III. WHY RESORT TO RIDICULE?
We hope we shall not be misunderstood or condemned by any reader for appearing to indulge frequently in a spirit of levity in attempting to expose the logical and moral absurdities of the Bible. We have assumed this license more from an apprehended moral necessity than from a natural disposition. Ridicule is now generally acknowledged by moralists to be a most potent weapon for the demolition of error. Moral and religions absurdities, according to Cicero, can be arrested and put down much sooner by "holding them up to the light of ridicule, than by any other means that can be employed." Let no one, then, oppose the use of such means simply because it may disturb a sensitive feeling in his own mind, derived from a false education. A critical investigation of religious history discloses the important fact, that the conviction established in the popular mind that it is wrong to indulge in a feeling of levity when writing or discoursing on religious subjects is the work of the clergy. Having discovered that many of the narrations of their Bible, and likewise many of the tenets of their creeds, are really ridiculous when examined in the light of science, reason, and sound sense, in order to prevent these ridiculous features of their systems from being exposed, they taught the people that ridicule is entirely out of place in matters of religion, and that such feelings, or language expressive of such feelings, should be entirely suppressed. And it is principally by the invention of this expedient, and the establishment of this conviction in the public mind, that the clergy have succeeded in keeping the ridiculous errors of their creeds concealed from age to age. And to continue this policy longer is only to yield to their interests, and prolong those evils still longer which have been perpetuated for centuries by the adoption of this expedient. No other argument or apology is necessary than this as a justification of the limited extent to which the language of ridicule has been employed in this work. It is an egregious error, which is the offspring of an erroneous education and habit, to suppose that ridicule is more out of place on religious subjects than on other subjects. O. S. Fowler has fully established this as a scientific fact on phrenological grounds. We should be quite sorry to wound the feelings of any sensitive mind by any language made use of in this work, and hope this explanation, will prevent such results.