and the endeavor to besmirch, repress, and ridicule every advance favorable to mankind; to cloak with meaningless words obsolete rites, to stand in the way of human progress, because it does not permit men to think boldly and logically. Science, on the other hand, does not hesitate to tear down old conceptions, and has only one motive, the ultimate truth. Religion has the purpose of keeping the ma.s.ses in the narrow and false path of only accepted doctrines. The true scientist is the man with the open mind, one who will discard the worthless and accept only the proven good. The religionist closes his mind to all facts which he is unwilling to believe, everything which will endanger his creed. Religion teaches the individual to place all hope, all desire, in a problematical hereafter.

The stay on earth is so short compared to the everlasting life to come, that of what interest is this life; all things are vain. The misery, the suffering, of his fellow men leave him cold; he can only think of living in the light of his narrow creed so that he may gain his future reward.

How well this philosophy has fitted in with the schemes of the select few for the control of the many!

Truth to the scientific mind is something provisional, a hypothesis that for the present moment best conforms to the recognized tests. It is an evolving conception in a constantly changing universe. It is not that science has attained true conclusions; not that the evidence at hand must remain immutable; but that the scientific method of a.n.a.lyzing and formulating a.s.sumptions on the basis of discovery, on ascertained facts, is a superior method to the closed "infallible" method of "revelation."

These a.s.sumptions, based upon the known facts, lead to a working hypothesis which in turn develops into a theory. If the theory is adopted it must account for the facts known. But the theory is not held as final, it is always changed or abandoned if necessary to conform to the new discovered data. Science welcomes the critical att.i.tude that leads to the refinement of its theories. There may be today various theories held by scientists in which they are mistaken, but the question of the _method_ by which they arrive at conclusions can no longer be under consideration with regard to its validity.

To the scientific mind, knowledge is something to be arrived at by study and research. To the religionist, knowledge is something that is contained in an infallible and supernatural statement or insight.

Religion exalts the transcendental; science manipulates only the material. To the consistent religionist, his belief, as such, determine the fact; to the scientist it is the evidence that establishes the fact.

To the religionist truth is something that is unchanging, that is fixed, final, and heretical to question. Confronted with a constantly changing universe, he would delude himself that his inner convictions give him a finality concerning his evolving environment. It is therefore not so much Science that the religionist is fighting, but the _scientific method_. This scientific method of approach, he rightly perceives, has so pervaded our mode of thinking that it is the subtle and most disintegrating force that is shattering the religious foundations.

Dr. James T. Shotwell, speaking of the scientific method, concludes, "But whatever strictures philosophy may pa.s.s upon the _conclusions_ of science, as merely relative and provisional, there is no clearer fact in the history of thought, that its _att.i.tudes_ and _methods_ have been at opposite poles from those of religion. It does no good to blink the fact, established as it is by the most positive proofs of history and psychology. Science has made headway by attempting to eliminate mystery so far as it can. Religion, on the other hand, has stressed mystery and accepted it in its own terms. Science is the product of bold adventure, pushing into the realm of the mysterious to interpret its phenomena in terms of the investigator; religion enters this same realm to give itself up to the emotional reactions. Science is the embodiment of the sense of control, religion yields the control to that power which moves in the shadow of the woods by night, and the glory of the morning hills....

"Science does not justify by faith, but by works. It is the living denial of that age-long acceptance which we accord to the mystery--as such. It renounces authority, cuts athwart custom, violates the sacred, rejects the myths. It adjusts itself to the process of change whose creative impulse it itself supplies. Not _semper idem_ but _semper alterum_ is the keynote of science. Each discovery of something new involves the discarding of something old. Above all, it progresses by doubting rather than by believing." (_James T. Shotwell: "The Religious Revolution of To-day."_)

_There has never been an advance in science of widespread importance which in some manner or other endangered some mouldy religious concept, that the Church has not bitterly opposed; an advance which in time has proven of inestimable benefit for all mankind. A glance at the history of human progress will reveal scores of such instances._

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church, Protestant and Catholic, have always been in accord on one point, that is, to tolerate no science except such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures. It was the decree of the Lateran Council of 1515 that ordered that no books should be printed but such as had been inspected by the ecclesiastical censors, under pain of excommunication and fine.

It is easily understood that having declared the Bible to contain all knowledge both scientific and spiritual, and then pa.s.sing a decree ordering no books to be printed which did not agree on all points with the Church's interpretation of the Bible, the Church was in absolute control of all thought, both written and spoken.

It was to no advantage for the scholar to investigate any new fields, for all knowledge which was possible for the mind to discover had already been revealed in the Scriptures. Thus declared the Church. We understand why it was that Copernicus did not permit his book to be published until he was dying. We understand also that when Galileo and Bruno had the courage of their convictions, and gave voice to their beliefs, they were persecuted. Galileo was made to recant a discovery that the youngest of children now takes for granted. Bruno was burnt at the stake.

We know that astronomy was at a standstill under Church domination, chemistry was forbidden, and the study of natural philosophy was contradicted; while anthropology, which showed on what mythical foundations the story of the fall of man rests, was squelched. The att.i.tude of the Church on geography was hostile to the truth, as witness the persecutions of those who dared to venture that the earth was round.

Botany, mathematics, and geometry, as well as the natural sciences, slumbered. Geology, which proved that the earth was more than 6000 years old, was anathematized; archeologists had the greatest difficulty to expound the truth concerning the antiquity of the human race. In purely civil matters, the clergy opposed fire and marine insurance on the ground that it was a tempting of Providence. Life insurance was regarded as an act of interference with the consequence of G.o.d's will. Medicine met the most strenuous of opposition.

