The Necessity of Atheism Part 10

Both in Protestant and Catholic countries instruction in chemistry and physics was discouraged by Church authorities, and in England the theologians strenuously opposed the Royal Society and the a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science.

Francis Bacon and Boyle were denounced by the clergy, and Lavoisier was sent to the scaffold by the Parisian mob. Priestley had his home, his library, instruments, and papers containing the results of long years of scientific research burned by a Birmingham mob that had been instigated by Anglican clergymen. He was driven into exile, and the mob would have murdered him if they could have laid their hands upon him.

Yet, in spite of the opposition of the clergy, an opposition of such force that one may well wonder how these tender embryonic sciences could have withstood the terrific ecclesiastical onslaughts, the truths of chemistry and physics continued to diffuse themselves among the intelligent observers. The value to humanity of these two sciences is now established as inestimable.

CHAPTER XI

RELIGION AND GEOLOGY, PHILOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

_The human race has suffered three grave humiliations: when Copernicus showed that the earth was not the center of the universe; when Darwin proved that man's origin was not the result of direct creation; when Freud explained that man was not the master of his own thoughts or actions_.

LLEWELYN POWYS.

In the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers are found the germinal concepts of geological truths. But as Christianity took control of the world instead of a steady progression of knowledge in this field there was a distinct retrogression. According to the prevailing belief the earth was soon to be destroyed and the collecting of knowledge was futile and any study of its nature was vain.

St. Jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibited the wrath of G.o.d against sin. Tertullian a.s.serted that fossils resulted from the flood of Noah. A scientific explanation of fossil remains was attempted by De Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon in the seventeenth century. The theological faculty of Paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed their treatises, and banished their authors from Paris.

In the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon, in France, produced a thesis attempting to state simple geological truths. The theological faculty of the Sorbonne dismissed him from his high position and forced him to print a recantation stating, "I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of the Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses!"

The doctrine which Buffon abandoned is now as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis. Yet, in his day, it was heatedly a.s.serted by ecclesiastics that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological doctrine of Adam's fall, and the statement that death entered the world by sin--and this objection was further strengthened when the ecclesiastics became cognizant that geology had proved that the earth was vastly older than the 6000 years determined by Archbishop Ussher's interpretation of the Old Testament.

About 1580, there was published by authority of Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrology, revised in 1640 under Pope Urban VIII, which declared that the creation of man took place 5199 years before Christ. In 1650, Archbishop Ussher announced after careful study that man was created 4004 years before the Christian era. But, this proving too vague, Dr.

John Lightfoot, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, a.s.sured the world that, "Heaven and earth, centre and circ.u.mference, were created together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water ... and this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on the 23d of October, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning."

When the Egyptologists, a.s.syriologists, archeologists, and anthropologists showed that man had reached a far advanced stage of civilization long before the 6000 years given as the age of the earth, their efforts were ridiculed by the clergy, and these scientists were forced to bring their findings before the world in the face of the well known methods of ecclesiastical opposition.

At a very early period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions regarding language, and the answers to these questions were naturally embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books. Language was considered G.o.d-given and complete. The diversity of language was firmly held to be explained by the story of the Tower of Babel; and since the writers of the Bible were merely pens in the hand of G.o.d the conclusion was reached that not only the sense, but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from the Holy Spirit.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the ecclesiastical contention that the Hebrew punctuation was divinely inspired seemed to be generally disproven. The great orthodox body of "religiosa dementia" fell back upon the remainder of the theory that the Hebrew language was the first of all languages which was spoken by the Almighty, given by Him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world after the deluge, and that the confusion of tongues was the origin of all other tongues.

It has only been in comparatively recent time, and in spite of the opposition of the clergy, that language has been accepted as the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the other myths of the Bible.

In a purely civil matter, the infallible Church from its inception had displayed a marked hostility to loans at interest. From the earliest period the whole weight of the Church was brought to bear against the taking of interest for money. Pope Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment. In the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was d.a.m.nable usury. The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered by this policy.

RELIGION AND EVOLUTION

Darwinism, which at first was declared by the clergy to be brutal, degrading, atheistic, and anti-Christian, is now included as part of the Bible teaching.

