CHAPTER XXV.

THE BIBLE NOT A MORAL GUIDE.

We are asked to accept the Bible as the revealed will of an all-powerful, all-wise and all-just God. We are asked to revere it beyond all other books, to make a fetich of it. Above all, we are asked to accept it as a divine and infallible moral guide. Christians profess to accept it as such; and many who are not Christians--many who reject the authenticity of the most of it, and who doubt the credibility of much of it--parrot-like, repeat the claims of supernaturalists, dwell upon its "beautiful moral teachings," and abet the efforts of the clergy to place it in our public schools, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it is not in any sense a moral guide.

What is Morality?

What is morality? Paley, by many considered the chief of modern Christian authorities, basing his conception of morality on the Bible, defines it as "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God [as revealed in the Bible], and for the sake of everlasting happiness [and to escape everlasting misery]." Supernaturalism and selfishness are thus its sole principles; supernaturalism being its source and selfishness being the motive for its observance. Here virtue does not bring its own reward, the will of God is not omnipotent, and mankind, like a spoiled child, must be bribed or frightened to obey its precepts.

This is the Christian conception of morality. But it is a false conception. Morality is not supernatural and divine, but natural and human. It is purely utilitarian. Utility, regardless of the will of God, is its all-pervading principle. Whatever is beneficial to man is right, is moral; and whatever is injurious to him is wrong, is immoral. The end and aim of moral conduct, according to Hobbes, is self-preservation and happiness; not everlasting happiness in another world, as taught by Paley, but life-lasting happiness in this. Dr. Priestley's phrase, "The greatest happiness of the greatest number," is pronounced by Jeremy Bentham, one of the most eminent of ethical writers, "a true standard for whatever is right or wrong, useful, useless, or mischievous in human conduct."

More and more, as men become civilized and enlightened, the egoistic principles of religionists give way to the altruistic principle of Rationalists. "Live for others" is the sublime teaching of the Positivist Comte. In obeying this noble precept we are not sacrificing, but augmenting our own happiness. "To do good is my religion," said Thomas Paine. The rewards and punishments of this religion, which is here but another name for morality, are happily expressed by Abraham Lincoln: "When I do good I feel good, and when I do bad I feel bad." The husband and wife who labor for each other's happiness, regardless of their own; the father and mother who deprive themselves to make their children happy; men, like Sir Moses Montefiore and Baron Hirsch, and women, like Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, who devote their time and wealth to aid in removing the poverty and alleviating the sufferings of humanity--these, by increasing the happiness of others, increase their own.

When the true principles of morality are universally understood and accepted, divine revelations will be cast aside and supernatural religions will die; the zealot's visions of a celestial paradise will vanish, and the philanthropist's dream of a heaven on earth will be realized.

Bible Codes.

The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament and the Sermon on the Mount, including the Golden Rule, in the New, are supposed to comprise the best moral teachings of the Bible. They are declared to be so far superior to all other moral codes as to preclude the idea of human origin.

The Decalogue is a very imperfect moral code; not at all superior to the religious and legislative codes of other ancient peoples. The last six of these commandments, while not above criticism, are in the main just, and were recognized alike by Jew and Gentile. They are a crude attempt to formulate the crystallized experiences of mankind. The first four (first three according to Catholic and Lutheran versions) possess no moral value whatever. They are simply religious emanations from the corrupt and disordered brain of priestcraft. They only serve to obscure the principles of true morality and produce an artificial system which bears the same relation to natural morality that a measure of chaff and grain does to a measure of winnowed grain.

As a literary composition and as a partial exposition of the peculiar tenets of a heretical Jewish sect, the Sermon on the Mount is interesting; but as a moral code it is of little value. Along with some admirable precepts, it contains others, like the following, which are false and pernicious: "Blessed are the poor in spirit;" "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth;" "If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out;" "If thy right hand offend thee cut it off;" "Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery;" "Resist not evil;" "Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;" "If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also;" "Love your enemies;" "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth;" "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on;" "Take therefore no thought for the morrow."

Christians claim that unbelievers have no moral standard, that they alone have such a standard--an infallible standard--the Bible. If we ask them to name the best precept in this standard they cite the Golden Rule. And yet the Golden Rule is in its very nature purely a human rule of conduct. "Whatsoever ye [men, not God] would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This rule enjoins what Christians profess to condemn, that every person shall form his own moral standard. In this rule the so-called divine laws are totally ignored.

The Golden Rule, so far as the Bible is concerned, is a borrowed gem. Chinese, Greek, and Roman sages had preached and practiced it centuries before the Sermon on the Mount was delivered. This rule, one of the best formulated by the ancients, is not, however, a perfect rule of human conduct. It does not demand that our desires shall always be just. But it does recognize and enjoin the principle of reciprocity, and is immeasurably superior to the rule usually practised by the professed followers of Jesus: Whatsoever we would that you should do unto us, do it; and whatsoever we wish to do unto you, that will we do.

