An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth....Carlile, Richard
Religion
An Address to Men of Science: Calling Upon Them to Stand Forward and Vindicate the Truth....
Carlile, Richard
Science; Superstition
Neither will it become me here to lay down the elements of Astronomy, my
appeal is to the Astronomer, and I have merely to remind him, that, if
he supports the dogmas of the Priest, or the astronomical blunders of
any holy book, he is a corrupt and wicked hypocrite, and a disgrace to
the science which he studies, practises, or teaches. Science and truth
ought to be synonymous terms, and neither the one or the other ought,
upon any consideration whatever, to pay the least respect or deference
to established error. To those same persons whom I have given a
reference for the elements of Chemistry, I would also refer to other
works for the elements of Astronomy. They are now published in a variety
of shapes and forms, and I am much pleased to see that a number of
gentlemen are giving lectures on Astronomy in all our towns and cities
of any note. Such men are worthy of support in preference to the Priest,
and although they may jointly, from fear, or other motives, attempt to
mix up religious dogmas with their scientific lectures, I know that it
must tend to a due enlightenment of the public mind. An Eidouranion or
Orrery to have been displayed a few centuries ago would have gathered
a pile of faggots for the lecturer, and he would have been burnt as a
daring blasphemer, and his machine with him, as the devil's workmanship.
Such is the rapid progress of natural knowledge, that I almost doubt
whether the person, that shall now stand forward and publish Thomas
Paine's Age of Reason, and Elihu Palmer's Principles of Nature, in the
same open and determined manner as I published them, would find even
imprisonment for it, let him do it openly and I will commend him, and be
almost answerable for him in point of loss or suffering.
It is not a sufficient excuse for Men of Science to plead established
institutions, or to say that Priestcraft is powerful because six
millions of money is wrung from the people in the shape of direct taxes
to support it, and about as much more levied in the shape of voluntary
contributions upon that class of people called Dissenters. Shew the
people that they are imposed upon, and they will no longer be robbed
and laughed at, they will soon perceive that the money which this
Priestcraft takes from their pockets would be sufficient for a splendid
execution and administration of the laws and government of the country.
Abolish Priestcraft, and the expense which now attends it will cover all
the other necessary expences of the state. This twelve millions of
money is spent for the very worst of purposes, for it does not civilize
society, but rather brutalizes it, by setting its members one against
the other, upon different points of belief, all of which are proved to
be erroneous and to have no foundation in Nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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