Men, Women, and Gods; and Other Lectures — John Shaqi
Men, Women, and Gods; and Other LecturesGardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
Religion
Men, Women, and Gods; and Other Lectures
Gardener, Helen H. (Helen Hamilton)
Free thought
I think they are making a mistake. I think they are making a mistake to
sustain any religion which is based upon faith. Even though a religion
claim a superhuman origin--and I believe they all claim that--it must
be tested by human reason, and if our highest moral sentiments revolt at
any of its dictates, its dictates must go. For the only good thing about
any religion is its morality, and morality has nothing to do with faith.
The one has to do with right actions in this world; the other with
unknown quantities in the next. The one is a necessity of Time; the
other a dream of Eternity. Morality depends upon universal evolution;
Faith upon special "revelation;" and no woman can afford to accept any
"revelation" that has yet been offered to this world.
That Moses or Confucius, Mohammed or Paul, Abraham or Brigham Young
asserts that his particular dogma came directly from God, and that
it was a personal communication to either or all of these favored
individuals, is a fact that can have no power over us unless their
teachings are in harmony with our highest thought, our noblest purpose,
and our purest conception of life. Which of them can bear the test?
Not one "revelation" known to man to-day can look in the face of
the nineteenth century and say, "I am parallel with your richest
development; I still lead your highest thought; none of my teachings
shock your sense of justice." Not one.
It is faith in "revelation" that makes a mother tear from her arms a
tender, helpless child and throw it in the Ganges--to appease the gods!
It is a religion of faith that teaches the despicable principle of
caste--and that religion was invented by those who profited by caste. It
was our religion of faith that sustained the institution of slavery--and
it had for its originators dealers in human flesh. It is the Mormon's
religion of faith, his belief in the Bible and in the wisdom of Solomon
and David, that enables the monster of polygamy to flaunt its power and
its filth in the face of the morality of the nineteenth century, which
has outgrown the Jehovah of the Jews.
Every religion must be tried at the bar of human justice, and stand or
fall by the verdict there. It has no right to crouch behind the theory
of "inspiration" and demand immunity from criticism; and yet that is
just what every one of them does. They all claim that we have no right
to use our reason on their inventions. But evil cannot be made good by
revelation, and good cannot be made evil by persecution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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