Part 12

"In no country in the world had women less liberty than in the Holy Land, and no monarch held in less esteem the rights of wives and mothers than Jehovah of the Jews. The position of woman was far better in Egypt than in Palestine. Before the pyramids were built, the sacred songs of Isis were sung by women, and women with pure hands had offered sacrifices to the gods. Before Moses was born, women had sat upon the Egyptian throne. Upon ancient tombs the husband and wife are represented as seated in the same chair. In Persia women were priests, and in some of the oldest civilizations 'they were reverenced on earth, and worshiped afterward as goddesses in heaven.' At the advent of Christianity, in all Pagan countries women officiated at the sacred altars. They guarded the eternal fire. They kept the sacred books. From their lips came the oracles of fate. Under the domination of the Christian church, woman became the merest slave for at least a thousand years. It was claimed that through woman the race had fallen, and that her loving kiss had poisoned all the springs of life. Christian priests asserted that but for her crime the world would have been an Eden still. The ancient fathers exhausted their eloquence in the denunciation of woman, and repeated again and again the slander of St. Paul. The condition of woman has improved just in proportion that man has lost confidence in the inspiration of the Bible.

"The old argument that if Christianity is a human fabrication its authors must have been either good men or bad men, takes it for granted that there are but two classes of persons--the good and the bad. There is, at least, one other class--the mistaken, and both of the other classes may belong to this. Thousands of most excellent people have been deceived, and the history of the world is filled with instances where men have honestly supposed that they had received communications from angels and gods." (Ingersoll's Reply to Black.)

"But an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. He must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. He must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. If an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential, will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from God, through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly.

"After all, the real question is, not whether the Bible is inspired, but whether it is true. If it is true, it does not need to be inspired. If it is true, it makes no difference whether it was written by a man or a god. The multiplication table is just as useful, just as true as though God had arranged the figures himself. If the Bible is really true, the claim of inspiration need not be urged; and if it is not true, its inspiration can hardly be established. As a matter of fact, the truth does not need to be inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake." (Ingersoll's "Mistakes of Moses," p. 59.)

"It may be argued that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although expressed in plainest words. To this it seems a sufficient reply, to ask, why a being of infinite power should create men so devoid of intelligence, that he cannot by any means make known to them his will?" (Ingersoll's "Mistakes of Moses," p. 90.)

"Millions have declared this book to be infinitely holy, to prove that they were right have imprisoned, robbed and burned their fellow men. The inspiration of this book has been established by famine, sword, and fire, by dungeon, chain, and whip, by dagger and by rack, by force and fear and fraud, and generations have been frightened by threats of hell, and bribed with promises of heaven.

"Had we been born in Turkey, most of us would have been Mohammedans and believed in the inspiration of the Koran. We should have believed that Mohammed actually visited heaven and became acquainted with an angel by the name of Gabriel who was so broad between the eyes that it required three hundred days for a very smart mule to travel the distance. If some man had denied this story we should have denounced him as a dangerous person, one who was endeavoring to undermine the foundations of society, and to destroy all distinctions between virtue and vice. We should have said to him 'What do you propose to give us in place of this angel? We cannot afford to give up an angel of that size for nothing.' We would have insisted that the wisest and best men believed the Koran." (Ingersoll's "Mistakes of Moses," p. 36.)

The Pentateuch.

"The Pentateuch is affirmed to have been written by Moses under the influence of divine inspiration. Considered thus a record vouchsafed and dictated by the Almighty, it commands not only scientific but universal consent.

"But here in the first place it may be demanded, who or what is it that has put forth this great claim in its behalf?

"Not the work itself. It nowhere claims the authorship of one man, or makes the impious declaration that it is the writing of Almighty God." (Draper's "Conflict Between Religion and Science.")

The Bible Not Inspired.

1. The Bible is full of errors:

"In 1847, the American Bible Society appointed a committee of its members to prepare a standard edition of King James's version, free from typographical errors. They prepared such an edition, correcting, as they stated, twenty-four thousand errors; but alarmed at the attacks made upon it, it was withdrawn; and the American Bible Society continues to this day to circulate for the word of God a book having in it twenty-four thousand acknowledged errors." ("Common Sense Thoughts on the Bible," Wm. Denton.)

