Part 22

I will now put together a few sayings of Pagans and Unbelievers as an example of non-biblical morality:

Truth is the pole-star of morality, by it alone can we steer. Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth? Abhor dissimulation. To know the truth and fear to speak it: that is cowardice. One thing here is worth a good deal, to pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevolent disposition, even to liars and unjust men.

He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, for he makes himself bad. The practice of religion involves as a first principle a loving compassionate heart for all creatures. Religion means self-sacrifice. A loving heart is the great requirement: not to oppress, not to destroy, not to exalt oneself by treading down others; but to comfort and befriend those in suffering. Like as a mother at the risk of her life watches over her only child, so also let every one cultivate towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind.

Man's great business is to improve his mind. What is it to you whether another is guilty or guiltless? Come, friend, atone for your own guilt.

Virtue consists in contempt for death. Why should we cling to this perishable body? In the eye of the wise the only thing it is good for is to benefit one's fellow creatures.

Treat others as you wish them to treat you. Do not return evil for evil. Our deeds, whether good or evil, follow us like shadows.

Never will man attain full moral stature until woman is free. Cherish and reverence little children. Let the slave cease, and the master of slaves cease.

To conquer your enemy by force increases his resentment. Conquer him by love and you will have no after-grief. Victory breeds hatred.

I look for no recompense--not even to be born in heaven-- but seek the benefit of men, to bring back those who have gone astray, to enlighten those living in dismal error, to put away all sources of sorrow and pain in the world.

I cannot have pleasure while another grieves and I have power to help him.

Those who regard the Bible as the "Book of Books," and believe it to be invaluable and indispensable to the world, must have allowed their early associations or religious sentiment to mislead them.

Carlyle is more moral than Jeremiah, Ruskin is superior to Isaiah; Ingersoll, the Atheist, is a nobler moralist and a better man than Moses; Plato and Marcus Aurelius are wiser than Solomon; Sir Thomas More, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, Matthew Arnold, and Emerson are worth more to us than all the Prophets.

I hold a high opinion of the literary quality of some parts of the Old Testament; but I seriously think that the loss of the first fourteen books would be a distinct gain to the world. For the rest, there is considerable literary and some ethical value in Job (which is not Jewish), in Ecclesiastes (which is Pagan), in the Song of Solomon (which is an erotic love song), and in parts of Isaiah, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos. But I don't think any of these books equal to Henry George's Progress and Poverty, or William Morris' News from Nowhere. Of course, I am not blaming Moses and the Prophets: they could only tell us what they knew.

The Ten Commandments have been effusively praised. There is nothing in those Commandments to restrain the sweater, the rack-renter, the jerry-builder, the slum landlord, the usurer, the liar, the libertine, the gambler, the drunkard, the wife-beater, the slave-owner, the religious persecutor, the maker of wheat and cotton rings, the fox-hunter, the bird-slayer, the ill-user of horses and dogs and cattle. There is nothing about "cultivating towards all beings a bounteous friendly mind," nothing about liberty of speech and conscience, nothing about the wrong of causing pain, nor the virtue of causing happiness; nothing against anger or revenge, nor in favour of mercy and forgiveness. Of the Ten Commandments, seven are designed as defences of the possessions and prerogatives of God and the property-owner. As a moral code the Commandments amount to very little.

Moreover, the Bible teaches erroneous theories of history, theology, and science.

It relates childish stories of impossible miracles as facts.

It presents a low idea of God.

It gives an erroneous account of the relations between God and man.

It fosters international hatred.

It fosters religious pride and fanaticism.

Its penal code is horrible.

Its texts have been used for nearly two thousand years in defence of war, slavery, religious persecution, and the slaughter of "witches" and of "sorcerers."

In a hundred wars the Christian soldiery have perpetrated massacre and outrage with the blood-bolstered phrases of the Bible on their lips.

In a thousand trials the cruel witness of Moses has sent innocent women to a painful death.

And always when an apology or a defence of the barbarities of human slavery was needed it was sought for and found in the Holy Bible.

Renan says:

In all ancient Christian literature there is not one word that tells the slave to revolt, or that tells the master to liberate the slave, or even that touches the problem of public right which arises out of slavery.

Mr. Remsburg, in his book, The Bible, shows that in America slavery was defended by the churches on the authority of the sacred Scriptures. He says: