The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 26, 1927, Page 7

A Quack’s Panacea HE world ‘is becoming educated. ~ What better evidence could I offer than a letter, printed in the Woman’s Home Companion for February, typi- cal of thousands of other letters, the essence of which is “What can we believe?” The dark clouds of ignorance, produced by in- cense-burning exploiters, are gradually being pene- trated by the strong clear winds of science. Peo- ple who never thought of doubting the tenets of religion and economics are beginning to wonder and ask “why.” F course, in a periodical so narcotic and sopori- fic it is natural that the question is referred to Mr. Bruce Barton, the gentleman who signed Jesus up for his local Rotary Club, to answer. Any well read man of science could have informed the inauir- ing editor of the Companion that the answer has already been written several times over by Messrs. Joseph McCabe, Chapman Cohen, Joseph Whelan, Luther Burbank, and many others. But none of these, unlike Brother Barton, are purveyors of sweetness and light. So the diplomatic advertis- ing man, famous as the “discoverer” of Jesus and the Bible, was paged, HE-problem of religious belicf confronts every man when he is suffering from the birth-pangs of ‘intellectual. as weil as social emancipation. One by one he sees his castles in Spain topple to dust; he is overwhelmed by the complexities of religious differences; his brain is bewildered by the ab- stractness of the whole subject, But, as he is nearing the apex of emancipation, “he comes to realize that religion is only born of - ignerance, and exists through ignorance only; that the sole reason for the existence of religion is man’s inability, as yet, to mastcr the great scien- tific mysteries of the universe. Religion was born of ignorant assumption; so soon as science, which demands only the truth based on acid-tested fact, entered the field, the death knell of religion was sounded, a N answering the letter, which reveals that the correspondent is bewildered by the religious con- troversies reflected in the daily press, Friar Bruce begins with “There are three things to be said before we turn directly to answering this letter.” But does he mean “said”? Mr. Barton would have been less hypocritical and apologetic had he frankly stated there were three premises to be established, with the consent of the opposition, on which his treatise would. be based. An examination of his next three paragraphs reveals that the desired con- sent could not be forthcoming. He starts out with the assertion that the church is very much alive, proving it with an anecdote around the hackneyed phrase “Nobody kicks a dead horse.” HAT the church is alive, I admit, with regret. But if Barton had taken the trouble to ex- amine microscopically the status of the church to- day, and compare it with previous epochs in ec-* clesiastical history, he might be willing to admit that I am justified in contending the church is a dying institution. And may I also remind the scholarly (sic) advertising expert that it is quite a practice to kick a dying horse, to ascertain whether his apparent illness is only pretended. “ ISCUSSION and even disagreement are in- herent in the yery nature of Christianity,” he continues, citing the fact that Jesus of Nazareth had no more bitter opponents than the highly or- ganized and very pious church of his day. This I will admit with gusto, even going so far as to sup- ply the causes therefr, which Mr. Ba.ton very advertently omits. There were dissenters in the church from the beginning because, in Spite of its inquisitional discipline, the church has never been able to stifle the loud protests of thinkers against its idiocies. Heresy after heresy rankled the church; the foundation that was supposed to be built on solid rock was imbedded in sandstone— every storm left its pillars more disintegrated than ever, At geo td Jesus was opposed by the organized and pious church of his day is significant. Bibical scholars have found that Jesus had mo intention whatever of founding a new religion. The only evidence that could be so construed is found in gos- pels written years after his death, in some cases by men who never saw him, and which were al- tered, even forged, by the priesthood succeeding Peter. HIS literary hack, who might be putting his time to better avail writing advertisements for the august Lydia Pinkham, says we can take great satisfaction in the steady growth of toler- ance, a christian victory. Ideed! The entire his- tery of christianity is a record of cruel intoler- ance, a christian victory. Indeed! The entire his- to the present day. Has this religious diplomat been ignoring the news that appears under Mis- sissippi and Tennessee date lines? And does he ever glance over the pages that are foolishly de- voted every Monday morning to reports of ser- mons? The expressed beliefs and actions of the majority of our clerics give the lie to any such statement. 