The rationalist alleges that religion was evolved by slow degrees and
by human minds, and that all existing forms of religion and all existing
"sacred books," instead of being "revelations," are evolutions from
religious ideas and forms and legends of prehistoric times. It is
impossible to reduce these opposite theories to a common denominator.
The Christians, the Hindoos, the Parsees, the Buddhists, and the
Mohammedans have each their "Holy Bible" or "sacred book." Each religion
claims that its own Bible is the direct revelation of God, and is the
only true Bible teaching the only true faith. Each religion regards all
the other religions as spurious.
The supernaturalists believe in miracles, and each sect claims that the
miracles related in its own inspired sacred book prove the truth of that
book and of the faith taught therein.
No religion accepts the truth of any other religion's miracles. The
Hindoo, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, the Parsee, the Christian each
believes that his miracles are the only real miracles.
The Protestant denies the miracles of the Roman Catholic.
The rationalist denies all miracles alike. "Miracles never happen."
The Christian Bible is full of miracles. The Christian Religion is
founded on miracles.
No rationalist believes in miracles. Therefore no rationalist can accept
the Christian Religion.
If you discard "Creation" and accept evolution; if you discard
"revelation" and accept evolution; if you discard miracles and accept
natural law, there is nothing left of the Christian Religion but the
life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
And when one sees that all religions and all ethics, even the oldest
known, have, like all language and all science and all philosophy and
all existing species of animals and plants, been slowly evolved from
lower and ruder forms; and when one learns that there have been many
Christs, and that the evidence of the life of Jesus is very slight,
and that all the acts and words of Jesus had been anticipated by other
teachers long before the Christian era, then it is borne in upon one's
mind that the historic basis of Christianity is very frail. And when one
realises that the Christian theology, besides being borrowed from
older religions, is manifestly opposed to reason and to facts, then one
reaches a state of mind which entitles the orthodox Christian to call
one an "Infidel," and to make it "unpleasant" for one to the glory of
God.
That is the position in which I stand at present, and it is partly to
vindicate that position, and to protest against those who feel as I feel
being subjected to various kinds of "unpleasantness," that I undertake
this Apology.
THE OLD TESTAMENT
IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD?
The question of the divine inspiration of the Scriptures is one of great
importance.
If the Bible is a divine revelation, if it contains the actual word
of God, and nothing but the word of God, then it is folly to doubt any
statement it contains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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