Thoughts on the Christian Religion by a Deist.
by Anonymous.
THOUGHTS
Religion, in some form or other, seems to have been observed by mankind, in all ages and all parts of the world; and considered as the most n.o.ble employment, of the most divine nature, and producing the most beneficial effects to society, of all the objects that ever engaged their attention: although from casual circ.u.mstances, and interested motives of individuals, there are as many modes and varieties of worship, as languages or nations on the face of the earth.
Europeans have in general embraced Christianity, as contained in the Bible, which _they_ call the Word of G.o.d, as the only true and infallible system on earth, and which only can lead us to eternal happiness. This Bible, we have been taught to believe, is holy, just, perfect, and superior to the human understanding; so sacred, that to doubt or disbelieve it, would entail on us inevitable never-ending misery. This doctrine, being instilled into children by their nurses, and enforced by terror at a riper age, has long been a.s.sented to by the _generality of people_, who seldom think or enquire for themselves, but are always more or less the dupes of designing men.
But the times are now changing; the privilege of reasoning and believing for ourselves begins to be exercised--freedom of enquiry abounds; and the natural inherent right of speaking and acting according to the dictates of our own conscience (without injuring society) is happily enjoyed. Consequently, impositions of every kind, superst.i.tious prejudices, and the long worshipped fabrics of civil and religious tyranny, are daily growing into contempt, and in all probability will soon be torn from their foundations, and consigned to that infamous oblivion which they so highly merit.
To come more immediately to the point--the Christian religion, as generally practised, presents itself as one of those monuments of ignorance and credulity, which the wisdom of the present generation is probably destined to overthrow, and to subst.i.tute a system more simple, more pure, and more agreeable to the dictates of reason. The Bible, upon examination, we shall find deficient in many of the virtues that have been ascribed to it. As a human composition, its merits have been greatly over-rated: it is exceeded in sentiment, invention, style, and every other literary qualification. The obscurity, incredibility, and obscenity, so conspicuous in many parts of it, would justly condemn the works of a modern writer. It contains a mixture of inconsistency and contradiction; to call which the _word of G.o.d_, is the highest pitch of extravagance: it is to attribute to the Deity that which any person of common sense would blush to confess himself the author of.
How are the rights and dignity of human nature insulted, degraded, and trampled upon! how are mankind blinded, deceived, and led away by this system! how is the honour and character of the Almighty affronted by the absurd and impious doctrines it contains! How is the sacred name of G.o.d abused and prost.i.tuted to the vilest and most execrable purposes, by his pretended worshippers! And all for one simple, evident end, to gratify the pride and avarice of unprincipled, designing men!
But something more than declamation is necessary to support these a.s.sertions. I shall therefore give the reasons why I disbelieve the Christian system, and all the arguments advanced in its favour.
As to the existing proofs of the divine authority of the Bible, whether internal or external, whether the evidence we feel in our own minds on examining it, or the miracles which are said to have attended its propagation, they are of no avail in convincing us of its divine origin: and I do not think, that independent of the prejudices of education, and the power of eloquence, there ever was a reasonable thinking man, who felt a sufficient internal evidence to convince him of the reality of the whole of its doctrines.
With respect to the public proofs exhibited by its founders, we find them no stronger than those in favour of Mahometanism, or perhaps any other system. Mahomet is said to have wrought as many miracles, preached as good doctrine, converted ten times as many followers, and was far more successful in all his enterprizes, however bold or difficult, than Jesus Christ. The Christians say, the Mahometan miracles were nothing but impostures; and the Mahometans say, with as much authority, that the Christian miracles were the same.
If the gospel system was so clear, so reasonable, and so powerful, as its advocates a.s.sert, what necessity could there have been for miracles to support it? If it had any foundation in reason and nature, there would have been no occasion for mystery, miracle, or revelation, to confirm it. A doctrine that is reasonable and true, will appear so to every unprejudiced mind, without the aid of any thing supernatural.
Consequently, that system which requires miraculous a.s.sistance to establish it, and cannot be proved by human means, is neither reasonable nor true.
Supposing the Bible to have been written by divine inspiration, at the times, and by the persons mentioned in it, still it is next to impossible, that it could have been transmitted down to the present time pure and uncontaminated, even if there had been but one nation and one language upon earth. The variety of translations and editions it has pa.s.sed through in the course of near 1800 years, if it has existed so long, (which I am inclined to disbelieve of many parts) and the continual improvements and alterations in human language, during that period, amount to a presumptive proof that the sense has been unavoidably mistaken, or wilfully perverted. A confirmation of this remark is open to all: let any one take the trouble of comparing different copies of the Bible, printed in the last and present centuries, or even in the same year, and he will often find a striking disagreement.
