MOD.—What proof have we that this globe has been in being longer than the period assigned for it by the Jewish and Christian priesthoods?
LUCIAN.—There are innumerable astronomical and geological facts which prove the existence of this earth for millions of years.* By a change so wonderfully slow as to require perhaps thousands of centuries to bring it round, the surface of this globe is so completely altered towards the sun, that the frigid zones become the torrid, and vice versa, in succession. The remains of tropical animals have been found at the estuaries of the Oby and Lena, and even in more northern latitudes. Petrified crocodiles have been found in Derbyshire, at the depth of eighty-five fathoms; which proves that the land called England enjoyed a tropical sun, in antiquity so remote as to show in a striking light, the moment sand-glass—or, if you please, the perfect nothingness—of all human chronology.
MOD.—It must be allowed that the Bible cosmogony and its stories about deity, origin of man, etc., appear puerile, contradictory, and irrational, unless they can be resolved into planetary allegories. But in regard to the creation of matter, these Jew books are not so absurd as to affirm that it was done out of nothing; that was a discovery made by Christianity. The Jewish creation is a mere copy of cosmogonies of eastern countries, all of whom, China excepted, pretend to account for the origin of things.
LUCIAN.—We had everything from the east.* The Bible makers compiled out of any oriental legends, or shreds of Pagan writings they could find; and from ignorance, turned the sublime allegories having allusion to the planets, into vague unmeaning narrative and anecdote. Even Druidism, which, like primitive Christianity, was concealed sun worship,** travelled to us from the east; and there is abundant reason to believe that priestcraft had reached the highest perfection in India, some fifty thousand years before the Jewish superstition existed. In western Asia and Europe, the usual combination of crafts had robbed man of his natural liberty, enslaved his mind, and eaten up the fruits of his industry; but in Hindustan, the consummate subtlety, and all-subduing art of the priest, has, by an utter annihilation of mind, reduced certain castes of the Hindus far below the condition of the vilest animal on earth, and with a fiendish influence, the most astonishing, it stimulates other castes to actions at which Nature stands horrified.
* Christianism stole its materials in the east—deceived the
west, and now, in its purloined robes and oriental missions,
"it would retrace its steps, and deceive the world."
** "In Druidism, as in the most ancient religions, the
mythos in all being perfectly the same, it was required of
the votaries, that all prayers for good, as well as
invocations of curses, should be addressed to the sun, under
the name of Jupiter. In praying for blessings, they went
round the stone, or other object, according to the course of
the sun; and vice versa in the invocation of curses. These
imprecations are very numerous in those solar hymns, called
the psalms of David."
The Christian priestcraft, even in the eleventh century, when ignorance and tyranny had raised it to its zenith of power and glory, was but a novice compared with the subtle perfection of that of India. And it was no doubt the complete success of this mind-enslaving delusion in the east, which recommended and caused its adoption in the west; for with a variation in names, it is identically the same astro-fable everywhere.*
* Most of the old churches on the continent, as has
elsewhere been observed, show that both the virgin and her
son were introduced into Europe, as black Gentoos.
MOD.—The absolute sway which Brahminism has over the mind of the Hindus, is perhaps attributable to its being the oldest of all known religions? its priests have the advantage of a prodigious antiquity, through which they have matured it to serve their own ends, and established a despotic power over their debased votaries.
LUCIAN.—No conceivable power over the mind can exceed that refined delusion which causes millions of human beings voluntarily to throw themselves under the wheels of the Juggernaut car, to be crushed to death on earth, in order to attain some one of those heavens which their villainous priests have invented. This astonishing power is perhaps shown still more in the effects of that religious rite, which makes it incumbent on widows to burn themselves alive on the death of their husbands. The horrible wickedness of this sacerdotal injunction requires that these victims must sacrifice themselves by this excruciating death, dressed out in all the jewels and precious stones they are possessed of; and after the dreadful immolation, these valuables become the perquisite of the priests, whose emissaries carefully sift the ashes of the funeral pile where all the gold and gems are found, with little or no injury done them by the fire. This is either the usage now, or was so in former times, and seems to be the acme of priestcraft.
MOD.—Whether the belief in supernatural powers, which, in all ages and countries, a certain order of men has been maintained to inculcate and enforce, has contributed most to human happiness or misery, is not for me to decide; but while a vast majority of mankind are unfitted to think for themselves, advantage will be taken of that ignorance, and combinations formed between the rulers of states and churches for the more effectual government of the many, who, if oppressed on earth by supporting these institutions, will be remunerated by a supernatural promotion in heaven.