In a similar manner, the Copernican theory, the theory of gravitation, the nebular hypothesis, the theory of uniformity in geology, and every scientific advance has been opposed on the same grounds; that is, that these are against the teachings of the Christian Church. And how many Galileos, Brunos, and Darwins, and other would-be benefactors to the human race have died mute because of this opposition and fear of persecution by the Church?

In 1877, an eminent French Catholic physician, Dr. Constantin James, published an elaborate answer to Darwin's book. He called it, "On Darwinism, or the Ape Man." A copy was sent to Pope Pius IX, who was so pleased with it that he sent the author a reply in which he stated that it "refutes so well the aberrations of Darwinism, a system which is repugnant at once to history, to the traditions of all peoples, to exact science, to observed facts, and even to reason itself, would seem to need no refutation did not alienation from G.o.d and the leaning toward materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek support in all this tissue of fables."

The Protestant clergy were no less vigorous in their opposition. In our own country it was opposed by Dr. Noah Porter, president of Yale College, and most bitterly by the Rev. Dr. Hodge and the Rev. Dr.

Duffield, both leading authorities at Princeton University.

Fundamentalism in the United States furnished the spectacle of the trial, in 1925, of a school teacher named Scopes, for teaching the theory of evolution. Dayton, Tennessee, became the laughingstock of the educated world, and the derision with which this effort to obstruct knowledge at this late date was met with by the comments of the press in this country and abroad is at least encouraging. But it is an excellent example of what effect religious obscurantism may exert in backward sections of our country.

Dr. Max Carl Otto, considering the implications of evolution, calls attention to the following: "Take the evolution of living forms. The more we learn about biological history the clearer it becomes that the process has been, from the human point of view, incredibly bungling and wasteful. There have been futile experiments without number; highly successful achievements have been thrown aside; one type of life after another has arisen and has pushed up a blind alley to extinction. If there is a G.o.d whose method has been Evolution, then seemingly his slogan was 'We'll fight it out along this line if it takes a billennium'

but, unlike Grant, he has always surrendered. In this maelstrom, the human species, as Thomas Huxley said--'plashed and floundered amid the general stream of evolution, keeping its head above water as best it might, and thinking neither of whence nor whither.' Many volumes have been written to give a purposive interpretation of the rise and evolutionary ramifications of living forms. The course of evolution itself is their refutation."

When the Churches could no longer ignore the rising tide of secular opinion, they resorted to compromise and called to their aid a certain number of intellectually dishonest scientists. The attempt to harmonize Christianity and Evolution can only be accounted for in terms of either dishonesty or stupidity.

"And that is true of the whole range of science. Science is, in fact, atheistic or nothing. It knows nothing of G.o.d, it does not bother about G.o.d, its triumphs are achieved by leaving G.o.d out of account." (_C.

Cohen_.)

What has heretofore been mentioned is but a mere trifle when one considers the vast number of similar incidents in which religion has played the role of barrier to progress. These examples, though few, are sufficient to impress the mind of any clear-minded, intelligent individual with the conviction, in spite of all the sophistry and casuistry of the ecclesiastical apologies, that progress in this world has taken place in direct proportion to the degree that the mind of man has liberated itself from the control of theology and the myth of religion.

CHAPTER XII

RELIGION AND WITCHCRAFT

_Better that a man's body should be destroyed than his soul. The worst death of the soul is freedom to err_.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

_It would be hard to calculate the perilous import of so treacherous an utterance, an utterance the latent sentiment of which has been responsible for I know not how much human agony. Menacing indeed to human happiness was such a claim, and in the course of time when the corporate body of the church became all-powerful in Christendom, it put into tyrannical practice what had been but a theological theory_.

LLEWELYN POWYS.

It is the purpose of this chapter to trace the origin of witches, wizards, and devils, the widespread belief in them at the time of pagan Rome, and the manner in which these were incorporated into Christian theology.

With the rise of Christianity and the gain of political power by its adherents, the perverted pagan idea of witchcraft became the source of the most terrible persecutions in the b.l.o.o.d.y history of religion. The numerous references to witches and devils in both the Old and New Testaments established the authority for the organized religious mania that scourged both Roman Catholic and Protestant Europe, and extended its tentacles into the New England colonies.

