It is indeed true that I am unable to tell what matter, force and motion came from, or if I agree with most physicists that they arose from ether, I cannot give its derivative; but, granting that I am as incapable of proving their existence as you are of proving the existence of the Christian trinity, nevertheless I have this immense advantage over you, that I can prove that everything both physical and psychical (including man and his civilization) entering into the const.i.tution of the universe, lives, moves and has its being in my divine trinity--matter, force and motion: whereas you cannot prove that anything is indebted for what it is to your divine trinity--Father, Son and Spirit: therefore I insist that your trinity is a symbol of mine.
What is true of the Christian trinity is true of all the divinities of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion. The Jews live with no reference to the Christian G.o.d, or at least not with any to his second and third persons, and neither Christians nor Jews do so in the case of either the Mohammedan or Buddhistic divinity, and so on, all around the whole circle of G.o.ds.
But no representative of any G.o.d lives without constant reference to mine, of which yours and all the others are, as I think, symbols, if they are anything better than fetishes.
If you and ex-President Smith mean by your fundamental thesis, that a thing which is essentially different from that from which it came is an impossibility, you are certainly wrong, for the world is full of such things. In the tree of life there are millions of examples, since (using language in its general significance) everything above the amoeba must be regarded as essentially different from it, though all, including man, came out of it.
Going back as far as we safely can on solid ground, we come to the nebulae from which the solar systems of the universe have evolved, and surely a solar system is as essentially different from the nebula as a man is from an amoeba. Coming to our earth when its primeval, flaming, swirling gases had been condensed into inorganic matter, the protoplasm which is organic matter, arose from it, and so something which grows from within out, comes from something which grows from without in.
The large hoofed horse came from a small five-toed animal, not much larger than a rabbit. The piano and the gun are brother and sister, born of the bow and arrow, yet how different the children from the parent.
An infant is unconscious at birth and what it has of consciousness as a child and an adult is dependent upon the development of its body.
Moreover, as the human body is a development through animal bodies, we may logically conclude that human consciousness is ultimately dependent upon and inherited from animal consciousness rather than a divine one.
Jesus is represented as saying that G.o.d is a spirit; and the fathers of the English part of the Christian reformation said that there is but one living and true G.o.d without body, parts or pa.s.sions. This is their explanation of his conception of G.o.d.
When the Jesuine definition of G.o.d and the Anglican explanation of it were framed, the Divine Spirit was supposed to be an objective personality.
Modern psychology teaches that no spirit, divine, human or otherwise, is a personality. According to this science, spirit and soul are synonyms for the subjective content of a conscious life, which content consists of feelings, aspirations, ideals, convictions and determinations.
Psychologists know of no spirit or soul without a body const.i.tuted of parts any more than physicists know of a force without matter const.i.tuted of molecules, atoms, electrons and ions.
G.o.ds represent the religious ideals of people and are symbols of what they think they should be as religionists. They are symbolic, emblematic, parabolic, allegoric devices of the imagination, and contain nothing but the ideal, imaginary things which are put into them by people for themselves, and they do nothing except what the people perform through them in their names for themselves.
Matter and force const.i.tute a machine, an automatic one, which produces things, everything which enters into the const.i.tution of the cosmos, by evolutionary processes, or rather all such things, and there are no others, are the result of one universal and eternal process of evolution.
What is known as nature is the aggregation of the products of this machine by this process. The machine is unconscious and its workings are mechanical, yet some of its products rise into self-consciousness with the power of self-determination, but both the consciousness and the determination are limited. The infinite consciousness, personality and determination which are postulated of G.o.ds are contradictions.
Of all beings man possesses most of consciousness, personality and determination. What he has of these is not dependent upon G.o.ds, but all they have of them is dependent upon him. Divine beings are, as to their self-consciousness, personality and determination, human beings personified and placed in the sky. Man does everything for G.o.ds. They do nothing for him.
Such are the facts and arguments based upon them, which have forced me step by step over the long way from the position of supernaturalistic traditionalism in its Christian form, still occupied by you, to that of naturalistic scientism in its socialist form which I am now occupying, as tentatively as possible, pending further study in the light of additional facts, for which (some six years ago, when I was desperately battling to prevent the shipwreck of my faith in the G.o.d and heaven of orthodox Christianity) I appealed to about 800 outstanding theologians, among them yourself, representing all parts of christendom and every great church, including of course all our bishops among the theologians, and the Anglican communion among the churches.
