A handbook of Freethought : $b containing in condensed and systematized form a vast amount of evidence against the superstitious doctrines of Christianity
Religion
A handbook of Freethought : $b containing in condensed and systematized form a vast amount of evidence against the superstitious doctrines of Christianity
Christianity -- Controversial literature; Free thought
The splendid results of science are everywhere so manifest that
we hardly need refer to them. What transformations the world has
undergone through the uses of the steam engine, the spinning jenny,
telegraph, ocean cable, railroads, sewing machines, photography,
spectrum analysis, and thousands of other useful inventions. We see
advancement achieved in free government, free schools, free libraries,
free trade, labor reform, prison reform, and reform in the treatment
of lunatics, paupers and criminals, and reform seeking to adjust the
wrongs perpetrated upon women.
Besides all these improvements there is every indication in the spirit
of to-day that we are soon to witness greater improvements, if not
radical changes in government; changes affecting capital and labor.
Skepticism.
Skepticism played a prominent part in the eighteenth century. Doubt
instead of faith, possessed the minds of many of the most
distinguished men of thought, such as Voltaire, Hume, Diderot,
Rousseau, D'Holbach, Gibbon, and others. Some of the more prominent
skeptics rejected Christianity on the common ground of incredibility
of the scriptures. But as they had no form of belief or knowledge to
substitute in place of the dogmas they rejected, it was not difficult
for the clergy with specious explanations to cover up the doubts and
disbeliefs which the skeptics raised. Something more was needed to
break the spell of superstition and arouse the minds of men to thought
and action. In the first part of the present century the philosophy
of Evolution began to find place in the minds of most profound
thinkers. Science has done what skepticism failed to accomplish;
it has given knowledge instead of faith. It has cultivated intense
intellectual habits in modern society and given mankind a sure test
of truth, in its method of verification, by means of experiment,
observation and deduction.
Science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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