Christianity Teaches Immorality.
The doctrine of the atonement has been the dry rot in our civilization. It has led millions to believe that they could escape the consequences of violated laws of nature. Millions of people believe to-day that they can go through life in utter disregard of all that is right and good, and at the last moment when they come to shuffle off this mortal coil, all they will then need to do will be simply to call upon Jesus and receive his approbation and permission to enter the shining courts above. “Jesus died and paid it all,” relieves the votary from the demands of morality, and, “the Devil tempted me and I sinned,” exonerates him from all guilt. This sort of teaching has filled our prisons with those who fully believe it—and they are behind the bars because they have lived according to their belief. The malignant and mendacious cry that Freethought leads the truthseeker always downward to a bad life is refuted by the fact that those who fill the prisons of our country are not Infidels, but believers in the divine revelation who have lived up to the advantages offered by the “gathering them in” doctrine of atonement.
The murderers who are hanged on Friday in the different states almost every week, nearly all Christians, are prepared to go to heaven and there join in the company and songs of innocent children and pure maids and matrons who, by their presence, make heaven worthy the name; but these fiends, if they should happen to be pardoned by the governor, there could not be found a reputable Christian who would want to take one of them home to live in his family of noble wife and lovely children, for a single day. And yet he is fit for heaven, fit for the company of angels and the purified of earth. The dying words of a good religious man were, “I am no Infidel,” and that man’s name is John D. Lee, of Utah, who, in cold blood, murdered innocent men, women, and children, and after eluding justice for twenty years or more was arrested, tried, found guilty and shot to death, with the words on his lips, “I am no Infidel.” But his confession was unnecessary, as Freethinkers do not die that way, and the reason they do not die in that manner is because they do not believe in the great bankrupt act—the atonement. They have no savior, and hence have to save themselves. They have no titles to mansions in the skies but have some claims on earth which they prefer to stay with as long as they can.
The doctrine of the atonement is very immoral and no one can begin to estimate the wickedness it has fostered in society, by leading people to believe they can pass through life committing all sorts of crimes and at last, when they find themselves about to die, can call upon Jesus and find eternal life “by believing on his name.”
“Long as the lamp holds out to burn
The vilest sinner may return.”
“This couplet has helped many a one to die easy.” Oh, yes, it has, but it has encouraged too many to live easy—to live entirely too easy—so easy that they did not need to gain intelligence, to practice morality and pay their honest debts.
“Between the saddle and the ground
Was mercy asked and pardon found.”
A salvation so extemporaneously performed, I fear could not endure; it resembles too closely the winter revivals whose fruits have all disappeared before the summer’s harvest is over.
“Nothing, either great or small,
Nothing, sinner, no!
Jesus did, did it all
Long, long ago.
Weary, working, burdened one,
Wherefore toil you so?
Cease your doing, all was done
Long, long ago.
Till to Jesus’ work you cling
By a simple faith,
Doing is a deadly thing,
Doing ends in death.
Cast your deadly doing down,
Down at Jesus’ feet,
Rise in him, in him alone,
Gloriously complete.”
Where are those who have risen in him gloriously complete? Show us just one.