The Profits of Religion, Fifth EditionSinclair, Upton
Religion
The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition
Sinclair, Upton
Christianity -- Controversial literature
My first contact with that sort of thing was when I went to the Battle
Creek Sanitarium to investigate hydrotherapy, and found myself in a
nest of Seventh-day Adventists. Three generations or so ago some odd
character hit upon the discovery that the Christian churches had let
the devil snare them into resting on the first day of the week,
whereas the Bible states distinctly that the Lord "rested on the
seventh day". So here is a million dollar establishment, with a
thousand or two patients and employees, and on Friday at sundown the
silence of death settles upon the place, and stays settled until
sundown of Saturday, when everything comes suddenly to life again, and
there is a little celebration, like Easter or New Year's, with what I
used to call "sterilized dancing"--the men pairing with men and the
women with women.
They are decent and kindly people, and you learn to put up with their
eccentricities; it is really convenient in some ways, because, as not
all the city shares their delusions, there are some stores open every
day of the week. But then you discover that the Sanitarium is training
"medical missionaries" to send to Africa, and is teaching these
supposed-to-be-scientists that evolution is a doctrine of the devil,
and not proven anyhow!
You get the shrewd little doctor who is running this establishment
alone in his office, and he will smile and admit that of course it is
not necessary to take all Bible phrases literally; but you know how it
is--there are different levels of intelligence, and so on. Yes, I know
how it is. You have an institution founded upon a certain dogma, and
run by means of that dogma, and it is hard to change without smashing
things. It is especially convenient when servants and nurses have a
religious upbringing, and do not steal the pocket-books of the
patients. People will come from all over the country, and pay high
prices to stay in such a sanitarium; you can make vegetarians of them,
which you think more important than teaching abstract notions about
their being descended from monkeys. Also you can manufacture
vegetarian foods for them, and build up an enormous business--so
obtaining that Power which is the thing desired of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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