The Creation of God, Jacob Hartmann [e manga reader TXT] 📗

The church kindergarten instructions are based upon the writings and teachings of both the Old and the New Testament. Who wrote them, or who compiled them, matters little. They are the accepted doctrines of the church or churches. Whether orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whether monotheism or polytheism, whether the idolatry of calf or idolatry of the figure of Jesus or the Virgin, it amounts to one and the same thing. It is of no serious consequence whether Paul actually wrote the Epistles or some one wrote them in his name several hundred years later; or whether John wrote his Revelations; or Moses the Pentateuch; or whether the whole Bible was compiled a thousand years after Moses. The whole fabric is based upon error, partly due to the times when it was written, partly due to the state of civilization, to the educational status, to the ignorance and superstition of the times, the limited knowledge of nature, and the undeveloped mental faculties, the misinterpretation and misconstruction of every phase and phenomenon their perceptive faculties were unable to explain, the impressions received from the outward world or the feelings and emotions that agitated them within. It is no easy task to overcome the prejudices of the times in which we live. We are instinctively opposed to any innovation, whether the new ideas are an improvement on the old or not. For many generations, and for centuries, the various church organizations have been teaching the old, antiquated idea that the Bible was a supernatural production, that either God had written it or had inspired man to do the work. What does it signify who wrote Æsop’s fables, Homer’s Iliad, the five books of Moses, Isaiah, or the New Testament, or even Shakespeare? They are written. The question really is, whether the contents are true, are fabulous or historically correct. For many years it has been a recognized fact that the Bible is a composition of fable, fiction, facts, misunderstanding, and misstatement. We only need glance at the absurd trials that are now going on at this present time. These gentlemen, Briggs and Smith, are not the first to doubt the truth of the book. Hundreds have doubted before them. It is skepticism that produces evolution and revolution in the accepted form of worship and faith and belief. Abraham, Socrates, Christ, Luther, and hundreds have doubted. They were skeptics in consequence of a superior insight into the propaganda of certain accepted beliefs. Every speculative theory has been doubted. Great sciences are never doubted. Theology, the offspring of idolatry and mythology, is a purely speculative science—if indeed it can be classed as a science. Therefore, it has always been laboring under a cloud of doubt. What wonder, then, that modern scholars, even clergymen, of superior ability, become skeptics when they compare modern science, modern truth, with ancient fable and falsehood? The debates on progressive sanctification, a middle state, whether sanctification is complete or incomplete at death—where is the heresy? where is the blasphemy? What are these overgrown, lopsided educated men thinking about—these self-constituted righteous bigots, what are they squabbling about? Was not Abraham a heretic and a blasphemer to the Chaldeans, Jesus Christ a heretic and a blasphemer to the Jews, Socrates a heretic and a blasphemer to the Greeks, Luther a heretic and a blasphemer to the Most Holy Apostolic Roman Catholic Church? Why, the entire theological doctrine, the whole spiritual code of morals, all the articles of faith and creeds and canons of the church, all the figures and carvings of Christ, all the paintings, all the steeples, all the belfries on this earth’s surface—what are they for? What are all the mountebank church costumes for? What is the use for a man to disguise himself in a stage costume of the Egyptian period, to scare a lot of ignorant boobies? Of what use are your incense, your prayer, and your blessing, your self-conceited holiness, your pretended sanctity, and your priestly hypocrisy? What is it all for? To save sinners? What shall we do to be saved? All this ecclesiastical humbug, preaching and pulpit noise and theological humbug, is about crushing out sin, saving the sinner, and all the supernatural thunder is brought to bear upon the great sinning organs—to wit, the stomach and the sexual organs, to regulate these. God and gods, angels, prophets, and spirits labored—and what is more monstrous and more extravagantly ridiculous, the young man Jesus Christ had to be sacrificed—to save you from overloading your stomach—or rather abusing your stomach—and from overindulging in sexual exercises. Remember, every crime, known or unknown, recognized or not recognized, every evil and every wickedness, every abomination or pollution or defilement, springs from these two sources. I am not taking diseases into consideration, such as David describes in Psalm xxxviii, for example.