The three Christian virtues, faith, hope, and charity, fairly represent this whole system of so-called Bible morals--two false or useless precepts to one good precept. Charity is a true virtue, but "faith and hope," to quote Volney, "may be called the virtues of dupes for the benefit of knaves." And if the knaves have admitted charity to be the greatest of these virtues, it is because they are the recipients and not the dispensers of it.

Bible Models.

The noblest types of manhood, like Bruno, Spinoza, Paine, and Ingersoll, have been slandered, anathematized, and slain by Christians, while the gods, the heroes, the patriarchs, the prophets, and the priests of the Bible have been presented as the highest models of moral excellence. Of these, Jehovah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Paul, and Christ are represented as the greatest and the best.

Who was Jehovah? "A being of terrific character--cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust."--Jefferson.

Who was Abraham? An insane barbarian patriarch who married his sister, denied his wife, and seduced her handmaid; who drove one child into the desert to starve, and made preparations to butcher the other.

Who was Jacob? Another patriarch, who won God's love by deceiving his father, cheating his uncle, robbing his brother, practicing bigamy with two of his cousins, and committing fornication with two of his housemaids.

Who was Moses? A model of meekness; a man who boasted of his own humility; a man who murdered an Egyptian and hid his body in the sand; a man who exterminated whole nations to secure the spoils of war, a man who butchered in cold blood thousands of captive widows, a man who tore dimpled babes from the breasts of dying mothers and put them to a cruel death; a man who made orphans of thirty-two thousand innocent girls, and turned sixteen thousand of them over to the brutal lusts of a savage soldiery.

Who was David? "A man after God's own heart." A vulgar braggadocio, using language to a woman the mere quoting of which would send me to prison; a traitor, desiring to lead an enemy's troops against his own countrymen; a thief and robber, plundering and devastating the country on every side; a liar, uttering wholesale falsehoods to screen himself from justice; a red-handed butcher, torturing and slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children, making them pass through burning brick-kilns, carving them up with saws and axes, and tearing them in pieces under harrows of iron; a polygamist, with a harem of wives and concubines; a drunken debauchee, dancing half-naked before the maids of his household; a lecherous old libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier; a murderer, having this faithful soldier put to death after desolating his home; a hoary-headed fiend, foaming with vengeance on his dying bed, demanding with his latest breath the deaths of two aged men, one of whom had most contributed to make his kingdom what it was, the other a man to whom he had promised protection.

Who was Paul? A religious fanatic; a Jew and a Christian. As a Jew, in the name of Jehovah, he persecuted Christians; as a Christian, in the name of Christ, he persecuted Jews; and both as a Jew and a Christian, and in the name of both Jehovah and Christ, he practiced dissimulation and hallowed falsehood.

Who was Christ? He is called the "divine teacher." Yes,

"He led The crowd, he taught them justice, truth, and peace, In semblance; but he lit within their souls The quenchless flames of zeal, and blessed the sword He brought on earth to satiate with the blood Of truth and freedom his malignant soul."

--Shelley.

Immoral Teachings of the Bible.

In the modern and stricter sense of the term, morality is scarcely taught in the Bible. Neither moral, morals, and morality, nor their equivalents, ethical and ethics, are to be found in the book. T. B. Wakeman, president of the Liberal University of Oregon, a life-long student of sociology and ethics, says:

"The word 'moral' does not occur in the Bible, nor even the idea. Hunting for morals in the Bible is like trying to find human remains in the oldest geologic strata--in the eozoon, for instance. Morals had not then been born."

I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions nearly every vice and crime. Here is the long list of wrongs which it authorizes and defends:

1. Lying and Deception. 2. Cheating. 3. Theft and Robbery. 4. Murder. 5. Wars of Conquest. 6. Human Sacrifices. 7. Cannibalism. 8. Witchcraft. 9. Slavery. 10. Polygamy. 11. Adultery and Prostitution. 12. Obscenity. 13. Intemperance. 14. Vagrancy. 15. Ignorance. 16. Injustice to Woman. 17. Unkindness to Children. 18. Cruelty to Animals. 19. Tyranny. 20. Intolerance and Persecution.

The Bible is, for the most part, the crude literature of a people who lived 2,000 years, and more, ago. Certain principles of right and wrong they recognized, but the finer principles of morality were unknown to them. They were an ignorant people. An ignorant people is generally a religious people, and a religious people nearly always an immoral people. They believed that they were God's chosen people--God's peculiar favorites--and that because of this they had the right to rob and cheat, to murder and enslave the rest of mankind. From these two causes, chiefly, ignorance and religion, i. e., superstition, emanated the immoral deeds and opinions which found expression in the writings of their priests and prophets.

The passages in the Bible which deal with vice and crime may be divided into three classes:

1. There are passages which condemn vice and crime. These I indorse.

2. There are many passages in which the crimes and vices of the people are narrated merely as historical facts without either sanctioning or condemning them. The book merits no censure because of these.

3. There are numerous passages which sanction vice and crime. These, and these alone, in the chapters which follow, I shall adduce to prove the charges that I make against the Bible as a moral guide.