Admitting that the Bible contains the only doctrine by which we can obtain salvation and everlasting life, which of the numberless professions that have sprung out of it are we to embrace? One sect tells us that there is no salvation out of the pale of their church. Another tells us, that unless we believe and practise their doctrines, we shall surely be d.a.m.ned. Let us believe, therefore, in whatever particular profession we may, we shall be d.a.m.ned according to the principles of the others.
How gracious and beneficent is the Christian system! so perfect and pure that it creates so many different, distinct, and opposite denominations of believers; all of them right, infallibly right, in their own opinions, and proving their doctrine by the clear, in-contestible authority of divine revelation!
Many, as an excuse for countenancing a doctrine which they confess may not be true, say, that if the Christian religion be false, it is still very hurtful to attempt to overturn it; as we have no better guide, and no other method to restrain the pa.s.sions and regulate the conduct of mankind; as it is the most perfect and beneficial system that could be devised. To determine this, we must look at its effects.
That doctrine which has the greatest tendency to secure our present and future happiness is the best; it proves itself to be so. That the Christian system does not tend to make us happier, may easily be shewn, by tracing its natural operations on the human mind. By it we are led to believe, that we are all miserable and ruined wretches; corrupt and exceedingly wicked from our very birth; naturally sinful, and opposed to the will of G.o.d in all our actions, words, and thoughts; and so far from deserving the common blessings of life, that if justice had been done us, we should long since have been cast into endless punishment.
Tribulation, distress, and sore trials, are the common lot of mankind, especially the good. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." This world, it tells us, is a wretched, tiresome, and accursed place; a mere sink of guilt and misery; and all its enjoyments vanity and vexation of spirit.
Though by the bye, those who are called sincere and pious Christians seem to be as desirous of continuing in it, and tasting the good thing"s it affords, as the most sensual and worldly-minded sinner. It likewise instils into its followers such a servile fear, and dread of the wrath of heaven, that they can neither lie down at night, nor rise in the morning, without first attempting, by intreaty, flattery, and fair promises, to appease the Divine anger, and persuade the Almighty to permit them to exist in peace. Every accident is a judgement, and a prelude to further punishment. Every misfortune that happens to their neighbours is a warning to them; and they are liable every moment to be cut off by an avenging G.o.d, and sent to h.e.l.l.
While on the one hand, they represent the Deity as their servant, to a.s.sist them on every occasion, averting every ill they bring upon themselves, and extricating them from every difficulty and distress they plunge themselves into; on the other he is supposed to be a fierce, revengeful tyrant, delighting in cruelty, punishing his creatures for the very sins which he causes them to commit; and creating numberless millions of immortal souls, that could never have offended him, for the express purpose of tormenting them to all eternity. Thus they are generally miserable through life, in meditating on death and its supposed consequences.
The authority of the Bible appears still more doubtful from the absurdities and contradictions it contains; contradictions which all the sophistical ingenuity of reverend divines, with their literal meaning of this text, and spiritual interpretation of that, can never explain or reconcile.
In the very first chapter of the whole volume, containing an account of the creation, we find an inexplicable difficulty. In Genesis i. 27, 28, we are told, that "G.o.d created man, _male and female_, blessed _them_, and said unto _them&c_". But in ii. 20, we find that "there was not an help meet for Adam:" therefore, ver. 18, "G.o.d said, it is not good that man should be alone." And, ver. 22, "he made a woman, and brought her unto the man."
The Almighty, according to many parts of the Bible, is a perfect, unchangeable being. In Isaiah, he is said to declare, that he is "not as a man, that he should repent." But in other places we read of his repenting very frequently. He repented that he had made man. Having determined to destroy the Israelites, and having slain seventy thousand of them, "he repented of the evil," and spared the rest. He told Hezekiah that "he should surely die, and not live," but immediately repented, and gave him fifteen years longer. Jonah prophesied, in his name, that in forty days Nineveh should be overthrown; but the people believing him (though he did not perform his promise) and forsaking their sins, he "repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them, and did it not."
In one place it says, "Our G.o.d is a consuming fire;" and in another, "G.o.d is love." He is said to be Jealous, revengeful, and angry with the wicked every day; and pleased again as often as they repent: possessing all the good and evil qualities of man, that unstable, wicked, miserable, and insignificant worm. Notwithstanding all this, he is perfectly just, wise, immutable, and can never repent.
The Christian system, I venture to affirm, has been the cause of more evil in the world, than any other that ever appeared in it. By inculcating a belief that the Deity was a terrible G.o.d, an inexorable judge, taking vengeance on all his enemies; its professors, wishing to conform as much as possible to the character and disposition of _their G.o.d_, have in all ages acted with the same spirit, and upon the same principles:
"O let this strong, unerring hand, Thy bolts for ever throw; And deal d.a.m.nation round the land, On each I judge thy foe."
