Part 12

If the government can build and manage a navy, why cannot it build and operate a railroad?

If the government can run the treasury department, why cannot it run the banks?

If the government can maintain an army of soldiers in idleness, why cannot it support an army of laborers at some useful occupation?

If the government can serve at less cost than private corporations, why does it not do so?

SUNDAY SCHOOLS

Of all the stupid things we meet with, Sunday school lessons are the stupidest. There seems to be only one way to account for this, and that is that stupid persons are connected with Sunday schools and can comprehend only stupid things. It seems to us as though a bright boy or girl at the age of twelve years ought to be able to overthrow every argument employed in a Sunday school to bolster up the Christian superstition. The lessons taught in them are adapted to undeveloped brains, and the literature one gets from their libraries is of that variety that is calculated to discourage any robust independence of mind. We believe that any religious or theological instruction is a positive injury to the young; that it is utterly wrong to instill into the immature mind ideas of God, of a future life, of heaven and hell, of angels and devils. All that we know about God is what we don’t know. The same may be said of other branches of religion. How much better it would be to teach something useful, something of importance, something real, true! Parents owe it to their children to save them from being taught the false and foolish dogmas of Christianity. False education is the bane of humanity, and the falsehood that is learned in Sunday schools poisons and deforms the life of man as long as he lives. Fear of God—the most terrible spectre that ever haunted the human soul—is a product of the Sunday school. The victims of this fear can be counted to-day by millions. This one fact ought to be sufficient to condemn this nursery of superstition and evil. There is no earthly reason to fear God, and other reasons should have no weight. The black shadow of fear which darkens the whole earth is the result of faith in God. The catechisms used in the Sunday schools are mostly filled with pious trash. The questions and answers they contain are written out of ignorance, written, too, in most cases, for the purpose of making the intellect the slave of the priest and minister. There is no mystery so shallow as a theological mystery, because it is founded on deception. The only mysteries that the human mind can contemplate with real wonder are the sublime mysteries of Nature, the mysteries of life and death, of sand and star, of flower and feeling. Before these great, overwhelming mysteries, that everywhere surround us, the petty ideas of Gods and devils, of saviors and mediators, of heaven and hell, are trivial and cheap. We condemn Sunday schools, because they do not teach what is real, what is true, what is necessary to a noble human life on earth; because they inculcate superstitions, and elevate the belief of religious dogmas above scientific and useful knowledge; because they put God above man, heaven hereafter above the home here, and the performance of religious duties above the life of honesty, purity and love. Sunday schools are the poorest schools on the face of the earth, and there is only one excuse for their existence, and that is to perpetuate the church, to keep alive the superstitions upon which it was built and upon which the clergy depend for a living.

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Our duty to the god of christianity is to bury him.

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Nothing from nothing and nothing remains, Nothing from nothing and nothing is the same.

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If the factory pays taxes and the church does not, it follows that the church will some day own the factory.

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When christian ministers stand up in their pulpits and say “Let us pray,” if they would sometimes vary the invitation and say: Let us laugh, they would do their congregations more good.

GOING TO CHURCH

Every little while some minister wakes up to the fact that a large proportion of the people of our cities do not go to church, and he blames the people for this state of affairs. Nobody blames men and women if they keep away from the theatre, from the library, from the art gallery, from the public park; in fact, it is generally admitted that people can exercise their own judgment in visiting these places and not be liable to censure on the part of anybody. Not so, however, when they keep away from the church.

Why does a man go to the theatre? Obviously because he is pleased by the performance he witnesses there. Why does a man not go to a church? Obviously because he is _not_ pleased with the performance he witnesses _there_. The notion that men and women are to go to a place where they do not like to go, where they derive no pleasure but as a matter of duty is about all the argument for church-going that can be advanced to-day. We admit that man should do his duty, no matter how disagreeable it may be. We cannot shirk our responsibilities on the ground that they are irksome or unpleasant. But _is_ it man’s duty to go to church? That is the question. If it is, then he should go. Who is to decide the matter? Of course priests and ministers will say that everybody ought to go to church. But what for? Is it a man’s duty to go to _every_ church, or only to some particular church? We are told that we shall be better for going to church. To which church? The Roman Catholic would not admit that a man would be better for going to a Methodist church, and the Methodist would not advise a person to go to a Roman Catholic church to improve his mental or moral condition. Who shall decide the matter _where_ we shall go to church?

