Flowers of Freethought (Second Series) — John Shaqi
Flowers of Freethought (Second Series)Foote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Flowers of Freethought (Second Series)
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Free thought
Mr. Justice Stephen thinks morality can look after itself, but he doubts
whether "Christian charity" will survive "Christian theology." This
furnishes Mr. Watkinson with a sufficient theme for an impressive
sermon. But his notion of "Christian charity" and Mr. Justice Stephen's
are very different. The hard-headed judge means the sentimentalism and
"pathetic exaggerations" of the Sermon on the Mount, which he has since
distinctly said would destroy society if they were fully practised.
"Morality," says Mr. Watkinson, "would suffer on the mystical side."
Perhaps so. It might be no longer possible for a Louis the Fifteenth to
ask God's blessing when he went to debauch a young girl in the _Parc
aux Cerfs_, or for a grave philosopher like Mr. Tylor to write in his
_Anthropology_ that "in Europe brigands are notoriously church-goers."
Yet morality might gain as much on the practical side as it lost on the
mystical, and we fancy mankind would profit by the change.
Now for Mr. Watkinson's history, which he prints in small capitals,
probably to show it is the real, unadulterated article. He tell us that
"the experiment of a nation living practically a purely secular life has
been tried more than once" with disastrous results. He is, however, very
careful not to mention these nations, and we defy him to do so. What he
does is this. He rushes off to Pompeii, whose inhabitants he thinks were
Secularists! He also reminds us in a casual way that "they had crucified
Christ a few years before," which again is news. Equally accurate is the
statement that Pompeii was an "infamous" city, "full" of drunkenness,
cruelty, etc. Probably Mr. Watkinson, like most good Christians who go
to Pompeii, visited an establishment, such as we have thousands of
in Christendom, devoted to the practical worship of Venus without
neglecting Priapus. He has forgotten the immortal letter of Pliny, and
the dead Roman sentinel at the post of duty. He acts like a foreigner
who should describe London from his experience at a brothel.
Philosophy comes next. Mr. Watkinson puts in a superior way the
clap-trap of Christian Evidence lecturers. If man is purely material,
and the law of causation is universal, where, he asks, "is the place for
virtue, for praise, for blame?" Has Mr. Watkinson never read the answer
to these questions? If he has not, he has much to learn; if he has, he
should refute them. Merely positing and repositing an old question is
a very stale trick in religious controversy. It imposes on some people,
but they belong to the "mostly fools."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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