Inspired with the most vindictive hatred to all who do not subscribe to the principles they profess (who are, according to their faith, enemies; for they say, there is no medium or neutrality, "all who are not for us are against us;)" they have never failed, in any country, and at all times, when they had the power, to exercise the most cruel and detestable spirit that ever disgraced human nature. Not contented with insulting, oppressing, enslaving, and butchering the poor heretics here, but most humanely and charitably condemning them to everlasting torments hereafter.
During the first 320 years of its existence, Christianity occasioned the destruction of many millions of mankind. In the first part of this period, the Christians were the greatest sufferers; but in the year 312 Maxentius and his army of 200,000, were most of them drowned in the Tiber, or slain by Constantine, the Christian emperor; who, in three great battles, in one of which 100,000 were killed, reduced and put to death Licinus, the deputy emperor of the East; persecuted the Heathens and destroyed their idols, the symbols of their divinities.
In the twelfth and subsequent centuries, millions of Waldenses and Protestants were murdered in the south of France. How many millions lost their lives in the mad crusades for the recovery of the Holy Land!
In Germany and Flanders, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in South America. But I stop, or "I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up the soul," chill the blood with horror, and draw forth curses from the grave against the very name of a religion which has been made the pretext for such cruelties.
Indeed, it is impossible to calculate the mischief that has attended the Christian system since its commencement. But, say its advocates, all this was done by Antichrist, or the false church. Which then is the true church? Not that which persecutes. And what church is that? The church of Rome? No: for that, after long struggles, no sooner became established in power, than it persecuted its dissenting sons with all the zeal and barbarity that it had experienced from its enemies. The church of England? No: for although that separated from the church of Rome, and rejected many of the errors and corruptions which had crept into it; yet no sooner was it fully established in Great Britain, than it very carefully trod over the steps of the mother church, persecuted Roman Catholics, and all Dissenters. The Puritans, who fled to this country for the sake of freedom of conscience and religious liberty, were no sooner settled, than they discovered the same illiberal persecuting spirit which drove them hither, and persecuted the Quakers in their turn; becoming as corrupt as any of the former churches. Each of them, while they were weak and defenceless, suffered by the murderous hand of its oppressors; and, when become strong and powerful, persecuted and martyred its feebler enemies. And I believe there is not a church in Christendom but would, if it could not convert, most gladly destroy all its opposers; had it that one essential and only necessary quality, _power_. For they affirm, that the world, with all its blessings, are nothing but temptations to draw them away from their true interest; and that unbelievers of every kind are their natural implacable enemies.
The carnal mind, say they, is enmity to G.o.d and his people, (themselves) and is in continual opposition to every thing good and heavenly; they must then of necessity wage an eternal war against all who do not acknowledge their system, as the only sure, guide to heaven.
The powerful blow which has been aimed at this system of faith by Paine"s Age of Reason, has created a general and well-founded alarm.
That work, to every bigotted or interested follower of Christianity, appears in a dreadful light indeed, as it is a direct attack upon their favourite, their dearly-beloved system of gospel faith, which exalts them, in their own opinions, so much above the rest of mankind.
The Christian theology is so favourable to the pride and vanity of man, that the slightest attempt to overturn it occasions an universal panic in its supporters, who immediately display all the ensigns of their cause, the pompous, high-sounding anathemas of Scripture, to frighten the bold invader of their aerial territories. So far they act consistently; for where they have no weapons or defence from nature and reason, fear and hope, though unfounded and delusive, are the only expedients left. By representing the terrors of their law in the most horrid colours, the wretched victim of their designs cries out in the depth of despair, "Lord, what shall I do to be saved?" The work is then in a certain way of success; the convert gives himself up to the direction of the church in all things, and is ever after the pa.s.sive tool of its power. These converts are seldom or never made by pure reason and sound argument, for these would never answer the purpose; but the pa.s.sions, which may be driven by every gale that blows, the fickle and inconstant pa.s.sions, are so influenced by the power of false eloquence in violent declamations and vehement harangues, that the calm, even voice of reason is not heard, or is disregarded, amidst the bustle of jarring emotions; and the poor frightened wretch catches hold of the first object that is held out to save him from his fancied perishing and undone condition. Without ever once considering whether the profession they embrace is founded in nature and reason, they confide wholly in the piety of their spiritual teacher, leave their faith and hope altogether in his hands, and trust entirely upon his promises and power. Their belief he can alter or abolish at pleasure; for what he preaches they must adhere to; what he allows they must profess; what he approves must be true.
In fact, the Christian system has never yet been weighed in the impartial balance of reason, or received a candid trial in the thinking world. Force, fraud, and other unfair means have always been necessarily employed for its establishment. Had it been founded on truth, or consistent with common sense, its advocates would never have refused to submit it to reason, and the cool, dispa.s.sionate judgement of mankind.
