I don't know, do you?

by Marilla M. Ricker

And yet thousands of people credulously cling to creeds which embody the notions of barbarous or uncivilized ages.

Take the dogma of revelation. It tells us that the Bible is a revelation of the will and wisdom of an omniscient God; that it is a perfect and sufficient rule of faith and practise. What, in the name of humanity, causes people to make such statements today? It is like trying to light the house with a saucer of tallow in which a rag is immersed, instead of using gas or electricity.

Take an example of this Bible. In Deuteronomy xiv: 21, we read, "Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou mayest give it unto the sojourner that is within thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto a foreigner: for thou art a holy people unto Jehovah thy God." In Matthew vii: 12, we read, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them."

Why do you talk about the infallibility, the inerrancy, or even the moral unity of a volume written by many hands at widely different times? Are such people so ignorant that they have not read the Book they are swearing by? Are they moral idiots and do not know the plainest right and wrong? Are they scoundrels and have some deceitful reason for urging such a book as an authority? Or are they the dupes of their own credulity, clinging without thought to the beliefs in which they have been reared? They are evidently not using commonsense in an honest way.

I often hear the Bible spoken of as a holy book, full of a holy spirit. I sometimes reply: "Have you read the conduct of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, and other ancient worthies, who were said to be men after the heart of the bloodthirsty and avenging Jehovah? How long would you keep out of prison if you took them for your models? Have you read the Thirty-fifth, Fifty-eighth, Sixty-ninth and One Hundred Ninth Psalms? If not, read them, and tell me what you think of them."

There never was any intrinsic reason for believing the Bible except that a designing priesthood said so, and stupid people trusted them.

Here, by common consent, people agree to be duped. Ages and ages ago, they began to make admissions that two and two might be six, or even sixteen, in religion. They had sense enough to say that two and two are four in other things. In Divine Revelation they shut their eyes to all mistakes and wilful lies. If people should deceive in other matters as the priests, parsons and teachers do in religion, they would not escape arrest.

Another central doctrine is that of the Atonement. This is derived from the moral character of the Jewish God; he governed the world of humanity on the principle of primitive society. Men were responsible to him in everything. Any infraction of his supposed laws rendered them subject to his vengeance. That is why the Jew thought that God sent a thunderstorm to punish him for eating pork.

What explanation besides credulity can be suggested for the continuation of this belief century after century? Preachers shout it from the pulpits, and Salvation Army people hawk it through the streets. Not one of them knows what he is talking about. Each learned it from some one who told him to say it. They all do it because it is a part of a system which they have inherited, but the reason for which they do not know, and have never allowed themselves to seek.

This cringing credulity keeps the masses from using their powers. They seem to believe that if they should lose these superstitions they would be lost.