Religion in the Heavens; Or, Mythology Unveiled in a Series of Lectures

by Logan Mitchell

* The only true definition of religious faith, is an
implicit submission of the judgment—a belief in what we
neither see, hear, feel, taste, or smell.
The veracious translators of our "Word of God," have made
Paul, on most occasions, use the word faith, in place of
truth; for instance, in Rom. iv., 9, they make him affirm,
"For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for
righteousness." Now, the true translation from the Greek
is,—"For we affirm that the truth became to Abraham
justice"

It is particularly observable in the esprit du corps of theologians, that in order to epitomise and mould the mind of man into a total subjection to their interest and power, and to establish the absolute necessity of their mediatorial office, it is indispensable that he should, through what they call original sin, be degraded below the scale of his true position in the order of nature, in exact proportion to the elevation above that scale, which they confer upon him on the score of his soul's immortality. In this final destination which they assign him, his fate must either be eternal blessedness, through their official interference in his favor, in wiping off his imputed transgressions, committed six thousand years before he was born, or everlasting perdition and misery, should that intercession be wanting.*

* Though the commissioned attornies of the immaterial being
pretend a deep interest in having his edicts obeyed, yet
their real views and interests can only be served by the
multiplication of offences, which is their harvest. When
their sway was at its zenith, crime created the lucrative
season of repentance; and the posthumous terrors with which
they debase the minds of their dupes are the best of all
preparatives for their dominion; for when these horrors are
raised to a certain height, the fatal machinery for mental
subjugation is irresistible, and almost as perfect as it is
among the Brahmin priests of India. In England, the statute
of mortmain is a lasting attestation of the height to which
death-bed expiations and commutations were actually carried;
and it is not extravagant to affirm, that if no change in
public opinion had taken place, in regard to the selfish
intrigues and frauds of the clergy, "and no interposition on
the part of the legislature to put a stop to them, nearly
all the land in that kingdom would have become the property
of the church."

Between these two extremes of heaven and hell they keep him suspended, themselves holding the haulyards rope in their own hands, ready to pull him up to the one or lower him down to the other, according as he believes, in and supports, or rejects and condemns their craft and traffic. In the political and religious drama of enslaving the great majority of the people, the above parts of the play are, of course, the peculiar province of the priesthood, who to the fabled guilt of original sin, have charged upon the gloomy minds of their wretched votaries, an endless catalogue of sins, by thought, word, and deed; to every one of which the punishment of eternal flames has been awarded. The kingly and aristocratic part of this drama is to make laws to suit themselves and their priesthood—to bind down reason, so as to prevent it rebelling against the most shocking absurdities—compel it to acquiesce in the imperative mandates of a vile superstition; and demonstrate, through the powerful arguments of imprisonment and ruin, that all investigation of the plot or proof of falsehood adduced against the actors, is wickedness.*

* Every rancorous feeling and motive among religious
fanatics, conspire to create and provoke antipathy, and to
swell it to the utmost pitch of intensity against the
materialist, who holds them all in contempt. These are the
only feelings in which the deluded votaries of supernatural
revelations coincide, in directing their common enmity
against that philosophy which, they know, treats them with
derision. This enmity is inexorable and eternal, though
restrained, at present, from gratifying its natural
ferocity.

This species of delusion, which passes under the name of supernatural revelation, upon which impostors in every age have founded their schemes, is too gross and palpable in many of its dogmas, to maintain a footing even among ignorant men, but for the protection of corrupt governments, that seek aid in fraud. Its ministers have ever said to civil rulers—"take us into partnership—give us riches and honors—support our pretensions when we gull the millions, and in return, with our adherence and connivance, you may safely carry oppression to any lengths you please." Thus between a governing aristocracy, (as in England) and their adopted hierarchy, there is an inborn affinity and coincidence of views and interests, which not only exclude, but are incurably opposed to the natural happiness of the mass of mankind; and as for the means of compassing their ends, each wields that sort of power which serves to uphold the other; and when united, resistance is unavailing, unless it is backed by the unanimous will of a nation. But this national unanimity in eradicating these collusive and deep rooted frauds, is not to be expected, until natural humanity and sound morality shall take place of supernaturalism, and "religious instruction" make way for practical virtue and useful knowledge, in the education of youth. Then, and not till then, will every individual be able to perceive, that the man who contributes to the support of any priesthood, subsidizes a standing army, for the perpetual subversion of his dearest rights and liberties.

We shall now make a digression from the opening subjects of this lecture, with the view of adducing additional facts which tend to prove, that the chief moral and political evils which pervade Christendom, sprang from laws and institutions derived from, or sanctioned by, the books of Jewish theocracy, all of which have been uniformly calculated to uphold the injustice of the idle few, against the industrious many. Amongst these, the feudal curse of primogeniture, as "part and parcel of the law," stands prominent in bad eminence. Yet this law, even among the Jews, was not so outrageously cruel as it now is among many European nations; for, with them, the first-born son, though consecrated to the Hebrew god, was not, it seems, entitled to more than a double portion of the inheritance. In regard to the entailing of land, for the most iniquitous purpose of securing it against sale for the payment of just debts, the Jews and their deity, barbarous as they were, would probably have been ashamed of such rank injustice. In early ages, land was considered merely as the means of subsistence; but in the darkest times of ignorance and feudal oppression, it became the overbearing means of obtaining political power, and was monopolised by the aristocratic orders;* whilst their class-law of primogeniture, and its execrable concomitant of entail upon land, were unrighteously resorted to, as the only means of eternising the domineering sway of feudal tyranny, and to perpetuate possession, in defiance of all the just debts which might have been incurred by the possessor. The absurdity of these laws is no less glaring than the injustice of their original object, "when they presume that each successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth—that the property of the present generation should be restrained and regulated to the fancy of those who lived many centuries ago."

* At least nine-tenths of all the land in Great Britain and
Ireland, have got into the hands of the aristocracy, lay and
clerical, and almost wholly through the means of their
selfish legislation. But this is not the worst—they say to
the mass of the people: "You shall pay us whatever price we
please for the produce of these lands," and they enforce this
by corn-laws, and other food monopolies, which they have made
for their own advantage. These laws are "a curse equal to
the barrenness of the earth, and the inclemency of the
heavens."

The Roman jurisprudence adhered to the equality of nature, by an equal division of property among the children, whether that consisted of land or other goods, and the cruel prerogatives of primogeniture and entail were unknown.

The universal degradation, poverty and misery, caused by these aristocratic scourges of society, destitute as they are of a single redeeming advantage to lessen the enormity of the evil, sufficiently betray the nefarious views and selfish ends of the feudal legislators by whom they were enacted. But these are best shown in the mischievous effects which it is impossible for them not to produce, forming, as they do, a source which diffuses fraternal jealousy, animosity, and hatred, through a thousand channels over the land: and all to perpetuate the insolent pride of family distinction, by arming an arrogant individual with unjust power to lord it over the rest of the family, and that too by means of the same wealth which ought to render the whole independent. In these cases, when the younger brothers escape penury or beggary, it is only by dint of doubling the injustice of these laws, by quartering them, as so many locusts, upon the industry of the public, under shelter of that mass of aristocratic corruption, whence issue our stall-fed hierarchy, and the thousands of other privileged idlers, whose places are created for the adherents and supporters of profligate governments. Thus the younger sons and brothers are provided for whilst the poor females, if not palmed upon the pension list, are hopelessly consigned to the most abject dependence; their only inheritance being a perverted education, by which they are moulded into mere creatures of unnatural habits and customs, and of mental impressions that are utterly false in everything.