As Freethinkers, we boldly impeach the Christian plan of salvation as being essentially immoral in its tendency,—as offering a premium on vice and crime; and for doing this on previous occasions and designating it a "bankrupt scheme," the writer of this has been the subject of severe and indignant animadversion from his intimate Christian friends. Yet here is a Christian minister who takes substantially the same position as ourselves in reference to the plan of salvation as preached by Methodists and others, and denounces it as a "Spiritual Bankrupt Act." And I have made the above extracts from his pen to strengthen my position against Mr. Wendling, viz., that a belief in God and the Bible is not essential to social and commercial morality, and the safety of the State.
On this subject, Lord Bacon, himself a Christian, says:—
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation: all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not. But superstition dismounts all these, and createth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men; therefore Atheism did never perturb States, for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further, and we see the limes inclined to Atheism (as the time of Augustus Caesar) were civil times; but superstition, that bone of contention of many States, bringeth in a new primum mobile that ravishes all the spheres of government."
There are thousands of Atheists in almost every civilized country, and how is it, if Atheism tends to crime, that you will seldom or never find one in prison for any crime? Buddhism, one of the most ancient religions, long ante-dating Christianity, is essentially Atheistic. It has had, and has now, hundreds of millions of followers, and for pure morality no system of religion has ever equalled it. Webster, the Christian lexicographer, admits that Buddhism was "characterized by admirable humanity and morality." The religion of Confucius—of him who taught the "golden rule" five centuries before Christianity appeared—was also Atheistic. Therefore, what we "most need" is, not a "conviction that there is a personal God" (we have that already; all the murderers, thieves and defaulters believe that doctrine), but we need more of the "admirable morality" of Buddhism, and more of the practice of the "golden rule" of Confucius to "do not unto others what you would not they should do to you." As Emerson has said, "We want some good Paganism."
Mr. Wendling's next argument for the existence of a personal God is the assumed universality of the belief in God, "among every people in every quarter of the habitable globe," now and "from the very furthest reach of history." As the value of this argument turns simply on a question of fact, and as every educated or well-read man knows that the facts in this case are against Mr. Wendling, and that his assertion is historically incorrect, it is hardly worth while to spend much time over it. However, as some readers may not have looked into the authorities on the subject, I may, perhaps not unprofitably quote briefly from some of them, and simply refer the reader to others.
To say nothing of the Atheistic character of the Buddhistic religion, already referred to, with its millions of followers, there have been, and are to-day, tribes and peoples who have no belief whatever in, or conception of, a God or Gods. This fact is conclusively proved by such authorities as Livingston, the great African explorer (himself a Christian), Sir John Lubbock, J. S. Mill, Darwin, and even John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who, surely, ought to be good authority with Christians; and him we will first put in the witness box against Mr.-Wendling. Wesley says, in his Sermons, vol. 2, Sermon C:
"After all that has been so plausibly written concerning the 'innate idea of God;' after all that has been said of its being common to all men, in all ages and nations, it does not appear that man has any more idea of God than any of the beasts of the field; he has no knowledge of God at all. Whatever change may afterward be wrought by his own reflection or education, he is by nature a mere Atheist."
Charles Darwin, the greatest naturalist in the world, and who is proverbially careful in his statements, has the following on this subject in his "Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 62-3:—
"There is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed and still exist, who have no idea of one or more Gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea."
Again, in vol. 2, p. 377, Darwin says:—