These words, while appearing in the unauthentic appendix to Mark, yet express clearly the alleged teachings of Jesus. Above all they have formed the key note of orthodox Christianity in all ages of the church.
Between the lines of this passage the eye of the unfettered mind discerns in large capitals the word FRAUD. These words are the words of an impostor. Had Jesus been divine he would not have been compelled to resort to bribes and threats to secure the world’s adherence. Had he even been a sincere man he would not have desired converts on such terms. These words are either the utterance of a false Messiah, conscious of his impotency, or the invention of priests who intended them to frighten the ignorant and credulous into an acceptance of their faith.
Concerning this teaching Col. Ingersoll says: “Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother’s knees; deceive, ruin, and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these, you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven’s golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell—an immortal vagrant, an eternal outcast, a deathless convict.”
“A gloomy heaven above opening its jealous gates to the nineteen-thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! And below an inexorable Hell expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals! O doctrine comfortable and healing to the weary wounded soul of man!”—Robert Burns.
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Did he teach the doctrine of endless punishment?
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment” ([Matthew xxv, 46]).
That is the most infamous passage in all literature. It is the language, not of an incarnate God, but of an incarnate devil. The being who gave utterance to those words deserves not the worship, but the execration of mankind. The priests who preach this doctrine of eternal pain are fiends. There is misery enough in this world without adding to it the mental anguish of this monstrous lie.
Less than a hundred years ago, when Christ was yet believed to be divine, in nearly every pulpit, to frighten timid and confiding mothers, dimpled babes were consigned to the red flames of this eternal hell. Then came the preachers of humanity—the Ballous, the Channings, the Parkers and the Beechers—preachers with hearts and brains, who sought to humanize this heavenly demon, to make of him a decent man, and civilize his fiendish priests. To these men is due the debt of everlasting gratitude. With the return of every spring the emancipated of the race should build above their sacred dust a pyramid of flowers.