You may remember how much of correspondence we had at that time, though neither you nor any one who kindly tried to reach me with the rope of the new scientific apologetics for which I appealed, can realize how eagerly I looked for the replies to my questions, nor the sickness of heart which I experienced when I saw that, in spite of every possible effort of my own and help of others, I was slowly but surely drifting towards what I then thought to be the fatal whirlpools and rocks, but what I now regard as a sheltered port--the golden gate of that delectable country, Marxian socialism, the only heaven that I am now hoping to behold.
You earnestly contend that I am wrong in representing that the majority of outstanding men of science and scientific philosophers do not believe in the existence of a conscious, personal divinity, who created, sustains and governs the universe, or in a conscious, personal life for man beyond the grave, and that none among such scientists and philosophers are orthodox Christians.
Prof. Leuba, the Bryn Mawr psychologist, is one among my authorities for these representations. In his "Belief in G.o.d and Immortality" (1916) he exhibits the results of a recent and thorough-going investigation in a chart from which it appears that, taking the greater and lesser representatives of the scientists together, they fall below 50 per cent as to their belief in G.o.d, and below 55 per cent in their belief in immortality.[I]
The showing for the scientists who are especially concerned with the origin and destiny of life, biologists and psychologists, is much less favorable to you; for, taking the greater and lesser together, only 31 per cent of the biologists believe in G.o.d and 35 per cent in immortality; and only 25 per cent of the psychologists believe in G.o.d, and 20 per cent in immortality.
But the worst by far, is yet to come; for, taking the greater biologists and psychologists, those who count most, of the former 18 per cent believe in G.o.d, and 25 per cent in immortality; and of the latter, the greatest of all authorities, only 13 per cent believe in G.o.d, and only 8 per cent in immortality.
The greater psychologists are comparatively consistent in that fewer among them believe in a conscious, personal life for humanity beyond the grave than in the conscious, personal life of divinity beyond the clouds. Human immortality is an absurdity without divine existence. The overwhelming majority of great psychologists (the greatest of all authorities, as to whether or not G.o.ds "without bodies, parts or pa.s.sions" can consciously exist in the skies, and disembodied men, women and children in celestial paradises) see this and limit the career of man to earth. In their judgment his heaven and h.e.l.l are here, and the G.o.ds who make and the devils who unmake civilizations are humans, not good or bad divinities.
This is the conclusion of a rapidly increasing number of educated people. A century ago only a few men of science and scientific philosophers had reached it, not twenty five per cent, but now the percentage is nearly ninety and it will soon be ninety-nine. The time is coming, and in the not distant future, when no educated man shall look to the G.o.d of any supernaturalistic interpretation of religion for light or strength, and when none shall hope for a heaven above the earth or fear a h.e.l.l below it.
Heav"n but the Vision of fulfill"d Desire, And h.e.l.l the Shadow from a Soul on fire Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, So late emerg"d from, shall so soon expire.
--Omar.
Joseph McCabe and Chapman Cohen are among the most brilliant of present day writers on scientific and philosophic subjects. They are not socialists, but both see that modern socialism and orthodox Christianism are utterly irreconcilable incompatibilities.
"How is it that on the Continent democratic bodies are so sceptical, or sceptical bodies so democratic? Precisely because they doubt (or reject altogether) the Christian heaven. They want to make this earth as happy as it can be, to make sure of happiness somewhere. Having taken their eyes from the sky, they have discovered remarkable possibilities in the earth. Having to give less time to G.o.d, they have more time to give to man. They think less about their heavenly home, and more about their earthly home.
The earthly home has grown very much brighter for the change. The heavenly home is just where it was.
"The plain truth is, of course, that the sentiment which used to be absorbed in religion is now embodied in humanitarianism. Religion is slowly dying everywhere. Social idealism is growing everywhere.
People who want to persuade us that social idealism depends on religion are puzzled by this. It is only because they are obstinately determined to connect everything with Christianity, in spite of its historical record. There is no puzzle. We have transferred our emotions from G.o.d to man, from heaven to earth."--Joseph McCabe.
"Socialists who have one eye on the ballot box may a.s.sure these people that Socialism is not Atheistic, but few will be convinced.
The statement that Socialism has nothing to do with religion, or that many professedly religious people are Socialist, is quite futile. A thoughtful religionist would reply that the first point concedes the truth of all that has been said against Socialism, while the second evades the question at issue. No one is specially concerned with the mental idiosyncracies of individual Socialists; what is at issue is the question whether Socialism does or does not take an Atheistic view of life? He might add, too, that a Socialism which leaves out the belief in G.o.d and a future life, which does not, in even the remotest manner, imply these beliefs, which does not make their acceptance the condition of holding the meanest office in the State, and, at most, will merely allow religious beliefs to exist so long as they do not threaten the well-being of the State, is, to all intents and purposes, an Atheistical system."--Chapman Cohen.
