Bishop Heliodorus affirms that a “falsehood is a good thing when it aids the speaker and does no harm to the hearers.”
Synesius, another early Christian bishop, writes: “The people are desirous of being deceived; we cannot act otherwise with them.”
That is what most modern theologians think. With Dr. Thomas Burnett, they believe that “Too much light is hurtful to weak eyes.”
That the methods employed in establishing the church are still used in perpetuating its power, a glance at the so-called Christian literature of the day will suffice to show. Read the works of our sectarian publishers, examine the volumes that compose our Sunday-school libraries, peruse our religious papers and periodicals, and you will see that age has but confirmed this habit formed in infancy.
Every church dogma is a lie; and based upon lies, the church depends upon fraud for its support. The work of its ministers is not to discover and promulgate truths, but to invent and disseminate falsehoods. In the words of Isaiah, they well might say: “We have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.”
The church offers a premium on falsehood and imposes a punishment for truthfulness. With a bribe in one hand and a club in the other, she has sought to prolong her sway. The allurements of the one and the fear of the other have filled the world with hypocrisy. In our halls of Congress, in the editorial sanctum, in the professor’s chair, behind the counter, in the workshop, at the fireside, everywhere, we find men professing to believe what they know to be false, or wearing the seal of silence on their lips, while rank imposture stalks abroad and truth is trampled in the mire before them.
Every truth seeker is taunted and ridiculed; every truth teller persecuted and defamed; the scientist and philosopher are discouraged and opposed; the heretic and Infidel calumniated and maligned. In proof of this, witness the abuse heaped upon the Darwins and Huxleys, see the countless calumnies circulated against the Paines and Ingersolls.
It is said that Paulus Jovius kept a bank of lies. To those who paid him liberally he gave noble pedigrees and reputations; those who did not he slandered and maligned. Paulus is dead, but the church, guided by Bible morality, continues his business.