At this time, in this age of agitation, unrest, dissatisfaction,
and doubt among the masses, and all classes, in every civilized part
of the globe, in all communities and human organizations, in church
and out of church, ecclesiastical bodies of all shades; besides
the vast number of theories and doctrines of a popular socialistic,
anti-poverty, communistic order, etc., a prevailing skepticism has
seized the minds of men, as to the truth, validity, and stability
of the entire religious fabric. The unsettled condition of the minds
of men, the disturbing elements of the laboring classes, the church
quarrels, clerical litigations, disputes, wrangling, and mutual
hate about scriptural authenticity, its truth and supernaturalism,
the heresies and blasphemies, the unsatisfactory condition of the
Roman church, the constant and unremitting papal correspondence, the
petty bickering, the selfish zeal, the greed for money, the anxiety to
raise funds for all kinds of ecclesiastical establishments, naturally
arouse suspicion whether the idea of a God is not going out of fashion,
whether the clergy has not lost faith in the Book, whether the Jew,
the Jehovistic aristocrat, has not been the primary inventor of
these supernatural wares, whether the Christian theologians are not
beginning to lose their sway and grip and their pretended supernatural
authority over their ignorant devotees. We may ask frankly, honestly,
truthfully, and in perfect good faith:
Has not the time arrived for a grand and human reformation? For new
methods of teaching, for new and more accurate ideas, for a more
precise knowledge of the natural, for instructions in absolute facts,
for a more thorough understanding of natural laws, for a broader
comprehension of man himself and his surroundings, for an abandonment
of all the supernatural subterfuge, ignorance, and superstition, of
religious fables, miracles, false theories, and misleading doctrines
as to God, with their immense sacrifice of human life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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