2. The Bible sanctions cruelties. The wars of extermination waged by the Jews upon surrounding nations afford ample proof.

3. The Bible indorses immorality. It indorses war, slavery, polygamy, intemperance, and superstition.

4. The writers of the gospels do not claim to be inspired.

5. We do not know when, where, or by whom, either the gospels or the books supposed to be written by Moses, were composed.

6. Paul says: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God; but there is (1.) no definite meaning attached to the word inspiration. (2.) He does not refer to the gospels for they had no existence when he wrote.

7. Inspiration is not a success. There are a thousand different sects quarreling about the meaning of the "inspired scriptures."

8. Inspiration should be pure. The Bible abounds in obscenity.

9. The Bible undergoes revisions, improvements, etc. An infallible book cannot be improved.

10. The Bible has no plan or system, and hence has no definite object. Millions upon millions of Christians have differed regarding its teachings.

11. The Bible is a fetich. Millions of people have a slavish regard for the Holy Bible who have little or no respect for Humanity, Truth, or Justice.

God's Ways are Not Our Ways.

"Now this God either did or he did not believe in and command murder and rapine in the days when he used to sit around evenings and chat with Abraham and Moses and the rest of them. His especial plans and desires were 'revealed' or they were not. The ideas of justice and right were higher in those days than they are now, or else we are wiser and better than God, or else the Bible is not his revealed will. You can take your choice. My choice is to keep my respect for divine justice and honor, and let the Bible bear the burden of its own mistakes.

"If religion is a revelation, then it is not a growth, and it would have been most perfect in design and plan when it was nearest its birth. Now accepting the Bible theory of Jehovah, we find that when the communications of God were immediate and personal there could have been no mistake as to his will. To deal with it as a growth or evolution toward better things is to abandon the whole tenet of a revealed law of God. But to deal with it as a revelation is to make God a being too repulsive and brutal to contemplate for one moment with respect.

"He either did or did not tell those men those things. Which will you accept?" (Helen Gardener's "Men, Women, and Gods.")

"Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

"It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication--after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

"When I am told that the Koran was written in heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former. [1] I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.

"When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not; such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it; but we have not even this--for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so--it is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence.

"It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time, to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

"It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian church, sprung out of the tail of heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand; the statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus, the deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints; the mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian mythologists had saints for everything; the church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

"Nothing that is here said can apply even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.

"Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or anything else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his own writing. The history of him is altogether the work of other people; and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the necessary counterpart to the story of his birth. His historians, having brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have fallen to the ground.

"The first part, that of the miraculous conception, was not a thing that admitted of publicity; and therefore the tellers of this part of the story had this advantage, that though they might not be credited, they could not be detected." (Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason.")

SELF-CONTRADICTIONS OF THE BIBLE.

THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINES.

God is Satisfied with his Works.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good. (Gen. 1 : 31.)

God is Dissatisfied with his Works.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (Gen. 6 : 6.)

God Dwells in Chosen Temples.

And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him: I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.... For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. (2 Chr. 7 : 12, 16.)

God Dwells Not in Temples.

Howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands. (Acts 7 : 48.)

God Dwells in Light.

Dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto. (1 Tim. 6 : 16.)

God Dwells in Darkness.

The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. (1 Kings 8 : 12.)

He made darkness his secret place. (Ps. 18 : 11.)

Clouds and darkness are round about him. (Ps. 97 : 2.)

God is Seen and Heard.

And I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts. (Ex. 33 : 23.)

And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. (Ex. 33 : 11.)

And the Lord called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid. (Gen. 3 : 9, 10.)

For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. (Gen. 32 : 30.)

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw, also, the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. (Is. 6 : 1.)

Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And they saw the God of Israel.... They saw God, and did eat and drink. (Ex. 24 : 9, 10, 11.)

God is Invisible and Cannot be Heard.

No man hath seen God at any time. (John 1 : 18.)

Ye have neither heard his voice, at any time, nor seen his shape. (John 5 : 37.)

And he said, thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live. (Ex. 33 : 20.)

God is Tired and Rests.

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed. (Ex. 31 : 17.)