In summing up the results of his investigations Prof. Leuba observes that:
In every cla.s.s of persons investigated, the number of believers in G.o.d is less and in most cla.s.ses very much less than the number of non-believers, and that the number of believers in immortality is somewhat larger than in a personal G.o.d; that among the more distinguished, unbelief is very much more frequent than among the less distinguished; and finally that not only the degree of ability, but also the kind of knowledge possessed, is significantly related to the rejection of these beliefs.
In another connection Prof. Leuba speaking of Christian dogmatism as a whole says:
Christianity, as a system of belief, has utterly broken down, and nothing definite, adequate, and convincing has taken its place.
There is no generally acknowledged authority; each one believes as he can, and few seem disturbed at being unable to hold the tenets of the churches. This sense of freedom is the glorious side of an otherwise dangerous situation.
Your conception of the origin, sustenance and governance of the universe is burdened, as are all interpretations of religion which are hinged upon the existence of conscious, personal divinities, with two difficulties: (1) its physical impossibility, and (2) its moral impossibility.
1. Physical Impossibilities. The atomic and molecular movements required for the thinking of a single man would be beyond the capacity of all the G.o.ds of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion together.
Some idea of the number of such motions which are taking place in every human brain, will be derived from the conservative representations of Hofmeister as exhibited in the following condensed form by McCabe in his book, "The Evolution of Mind:"
We have reason to believe that there are in each molecule of ordinary protoplasm at least 450 atoms of carbon, 720 atoms of hydrogen, 116 of nitrogen, 6 of sulphur, and 140 of oxygen.
Nerve-plasm is still more complex.
Recent discoveries have only increased the wonder and potentiality of the cortex. Each atom has proved to be a remarkable constellation of electrons, a colossal reservoir of energy. The atom of hydrogen contains about 1,000 electrons, the atom of carbon 12,000, the atom of nitrogen 14,000, the atom of oxygen 16,000, and the atom of sulphur 32,000. These electrons circulate within the infinitesimal s.p.a.ce of the atom at a speed of from 10,000 to 90,000 miles a second. It would take 340,000 barrels of powder to impart to a bullet the speed with which some of these particles dart out of their groups. A gramme of hydrogen--a very tiny portion of the simplest gas--contains energy enough to lift a million tons more than a hundred yards.
Of these astounding a.r.s.enals of energy, the atoms, we have, on the lowest computation, at least 600 million billion in the cortex of the human brain.
Scientists, says Professor Olerich, in his book, "A Modern Look at the Universe," estimate that the chemical atom is so infinitesimally small that it requires a group of not less than a billion to make the group barely visible under the most powerful microscope, and a thousand such groups would have to be put together in order to make it just visible to the naked eye as a mere speck floating in the sunbeam.
The microscope reveals innumerable animalcules in the hundredth part of a drop of water. They all eat, digest, move and from all appearances of their frolics, they are endowed with sensation and ability of enjoyment. What then shall we say of the minuteness of the food they eat; of the blood that surges through their veins; of their nervous system that thrills and guides them? Their minutest organs must be composed of molecules, atoms, ions and electrons inconceivably smaller than are the organs themselves.
Is there any G.o.d in a celestial field who could care for the movements which occur in the molecules const.i.tuting a hundredth part of a drop of water, not to speak of those which occur in the bodies of its myriads of inhabitants? And what shall we say of all the inorganic and organic movements in a small cup of whole drops of water, let alone those of a great ocean of them?
But why go further into this subject? Is not the utter childishness of the orthodox representative of a supernaturalistic interpretation of religion, who credits his G.o.d with the governance of the motions occurring in the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms of this globe, leaving out of account those of its solar system, and of other systems which const.i.tute the universe, sufficiently manifest?
If you say that the motions which issue in the phenomena of the universe are regulated by a law which was once for all willed by the G.o.d of the Christian interpretation of religion, I ask why the law should be credited to the willing of this G.o.d rather than to that of the G.o.d of Jewish, Mohammedan or Buddhistic interpretation.
Newton took the first of the six initiatory steps in the long way which led to the conclusion that the universe is self-existing, self-sustaining and self-governing, by showing that all the movements of the solar systems were necessarily what they have been by reason of a matter-force law, gravitation. This discovery is the most momentous event in the whole history of mankind.
Laplace took the second step by showing that the cosmic nebulae contain within themselves all the potentialities necessary to the formation of solar systems.
Lavoisier took the third step by showing that the matter which enters into the const.i.tution of the universe is an eternality.