To satisfy the wants of these organs, leads to greed, selfishness, fraud, forgery, deception, falsehood, corruption, etc. The pleasures resulting therefrom are accompanied by vanity, pride, pamperedness, envy, jealousy, hate, discontent, etc. The indulgences are known as drunkenness, lust, lasciviousness, fornication, adultery, obscenity, debauchery, whoredom, luxury, revelry, and by many other terms. These form the theme of the prophets and the burden of the apostles. These are the sins, the vices, they have been trying to crush and wipe out with their theological absurdities for several thousand years. They have created all sorts of bugaboos to frighten fools, idiots, and stupid ignoramuses into discipline. They have created hell, purgatory, dark and deep pits, brimstone and fire. The gentleman devil, or Mr. Satan, presides over the lower regions, conducts their affairs, only to accommodate the spiritual fraternity, from the pope to the Rev. Sam Patch. But in order to be saved, to go to heaven—an imaginary abode in the atmosphere, a sort of ethereal paradise in the upper strata of the air that surrounds this globe, either with or without sunlight—in order to get one up there some clown of a priest will mumble off masses, a sort of ribald fustian composition that will raise your spirit or your soul right up into the pure upper strata of this terrestrial atmospheric crust. Of course if there are seven heavens you must pay accordingly. In case, however, you miss the aerial place, the heaven, and accidentally become one of the devil’s subjects, it stands to reason that Satan requires an extra fee to release you from eternal punishment—which the good, pious priest puts into his pocket.

It is a pertinent question to ask our spiritual advisers, whether or not the Christian kindergarten makes a specialty of guarding and regulating, by the celestial medium of the Son of God, the Holy Ghost, the digestive apparatus and the organs of procreation. Because all the sins and vices originate with these. The devil, or Satan, holds his jubilee in the pleasures and extravagant indulgences of man and woman. The church has long since been deprived of its political power and importance. The civil law regulates minor and major crimes, and provides punishment therefor. The only function left for the Christian church, the ecclesiastical kindergarten, is advisory, admonitory, accompanied with frivolous promises—Be good, you well-dressed ladies and gentlemen; pray to our shadows, kneel before yon figure on the cross, sprinkle yourselves with holy water, and contribute liberally toward our support and sustain our kindergarten, then we bless you and give you a pass to the heavenly regions. Basta! Only believe, have faith, never mind about understanding, common sense, and reason, then you surely will be saved, and have a white and clean gown fresh from the laundry, a pair of wings, a golden crown, and you can have your choice of either a trumpet or a harp, which you may either blow or touch, and may sit at the feet of an old man with a long white beard, on a golden chair, his feet resting on the clouds, surrounded by an innumerable host of angels and cherubim that will make music everlasting, where spiritual fountains will keep you cool, oh, and a vast deal more which can not be here recited. Anyone who desires a full and complete description of this celestial paradise, this heaven, including Abraham’s bosom, the right hand of Jesus, his beloved Father, and the Holy Ghost in the bargain, may obtain it by making proper application. Ah! what a blessing it would be for the whole human family if the churches were utilized for educational purposes wherein truths, scientific truths, could be taught; where young people could meet to amuse themselves, or be instructed in something useful; where young men and women could entertain themselves by feeding off the tree of knowledge, instead of loafing round saloons, round the street corners, gambling-houses, dives or pool rooms. Young and old must have a pastime, and a place to pass this time; if the state or community does not provide such places in densely populated districts, where are these poor, ignorant creatures to go to? Talk about charity! A large bulk of our charities are advertising schemes. I do not call what I here advocate a charity, but a right. If we want to improve the public morals, if we desire to educate the young men and women, provide district temples for amusement and instruction, open from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M., where they may assemble after working hours, sit, talk, read, or play—may educate the brain, the nervous and muscular tissues, so that both these master tissues may perform their functions skillfully, naturally, and judiciously.

Our scientific scholars throughout the world have long since dispensed with the supernatural. Know the natural, is the modern shibboleth. If you want to take care of the machine, understand the machinery, and if you want the coming generation to understand something about it, it is certain that the saloon is not the proper place for it.

We ought to guard our public institutions with jealous care. Our public non-sectarian schools are the places for our children. The public schools ought to be numerous enough to accommodate every citizen’s children in the land. I think it bad grace for any foreigner to come here to give us advice upon that subject. Archbishop Satolli, papal ablegate, said at the recent meeting of the American archbishops in New York, on “The settling of the school question and the giving of religious education:” “To the Catholic church belong the duty and divine right of teaching all nations to believe the truth of the gospel, and to observe whatsoever Christ commanded.

“For the rest the provisions of the Council of Baltimore are yet in force, and in a general way will remain so, to wit: Not only out of our paternal love do we exhort Catholic parents, but we command them, by all the authority we possess, to procure a truly Christian and Catholic education for the beloved offspring given them of God, born again in baptism unto Christ, and destined for heaven, to shield and secure them throughout childhood and youth from the dangers of a mere worldly education, and therefore to send them to parochial or other truly Catholic schools.”

The beloved offspring given them of God? Nonsense! About as much born of God as a calf, or a flower. Offspring are the natural result of a natural cause. “Born again in baptism unto Christ, and destined for heaven”—would it not be well to ascertain what the Catholic church has ever done to elevate and educate the masses? Does not the educational system of Peter Dens, Satolli, and Co. consist merely of: 1. To hear mass on Sundays and all holy days of obligation; 2. To fast and abstain on the days commanded; 3. To receive worthily the