But they well knew that it could never stand the test, and this would be the certain means of its destruction. They therefore boldly and presumptuously tell the world, that it is beyond the reach of human reason, which is not competent to judge rightly of it. They confess that we cannot comprehend a great part of it; but at the same time command us to believe it, though we cannot understand it.
It has been the peculiarly honourable lot of Thomas Paine, the firm advocate of truth, the undaunted champion of reason, and the resolute and unconquerable enemy of tyranny, bigotry, and prejudice, to open the door to free and impartial enquiry. He has boldly entered the field himself, and taught the world, that no true system of principles, however sacred they may be held in the public opinion, and however strongly protected and enforced by the terrors of man"s vengeance here, and eternal punishment hereafter, is too awful to be canva.s.sed by reason, or too sublime to be comprehended by common sense.
The Christian system, as it is not consistent with reason, is declared to be above it; and should be received even if it does not appear clear and intelligible to our human capacities.
This by prohibiting enquiry, effectually prevents detection of falsehood and confirmation of truth. The doctrine is received upon trust, upon the credit of our forefathers; because, they taught, or rather said so, we must implicitly believe so, all the remonstrances of reason and experience to the contrary notwithstanding.
This is certainly a very great absurdity. For there once was a beginning to every system or theory in being; and at that beginning it was necessary to exercise reason as the unerring guide to direct in the choice or rejection thereof. If mankind were not only allowed, but necessitated to weigh every doctrine in the infallible balance of reason, at any time, why are we not ent.i.tled to the same privilege at present? Is our reason degenerated? Are our faculties impaired?
Or rather, are we not far more wise and enlightened than mankind were centuries ago, and much more competent to understand and judge of things than they were? By the practice before mentioned, by that tyranny over the minds of men, which has ever been exercised in despotic states, the grossest falsehoods have been forced upon the world for realities, and the most detestable impositions established and maintained in all the strength and vigour of immutable truth.
But these arts, how long soever they may prosper, and by whatever authority they may be supported; though they may call to their aid all the powers of superst.i.tion and prejudices of education, and be a.s.sisted by the pride and deceit of hypocritical bigots and mercenary tyrants; still must they finally fall, and sink into contemptuous oblivion. The present state of society seems peculiarly adapted to the advancement of truth, and destruction of error. The sun of reason has begun to appear, dispelling the thick and almost impenetrable mists of ignorance and superst.i.tion, illuminating the most secret recesses of the mind, and will continue to increase in splendour, till it shine forth in one clear, unclouded, and eternal day.
The writings of modern philosophers have served greatly to illuminate the minds of the present generation. I will here, quote Pope"s beautiful description of that _sublime and heavenly_ religion, which mankind in a state of nature professed, contrasted with that distorted, gloomy religion which has been imposed on mankind by power and fraud.
"Man, like his Maker, saw that all was right, To virtue, in the paths of pleasure, trod, And own"d a father when he own"d a G.o.d.
Love all the faith, and all th" allegiance then; For Nature knew no light divine in men, No ill could fear in G.o.d; and understood A sov"reign being but a sov"reign good."
"Superst.i.tion taught the tyrant awe, Then shar"d the tyranny, then lent it aid, And G.o.ds of conq"rors, slaves of subjects made: She, "midst the lightning"s blaze and thunder"s sound, When rock"d the mountains, and when groan"d the ground, She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray, To pow"r unseen, and mightier far than they: She, from the rending earth and bursting skies, Saw G.o.ds descend and fiends infernal rise: Here fix"d the dreadful, there the blest abodes; Fear made her devils, and weak hope her G.o.ds; G.o.ds partial, changeful, pa.s.sionate, unjust, Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or l.u.s.t; Such as the souls of cowards might conceive, And, form"d like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal, then, not charity, became the guide, And h.e.l.l was built on spite, and heav"n on pride.
Then sacred seeneth ethereal vault no more; Altars grew marble then, and reek"d with gore: Then first the Flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol smear"d with human blood; With heav"n"s own thunders shook the world below; And play"d the G.o.d an engine on his foe."
From an attentive perusal of such liberal, enlightened writers as Pope, Locke, Hume, &c. who were not interested in forcing any unnatural systems upon mankind, whose only aim was the happiness of the human race, and from my own reflections, I have adopted the following _creed_, which I here submit to the impartial consideration of my fellow-citizens of all denominations.
1. I believe in one G.o.d, or first cause, wise, powerful, and good; and too far above the influence of human actions to be affected by any thing that can be done on earth.
2. I believe in the equality of men by nature (though so different by accident) the universal power of conscience, and the unerring authority of natural reason.