I am weary with repenting. (Jer. 15 : 6.)

Thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities. (Is. 43 : 24.)

God is Never Tired and Never Rests.

Hast thou never heard that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, never is weary? (Is. 40 : 28.)

God is Omnipresent, Sees and Knows all Things.

The eyes of the Lord are in every place. (Prov. 15 : 3.)

Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. (Ps. 139 : 7-10.)

There is no darkness nor shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings. (Job 34 : 22, 21.)

God is Not Omnipresent, Neither Sees nor Knows all Things.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower. (Gen. 11 : 5.)

And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and, if not, I will know. (Gen. 18 : 20, 21.)

And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God, amongst the trees of the garden. (Gen. 3 : 8.)

God Knows the Hearts of Men.

Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men. (Acts 1 : 24.)

Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. (Ps. 139 : 2, 3.)

For he knoweth the secrets of the heart. (Ps. 44 : 21.)

God Tries Men to Find Out what is in their Hearts.

The Lord, your God, proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God, with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut. 13 : 3.)

The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart. (Deut. 8 : 2.)

For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. (Gen. 22 : 12.)

God is All-Powerful.

Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?... There is nothing too hard for thee. (Jer. 32 : 27, 17.)

With God all things are possible. (Mat. 19 : 26.)

God is Not All-Powerful.

And the Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. (Judges 1 : 19.)

God is Unchangeable.

With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. (James 1 : 17.)

For I am the Lord; I change not. (Mal. 3 : 6.)

I, the Lord, have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it. I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent. (Ezekiel 24 : 14.)

God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. (Num. 23 : 19.)

God is Changeable.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (Gen. 6 : 6.)

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not. (Jonah 3 : 10.)

Wherefore the Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed, that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me forever; but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me.... Behold, the days come that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father's house. (1 Sam. 2 : 30, 31.)

In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.... And it came to pass afore Isaiah was gone out into the middle court, that the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Turn again and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, ... I have heard thy prayer, ... and I will add unto thy days, fifteen years. (2 Kings 20 : 1, 4, 5, 6.)

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart and go up hence, thou and the people.... For I will not go up in the midst of thee.... And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing, also, that thou hast spoken.... My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. (Ex. 33 : 1, 3, 17, 14.)

God is Just and Impartial.

The Lord is upright, ... and there is no unrighteousness in him. (Ps. 92 : 15.)

Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Gen. 18 : 25.)

A God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he. (Deut. 32 : 4.)

There is no respect of persons with God. (Rom. 2 : 11.)

Ye say the way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; is not my way equal? (Ezek. 18 : 25.)

He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger. (Deut. 10 : 18, 19.)

God is Unjust and Partial.

Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. (Gen. 9 : 25.)

For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. (Ex. 20 : 5.)

For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, ... it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Rom. 9 : 11, 12, 13.)

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. (Mat. 13 : 12.)

Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien. (Deut. 14 : 21.)

And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? (2 Sam. 24 : 17.)

God is Not the Author of Evil.

The law of the Lord is perfect.... The statutes of the Lord are right.... The commandment of the Lord is pure. (Ps. 19 : 7, 8.)

God is not the author of confusion. (1 Cor. 14 : 33.)

A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (Deut. 32 : 4.)

For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. (James 1 : 13.)

God is the Author of Evil.

Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good? (Lam. 3 : 38.)

Thus saith the Lord, Behold I frame evil against you and devise a device against you. (Jer. 18 : 11.)

I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. (Is. 45 : 7.)

Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? (Amos 3 : 6.)

Therefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. (Ezek. 20 : 25.)

God Gives Freely to those who Ask.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. (James 1 : 5.)

For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth. (Luke 11 : 10.)

God Withholds his Blessings and Prevents their Reception.

He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. (John 12 : 40.)

For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor. (Josh. 11 : 20.)

0 Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways and hardened our heart? (Is. 63 : 17.)

God is to be Found by Those who Seek him.

Every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth. (Mat. 7 : 8.)

Those that seek me early shall find me. (Prov. 8 : 17.)

God is Not to be Found by Those who Seek him.

Then shall they call upon me but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but shall not find me. (Prov. 1 : 28.)

And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear. (Is. 1 : 15.)