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
10. It is evident, that, if everybody had been Quakers no atonement
would have been made, as their religion is opposed to bloodshed.
11. The atonement is either one God putting another to death or God
putting himself to death to appease his own wrath; but both assumptions
are monstrous absurdities, which no person distinguished for science
or reason can indorse.
12. Anger and murder are the two principal features in the doctrine of
the atonement; and both are repugnant to our moral sense and feelings
of refinement, and indicate a barbarous and heathen origin.
13. The atonement punishes the innocent for the guilty, which
is a twofold crime, and a reversal of the spirit of justice. If
a father should catch four of his children stealing and the fifth
one standing by and remonstrating against the act, and should seize
on the innocent one and administer a severe flagellation, he would
commit a double crime: 1st, that of punishing an innocent child;
2d, that of exonerating and encouraging the four children in the
commission of crime. The atonement involves the same principle.
14. No person with true moral manhood would consent to be be saved
on any such terms; but would prefer to suffer for his own sins,
rather than let an innocent being suffer for them. And the man who
would accept salvation upon such terms must be a sneak and a coward,
with a soul not worth saving.
15. Who that possesses any sense of justice would want to swim through
blood to get to the heavenly mansion. I want neither animals, men,
nor Gods murdered to save my soul.
16. If there is any virtue in the atonement in the way of
expiating crime, then there is now another atonement demanded by the
principles of moral justice to cancel the sin committed by the first
atonement--that of murdering an innocent being, "in whose mouth was
no guile;" and then another atonement to wipe out the sin of this
atonement, and so on. And thus it would be atonement after atonement,
murder after murder, ad infinitum. What shocking consequences and
absurdities are involved in this ancient heathen superstition!
17. It seems strange that any person can cherish the thought
for a moment that the Infinite Father would require a sacrificial
offering for the trifling act of eating a little fruit, and require
no atonement for the infinitely greater sin of murdering "his only
begotten son." Another monstrous absurdity!
18. The advocates of the atonement tell us that man stands toward
his Creator in the relation of a debtor, and the atonement cancels
the debt. To be sure! How does it do it?--Graves.
A MINORITY NOT A SECT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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