Instigated by ecclesiastics, and carried into effect by the intellectual serfs, their adherents, hundreds of thousands of "witches" were tortured and burned during the sway of the Witchcraft Delusion. With the Bible as an inspiration, the clergy inflamed the superst.i.tious minds of the ma.s.ses of that time with the conception of a ceaseless strife between the Kingdom of G.o.d and the Kingdom of Satan for possession of their souls and their bodies.

We of the present age may readily wonder how such a belief could have had so firm a grasp on the minds of our ancestors. Perhaps we will be tempted to attribute it to the ignorance of that time, particularly to the ignorance of the untutored ma.s.ses. On the contrary, this does not approximate the actual situation. History reveals that the greatest minds of that age, men eminent in law, letters, and philosophy, not only defended this conception strenuously, but even engaged in the extermination of "witches."

That men of such superior intellect could defend such a barbaric inst.i.tution, which today is revolting to our senses, necessitates the conclusion formulated at the end of this chapter.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that it was possible by supernatural means to inflict evil on their fellowmen, and all the sects of philosophers admitted this, with the exception of the Epicureans, who denied the existence of evil spirits. The magicians, in Greece and Rome, were at times punished because they injured men and not because they offended the G.o.ds. During the latter period of pagan Rome, some of the emperors pa.s.sed laws against the magicians, if it was proven that by casting the horoscope the magicians had ascertained what was, according to their belief, the most auspicious time to start a rebellion against their rule. The emperors, however, notably Marcus Aurelius and Julian, were the patrons of magicians who foretold coming events to them. The public methods of foretelling the future, such as the oracle of the G.o.ds, formed part of their religion.

When the first Christians came into Rome and spread Christianity throughout the empire, they were inspired by an intense religious enthusiasm. They thought much less of the civil than of the religious consequence of magic, and sacrilege seemed much more terrible in their eyes than anarchy.

The Christians found in Rome a vast polytheistic religion in contrast to their own in which the entire world was divided into the Kingdom of G.o.d and the Kingdom of Satan. For them the world seemed to be teeming with malignant demons, who had in all ages persecuted and deluded mankind.

"According to these Christians, the immediate objects of the devotions of the pagan world were subsidiary spirits of finite power and imperfect morality; angels, or, as they were then called, demons, who acted the part of mediators, and who, by permission of the Supreme and Inaccessible Deity, regulated the religious government of mankind. The Christians had adopted this conception of subsidiary spirits, but they maintained them to be not the willing agents, but the adversaries of the Deity; and the word demon, which among the pagans, signified only a spirit below the level of a Divinity, among the Christians signified a devil." (_Lecky._)

"This notion seems to have existed in the very earliest period of Christianity; and in the second century, we find it elaborated with the most minute and detailed care. Tertullian, who wrote in that century, a.s.sures us that the world was full of these evil spirits, whose influence might be descried in every portion of the pagan creed. If a Christian in any respect deviated from the path of duty, a visible manifestation of the devil sometimes appeared to terrify him. The terror which such a doctrine must have spread among the early Christians may be easily conceived. They seemed to breathe an atmosphere of miracles.

Wherever they turned they were surrounded and beleaguered by malicious spirits, who were perpetually manifesting their presence by supernatural arts. Watchful fiends stood beside every altar, they mingled with every avocation of life, and the Christians were the special objects of their hatred. All this was universally believed, and was realized with an intensity which, in this secular age, we can scarcely conceive. The bearing of this view upon the conception of magic is very obvious. Among the more civilized pagans, magic was mainly a civil, and in the last days of the empire, a political crime. In the early church, on the other hand, it was esteemed the most horrible form of sacrilege effected by the direct agency of evil spirits. It included the whole system of paganism, explained all its prodigies, and gave a fearful significance to all its legends. When the Church obtained the direction of the civil power, she soon modified or abandoned the tolerant maxims she had formerly inculcated; and in the course of a few years, restrictive laws were enacted, both against Jews and heretics." (_Lecky._)