Flowers of Freethought (Second Series)Foote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Flowers of Freethought (Second Series)
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Free thought
Let me draw your attention to some _facts_. So many of the clergy in
your own Church "went wrong" that you were compelled to obtain a special
Act of Parliament to enable you to get rid of them. Is it not true,
also, that the greatest swindlers of this age have been extremely pious?
What do you make of Messrs Hobbs and Wright? What do you think of
Jabez Balfour? Are not such scoundrels a thousand times worse than
a passionate boy like George Mason? Were not the "Liberator" victims
fleeced and ruined by professed Christians? What have you to say about
Mr. Hastings, Captain Verney, and Mr. De Cobain, who were all convicted
of bad crimes and expelled from Parliament? Have you ever heard of the
text, "Physician heal thyself"?
Here is another fact. A few months ago an Irish clergyman, the Rev.
George Griffiths, deliberately shot his own mother for the sake of
what cash he could find in her desk. He was tried, found guilty, and
sentenced to be hung. Would you think me justified in saying that the
Rev. George Griffiths committed a murder because he was a Christian?
Why, then, do you pretend that George Mason committed a murder because
he or his father was an Atheist?
Lay your hand upon your heart, and answer this question honestly. Do you
really believe that an Atheist has a special proclivity to murder? What
is there in Atheism to make men hate each other? When a man holds the
hand of the woman he loves, or feels about his neck the little arms of
his child, do you suppose he is likely to injure either of them because
he is unable to accept your dogma about the mystery of this illimitable
universe? Shall I hate my own boy because I disbelieve that Jesus Christ
was born without a father? Shall I keep him without food and clothes
because I see no proof of a special providence? Will Shakespeare's
_Hamlet_ poison my mind because I think it finer than the gospels? If
I treat the Creation Story and the Deluge as legend and mythology, and
smile at the feats of Samson, shall I therefore commit a burglary? If
I think that my neighbor's life in this world is _his all_, that death
ends his possibilities, do you really think I shall be the more likely
to rob him of what I can never restore?
I am at a loss to understand your lordship, and I invite you to explain
yourself. At present I can only see in your account of George Mason, a
very common exhibition of Christian logic, and Christian temper. Your
lordship's is not the charity that "thinketh no evil." You ascribe
wickedness to those who differ from you in opinion. I conceive it
possible for men to differ from you in religion, and yet to equal you
in morality. I conceive it even possible that some of them might surpass
you without a miracle.
A RELIGION FOR EUNUCHS. *
* June, 1890.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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