In going to the theatre, we do not always go to the same place, nor to hear the same play, nor to witness the same actors; nor do we always visit the same gallery or park when we desire to see paintings or statuary, or to enjoy the flowers and general beauties of Nature. Why should men _join_ one church and go to it all their lives? Why should men hear only _one_ kind of religion preached? Why should men listen all their lives to the preaching of one set of dogmas?

Supposing a man were to go once or twice a week for fifty years to see one tragedy or comedy played, would he be a better judge of the drama than if he had seen during that time a hundred tragedies and comedies? The man who goes all his life to one church is made a denominational or sectarian bigot. Is the object of churches to make bigots? That is about all they have made up to date.

We hold that it is not man’s duty to _go_ to any church, to _belong_ to any church, or to _support_ any church. _There are no religious duties._ Man is under no obligation whatever to worship God. Churches must be placed upon the same ground as other places of instruction and amusement, and if they cannot be supported by legitimate patronage then must they be given up. If a man goes to church to hear a minister, let him pay for it like a man, but if he is not pleased with what he hears he need not go again.

The notion that there is anything of greater value to be had in the church than elsewhere cannot be defended. This idea does not fool people of any sense. The pulpit has no divine message for the world, but generally talks about what no one knows anything about. Intelligent people who do not go to church have come to the conclusion that they can derive more pleasure from other sources. That is about the reason why they do not go to church.

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We cannot go ahead without leaving something behind.

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The convent is opposed to all that is sacred in human nature.

WHO IS THE GREATEST LIVING MAN

Written November 19, 1893.

My answer is _Robert G. Ingersoll_.

One gets the conviction of this man’s superiority by simply being in his presence. The outer man makes the impression of greatness upon the mind.

It is not the silent assertion of a splendid form however, that persuades us. A large body serves to accent and emphasize a large mind, but heroic physical proportions are not essential to greatness. The king of men to-day is not he who, like Saul, “from his shoulders and upward is higher than any of his people.” Dr. Watts truly said: “The mind’s the standard of the man.”

But we cannot think of Robert G. Ingersoll with a diminutive physical equipment. His ample form radiates the man. But it is the royalty of his intellect that makes him great. It is in the kingdom of mind that he is master. Every mental tool fits his hand. He has wit, learning, imagination, eloquence, philosophy, and that rare quality, sense. He is a great lawyer, a great orator, a great poet, and a great man. He is too large for conventionalities, too large to respect what smaller minds have declared right, what weaker minds have made holy.

The intellectual grandeur of the man is no less apparent than his moral fearlessness. He is greatest where most men are little—in the face of a powerful and domineering superstition. He knows that the highest manhood makes the trappings of religion but the playthings of feeble minds.

His love of liberty is only equalled by his passion for truth, and he listens to the timid whisper of doubt with the chivalrous attention that others give to confident faith. He strips things of their clothes, of fashions, of falsehood, of pretension, and demands that they stand for what they are and no more. He has the sincerity of greatness and his mind wears the white robe of spotless integrity.

Above all living men he possesses the power of utterance. He has the highest literary instinct, and never marries a mean word to a noble thought. He uses language as Phidias used marble. He is the literary artist of the age, and knows all the colors in the brain. He can make words laugh and weep.

This man has a large heart. He is filled with human sympathy. He does not care for gods, but he pities men. The springs of feeling feed the mighty rivers of thought that cross the continent of his mind. There is about him the warmth, the kindness of summer—Nature’s season of forgiveness.

He has the highest philosophy—that of cheerfulness. The clouds never cover all his sky. He is the apostle of good humor, and preaches the gospel of sunshine to dry the tears of the world.

He is true to himself, loyal to his head and his heart, and upon his brow shines the jewel of self-respect.

Robert G. Ingersoll has the greatness of genius. It is useless to try to account for an intellectual giant. Dowered by Nature, parents are of small account. We cannot find the secret of his marvelous power by digging in a graveyard.

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Man is what he is, because his origin was what it was.

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God cannot be put into the national Constitution without putting liberty out of it.

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We do not want holy books, but true ones; not sacred writings, but sensible writings.