It is impossible in this short study to a.n.a.lyze the specific forms of r.e.t.a.r.dation which the Church exhibited to all of these branches of learning, whose only endeavor it was to search for the truth, to state the facts, and to alleviate and make more bearable man's sojourn on this earth. However, a few of the many instances of r.e.t.a.r.dation on the part of the Church will be pointed out.

CHAPTER VII

RELIGION AND MEDICINE

_Now, when physiologists study the living brain of an ape, they have no grounds for supposing that they are dealing with a dual structure. The brain is not a tenement inhabited by a spirit or soul. The spirit or soul is but a name for the manifestations of the living brain. The leading neurologists of the world are agreed that the same is true of the human brain. It was only when they abandoned the dual conception--an inheritance from the dark ages of medicine--that they began to understand the disorders of man's mind and how to treat them._

_Modern medicine thus strikes at the very root of Christian doctrine. For, if man is truly mortal, if death ends all, if the human soul is but the manifestation of the living brain, as light and heat are the manifestations of a glowing bar of steel, then there can be no resurrection of the dead. Man has the seeds of immortality in him, but the gift is for the race, not for the individual._

SIR ARTHUR KEITH.

Medicine and religion have been closely a.s.sociated from the most pristine time. Primitive medicine had its origin in conjunction with the most primitive of religious conceptions, namely, animism; an illusion that made primitive man recognize in all things, and everywhere, spirits such as his supposed spirit; a belief that the world swarms with invisible spirits which are the cause of disease and death. And thus primitive medicine is inseparable from primitive modes of religious belief. All these phenomena which we consider today natural--the rustling of leaves in a forest, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning, winds, clouds, storms, and earthquakes--were to primitive man the outward and visible signs of angry G.o.ds, demons, and spirits.

Similar spirits caused disease and death, and these evil spirits that produced disease and death were to be placated and cajoled by man, just as he did his other deities, by magic, by burnt offerings, and sacrifice.

The first holy man, the first priest, was the "shaman," and it was his duty not only to placate and cajole the spirits that were thought to control the physical well-being of the individual members of the tribe; but it was his duty also, by the exercise of his magic, to alleviate and cure illness by exorcism. The "shaman" was therefore the first medicine man, the first witch doctor, the first physician. He relied chiefly upon psychotherapy as does the modern witch doctor of Christian Science.

Medicine could not begin to be medicine until it was disa.s.sociated from magic, religion, and theology. This struggle has been going on from the time of the "shaman" to the present moment. Primitive medicine stands midway between magic and religion, as an attempt to safeguard health by control of so-called supernatural processes, and the warding off of evil influences by appeal to the G.o.ds.

In all primitive societies, priest, magician, and medicine man were one and the same; and medicine remained stationary until it could divorce itself completely from religion. Primitive medicine, then, springs from folklore, legends, credulity, and superst.i.tions; the same forces that give rise to all forms of religious beliefs.

Huxley has stated, "Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed," and from the earliest of times those men who had a scientific trend of mind realized this, however vaguely, and have attempted to divorce science from religion. The science of medicine has been divorced from superst.i.tion, but its twin brother religion lies as firmly bogged in the mire of superst.i.tion today as it did in the days of the incantations of the first theologist, the "shaman." And it is due to this close a.s.sociation of religion and medicine that ideas of the greatest scientific moment have been throttled at birth or veered into a blind alley through some current theological lunacy. Medicine has advanced through its disa.s.sociation with supernaturalism, while religion still remains the last refuge of human savagery.

And so it had been that throughout those long, sterile, and barbarous ages primitive man ascribed all diseases either to the wrath of G.o.d, or the malice of an Evil Being. With the rise of the Greek philosophers, the human mind for the first time began to throw off the fogs of superst.i.tion. In Greece, 500 years before Christ, Hippocrates developed scientific thought and laid the foundations of medical science upon observation, experience, and reason. Under his guidance, medicine for the first time was separated from religion. He relieved the G.o.ds of the responsibility for disease and placed it squarely upon the shoulders of man. His findings were pa.s.sed on to the School of Alexandria, and there medical science was further developed. At this stage of history all advances stopped, and for the following reason:

With the coming of Christianity this science, as well as all others, was stultified. A retrogression took place to the ideation of the most primitive of men, namely, the conception of physical disease as the result of the wrath of G.o.d, or the malice of Satan, or by a combination of both. The Old Testament attributes such diseases as the leprosy of Miriam and Uzziah, the boils of Job, the dysentery of Jehoram, the withered hand of Jeroboam, the fatal illness of Asa, and many other ills, to the wrath of G.o.d, or the malice of Satan. The New Testament furnishes such examples as the woman "bound by Satan," the rebuke of the fever, the casting out of the devil which was dumb, the healing of persons whom "the devil oftimes casteth into the fire," and various other episodes. Christian theology then evolved theories of miraculous methods of cure, based upon modes of appeasing the divine anger, or of thwarting satanic malice. The curing of disease by the casting out of devils, by prayers, were the means of relief from sickness recognized and commanded by the Bible. Thus Christianity perverted the beginning of a science of medicine to a system of attempted cure of disease by fraud.

The treatment of disease descended to the cures found in holy and healing wells, pools, and streams; in miracles and the efficacy that was to be found in the relics of saints. Instead of reliance upon observation, experience, and thought, attention was directed toward supernatural agencies. In contrast to the Greek physicians who were attempting to lay a scientific foundation, we have the Christian idea prevailing that the water in which a single hair of a saint had been dipped was to be used as a purgative; water in which St. Remy's ring had been dipped cured lunacy; oil of a lamp burning before the tomb of St.

Gall cured tumors; wine in which the bones of a saint had been dipped cured fevers; St. Valentine cured epilepsy; St. Christopher cured throat disease; St. Eutropius, dropsy; St. Ovid, deafness; St. Vitus, St.