3. AVING attempted at the outset to easy for himself by establishing ises, Mr. Barton gets around to the business at hand, the answering of the letter. He does this by presenting the spiritual biography of a typical, and what he considers thoughtful, American woman, who had passed through the various stages of religious, doubt and “found a sure footing.” She was the daughter of a small town Meth- odist deacon, and before she went to ‘college had religious beliefs, which, condensed, read like this: “God is a man, very powerful, who sits on a jeweled throne in a palace in Heaven, which is a city with solid gold streets and high walls studded with diamonds and rubies. The gate of the city is tended by St. Peter who shuts the door against nearly all comers. The recording angel has-a desk near the throne and looks down at the world continuously, not- ing every mistake which mortals make. God is very stern and depressed by the wickedness of the world. He created Adam and Eve, and gave them a chance to lead perfect lives, but they sinned, and this made god so angry he condemned the whole human race. Every man, woman and child born into the world there- after was damned. Jesus, the son, had a kitder heart, so he came down on earth and sacri- ficed himself to appease god’s wrath. All who confess the name of Jesus and are baptized inherit eternal life; all others, even babies dying in infancy, were still under the ¢urse of Adam’s fall.” OME belief! Barton says the case is typical of thousands; of this I am positive. Imagine the horror of it, civilized human beings, believing in so pernicious a creed: I will not, for the sake of my gentle-natured. readers, repeat the in- famines of.such a dogma—I shall only call atten- tion to the phrases in black print. But that intolerant, ignorant, inhuman belief is held by the majority of those who consider them- selves good churchmen. Truly, there is great need for a messiah, but a rationalistiec one. farmer ages Barton’s heroine, he tells us, gradually came to revise that credo into seven simple, definite beliefs, through the good offices of a white-haired professor she consulted at col- lege. They reasoned the matter out, he says, and came to the following conclusions: “Somewhere and somehow back of this vast uni- verse there is an intelligence, a god. She simply could not conceive of a universe that just hap- pened; it seemed to her far more incredible than a universe that was planned.” Here we have in a nutshell the age-old argument supporting the dogma, There Is A God. Ever since the evolution of the mind from thropism to reason, man has been seeking the first cause. ANTED, for the sake of argument, that there must be some ruling factor in the universe, make things false prem- some intelligence, let us call it, where is there any evidence that it must be personified? Or that it is more than natural law? Or that it must be worshipped, or can be influenced, or has human likes, dislikes and prejudices? - He attempts to prove God's existence by the facts that a watch must have a maker, a cathedral a builder. He says “is it any the~less revolting to the intelligence to stand out under the stars and believe that they gathered themselves out of the vapors, that they determined their courses, settled the cycle of the seasons and are spinning away in leet pine By WILL DE KALB Joy Flees With Sin. space without plan or motion—a_ senseless merry- go-round of motion, doomed at last to destruction?” IS absurd attempt at absurdity is indeed laughable. I am no astronomer, and neither is he, but I can recommend a book to him that will enlighten his mind in this particular, provided it can be enlightened. It is “The Child’s Book of Astronomy,” and all libraries carry it. -— would advise him to procure a copy. If he reads this and similar books, he will learn that natural laws have governed the evolution of the world. How these laws came to be, even the most learned scientists, not including Mr. Barton, do not know. They are here, that is all; of their origin we are, ignorant. Perhaps natural laws govern all progress because nature has a tendency to progress in an orderly, natural way. But that is only a hypothesis, and I will not follow Mr. ®Barton’s example in presenting an assumption as an established theory. It is not necessary to find the first cause, if we are not yet familiar with all its effects. HE “thoughtful” woman presumes that God must be as good as she is because he created her, and the less, she says, cannot create the greater. Sardonicaily, I] might ask “And is he?”; but I will content myself with remarking how dis- couraging that great thought would be to a cer- tain Mr. Nietzche, and his doctrine of the Super- man. And so her beliefs continue. She disregards the miracles because there is a lack of biblical evi- dence. I wish she were just as rational on other points, for her own sake. She believes in the church, while admitting its fallacies. It represents, she claims, the ideals of the finest character the earth has known. I must ask her to reconsider the doctrines of heaven and hell, the punishment of the damned, the exalted state of celibacy, and all the other perversions dispensed under the label of religion. Perhaps she might change her mind. UT of its benevolence, she asserts, have come our colleges, our hospitals, and _ charities. Benevolence? If these are good works, it is in- cumbent upon the church to further them, it is not benevolence. The record of the church in sup- pressing learning throughout the ages does mot bear out this statement. And the clerical system of charities is a social evil, invented by the hand- maidens of the exploiting ruling classes, to aid in the continuity of such exploitation. Enough. Any clear thinking person could punch enough holes into this panacea for religious doubt of Mr. Bar- ton’s to make its structure even less solid than that of the proverbial sieve. self-destructive fallacies, be enjayed. HE ego, the vanity in man does not permit him to see or recognize the fact that in his inner- most thoughts, his conclusions are reactions to his desires. This life is short, therefore he creates an eternal future one; this life is miserable, therefore he looks forward for a reward for his misery in that future ideal existenee. His thoughts, in all tases,.mirror his desires, Our present existence we chn shape as we will. And only so soon as men realize that their Heaven must be brought to earth, and the present social system reconstructed so that it will bring hap- piness where there is none, and eliminate needless misery and suffering, will mankind cease to look beyond the horizon and above the skies for a first cause, and seek, and even find it, here on earth.