The Necessity of Atheism

    XIX. THE DOOM OF RELIGION; THE NECESSITY
         OF ATHEISM                                                  269

     XX. CONTEMPORARY OPINION                                        309




PREFACE


Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the
freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox
believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would
remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs
are "crutches" hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing
humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness
in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of
freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances.

Havelock Ellis has stated that, "The man who has never wrestled with his
early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not
truly his own--for no faith is our own that we have not arduously
won--has missed not only a moral but an intellectual discipline. The
absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and render all his
work ineffective. He has missed a training in criticism, in analysis, in
open-mindedness, in the resolutely impersonal treatment of personal
problems, which no other training can compensate. He is, for the most
part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be
too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too
weak to find the light." The man who has allowed his mental capacities
to clear his way through the dense underbrush of religious dogma finds
that he has emerged into a purer and healthier atmosphere. In the
bright light of this mental emancipation a man perceives the falsities
of all religions in their historic, scientific, and metaphysical
aspects. The healthier mental viewpoint holds up to scorn and discards
the reactionary religious philosophy of morals, and the sum total of his
conclusions must be that religion is doomed; and doomed in this modern
day by its absolute irrelevance to the needs and interests of modern
life. And this not only by the steadily increasing army of freethinkers,
but by the indifference and neglect of those who still cling to the fast
slipping folds of religious creeds--- the future freethinkers.

It was Spinoza who remarked that, "The proper study of a wise man is not
how to die but how to live." Religious creeds can but teach how man
should live, so that when he dies, he may be assured of salvation; and
the important thing is not what he does to help his fellow men while he
is living, but how closely he lives in conformity to a reactionary code
of dogmas. Religion has always aimed to smooth the sufferer's passage to
the next world, not to save him for this world.

Freethought has dethroned the gods from the pedestal, and has replaced,
not an empty idol, but an _ideal_, the ideal of a man who is his own
god.

It has become increasingly apparent that what men have hitherto
attributed to the gods are nothing but the ideals they value and grope
for in themselves. The ideal of the freethinker, the conception that
places the supreme worth of human life in the expanding horizon of man's
usefulness to man, is forever menaced by the supernaturalism of the
theist which manifests itself in the multifarious religious sects that
are the most active and constant menace to civilization and to mankind
today. That religion in the past has produced suffering incalculable and
has been the greatest obstacle in the advance of secular knowledge is a
fact too well attested to by history to be denied by any sincere and
unbiased intelligent man. That today it constitutes a cultural lag, an
active menace to the best interests of humanity and the last refuge of
human savagery, is the contention of the freethinker.

The conception of the God-idea as held by society in general stands in
the same position as the vermiform appendix does to the anatomy of man.
It may have been useful in some way thousands of years ago, but today it
constitutes a detriment to the well-being of the individual without
offering any compensatory usefulness. Agree or disagree with this
contention you may, but only when you are made aware of the facts that
can be brought to the aid of this conviction. Just as the fundamental
principle of justice is outraged when a man or an institution is
condemned by jurist or popular opinion when an opportunity is not given
to present the facts on both aspects of the case, just so is no man
justified in making a decision between theism and atheism until he
becomes acquainted with both sides of the controversy. Freethought but
asks a hearing and the exercise of the unbiased reason of the man who
has not hitherto been made aware of its contentions.

In the religious revolution of this twentieth century, the battle ground
is squarely seen to be between supernaturalism and secularism. Although
the supernaturalists are well entrenched and fortified, it is well to
remember that it is the man with vision who finally prevails. The time
has passed when the freethinker could be held up to the community as an
example of a base and degraded individual. No manner of pulpit drivel
can delude even the unthinking masses to this misconception. The
freethinker is today the one who beholds the vision, and this vision
does not transcend the natural. It is a vision that is earth-bound; a
vision it may be called, since it leaps the boundary of the present and
infers for him what the future of a secular organization of the entire
constituency of humanity will bring forth. This vision is but a product
of his scientific armamentarium and is the means by which he is assured
of victory over the well-entrenched and fortified position of the
supernaturalists who are still creed-bound to use antiquated and useless