In the religious revolution of this twentieth century, the battle ground
is squarely seen to be between supernaturalism and secularism. Although
the supernaturalists are well entrenched and fortified, it is well to
remember that it is the man with vision who finally prevails. The time
has passed when the freethinker could be held up to the community as an
example of a base and degraded individual. No manner of pulpit drivel
can delude even the unthinking masses to this misconception. The
freethinker is today the one who beholds the vision, and this vision
does not transcend the natural. It is a vision that is earth-bound; a
vision it may be called, since it leaps the boundary of the present and
infers for him what the future of a secular organization of the entire
constituency of humanity will bring forth. This vision is but a product
of his scientific armamentarium and is the means by which he is assured
of victory over the well-entrenched and fortified position of the
supernaturalists who are still creed-bound to use antiquated and useless
weapons. The supernaturalist's armamentarium of God, Bible, Heaven,
Hell, Soul, Immortality, Sin, The Fall and Redemption of Man, Prayer,
Creed, and Dogma, leave as much impression on the mind of intelligent
man as would an arrow against a battleship. And the comparison is apt,
the supernaturalists have made full use of force, be it in physical
warfare or in mental coercion. The freethinker has as much use for
physical force and war as he has for mental coercion; both are abhorrent
to him.
_Supernaturalism vs. Secularism_--that, and that alone is the field of
argument. The supernaturalist, be he the fundamentalist of whatever
denomination, or the more advanced modernist, is as tenaciously clinging
to the transcendental, to revelation, to the infallibility of the Bible,
if not in all respects at least in some (although this is a
contradiction _per se_), to the interdisposition of a deity in the
affairs of mankind, as were his ancestors of five hundred years ago. In
these aspects as well as in the armamentarium enumerated above, the
supernaturalists are agreed and are making their last stand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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