pen of the great Voltaire. Mighty are the possibilities of faith! It is truly a terrible thing, as Ingersoll says, to take away the consolation that naturally arises from a belief in eternal fire, but it is a holy joy to apply a little of this eternal fire to the body of a Bruno for his devilment in trying to rob the people of this great consolation. When Columbus maintained that the earth was round, he was denounced and characterized as crazy, and when he set out on his memorable voyage to find a new way to India, and incidentally discovered the New World, the superstitious fell upon their knees and prayed their God to save him from the horrible destruction of falling into an eternal abyss. Was Columbus crazy or were the religious believers sufferers of insanity? Galileo put a crude telescope to the sky and discovered our true relation to the universe, and proved the earth's rotation 'round the Sun. For his discovery of this great truth and his achievements in the scientific realm, what did these preservers of the faith and believers in the great consolation of eternal fire do to this great and grand benefactor of man? Let me quote the words of Professor John W. Draper:* "He was declared to have brought upon himself the penalties of heresy. On his knees, with his hand on the Bible, he was compelled to adjure and curse the doctrine of the movement of the earth. What a spectacle. This venerable man, the most illustrious of his age, forced by the threat of death to deny facts which his judges as well as himself knew to be true! He was then committed to prison, treated with remorseless severity during the remaining ten years of his life, and was denied burial in consecrated ground. Must not that be false which requires for its support so much imposture, so much barbarity? The opinions thus defended by the Inquisition are now objects of derision of the whole civilized world." Instances and examples could be given to fill an entire volume, where the progress of the world has been maintained only in the face of the most stubborn opposition from the religious be lievers who set up the cry that their faith is being destroyed. Even upon the invention of the airplane, some ministers denounced its success as being impious, as man had no right to enter into "God's domain"! The Bible has been flaunted into the face of every forward and progressive step of the human race and had it continued successfully we would * "Conflict between Religion and Science," pages 170, 171. still be following the leadership of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and living in constant fear of the damnation and hell fire of Jesus Christ. Slavery, polygamy, drudgery and ignorance would still be our lot, and the Dark Ages would be something that only the future could refer to. A believer in Spiritualism finds its doctrines and fraudulent manifestations just as sacred as does a believer in the Divinity of Christ. The "consolation" arising from a belief in Spiritualism is not a deterrent to its exposure. Preying upon the tender feelings and ignorance of a person is a crime even if the delusion of the victim is complete. And as Spiritualism is unmercifully attacked and exposed because of its deception and falseness, so must the Divinity of Christ suffer the same fate because of its monumental humbuggery and fraud. The ignorant and the superstitious must give way to the intelligent. Fraud and falsehood, no matter how "sacred," must be replaced by fact and truth. As fraud in spiritualist manifestations is punishable by law, so should the deception of Christianity and its fraudulent promises be subject to the same rule and penalty. It has been said of Thomas Paine that "he had no love for old mistakes nor admiration for ancient lies," and to that great man's leadership, I whole-heartedly subscribe. CHAPTER XV. THE VIRGIN BIRTH, OR MARY, In a public debate with the Reverend Charles Francis Potter on the question of the "Virgin Birth of Christ," the Reverend John Roach Straton, before a crowded audience in Carnegie Hall* read the details of the birth of Christ as recorded in the book of St. Matthew of the New Testament. In reading the description of the birth of Christ before this public gathering I maintain that the Reverend Mr. Straton insulted not only the moral sensibilities of the people who heard him, but also their mental sensibilities, when he exposed his monumental ignorance in accepting this narrative as the truth. I venture to say, if the Reverend John Roach Straton were to detail the birth of any other person in the same language which was used relative to Christ, his audience would have rebuked this insult in the unmistakable terms of hoots and hisses. No less a person than the *March 22, 1924. |