The Middle GuardIt is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you should salt your truth that it will no longer quench thirst?Nietzsche.
It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you should salt your truth that it will no longer quench thirst?
Nietzsche.
Indeed, history, down to the present day, is a melancholy record of the horrors which can attend religion: human sacrifice, and, in particular, the slaughter of children, cannibalism, sensual orgies, abject superstition, hatred as between races, the maintenance of degrading customs, hysteria, bigotry, can all be laid at it's charge. Religion is the last refuge of human savagery.
The anthropomorphic God of the ancient world—the God of human passions, frailties, caprices, and whims isgone, and with him the old duty to propitiate him, so that he might be induced to treat you better than your neighbor. Can anyone question the advance that has been made in diminishing the prevalence of these medieval, essentially childish, and essentially selfish ideas? The new God is the God of law and order; the new duty, to know that order and to get into harmony with it, to learn how to make the world a better place for mankind to live in, not merely how to save your individual soul. However, once destroy our confidence in the principle of uniformity, our belief in the rule of law, and our effectiveness immediately disappears, our method ceases to be dependable, and our laboratories become deserted.
The plain truth is, thousands upon thousands of men and women have gone out of the Church. They take no stock in its obsolete teachings to which they once subscribed in order to become members. After great tribulation, they have made their declaration of religious independence. They have taken the right turn for their own salvation. The churches as a whole do not know that today there is a violent intellectual revolution among all people who think. The so-called theism that is embalmed in the old theology and is still preached is utterly defunct for many persons of this generation. Like it or not, that is a fact.
The creeds of the churches contain conceptions of God's nature and of his action toward the human race which are intolerable to the ethical mind of the twentieth century. The conception of one being, human ordivine, suffering, though innocent, for the sins of others, is revolting to the universal sense of justice and fair dealing. No school, no family, no court, would punish the innocent when the guilty were known. This conception of God is hideous, cruel, insane, and no Christian church which tolerates it can be efficient in the promotion of human welfare and happiness.