Answer. I have said a great many times that it is no more wonderful that we should live again than that we do live. Sometimes I have thought it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we have a start. But upon that subject I have not the slightest information. Whether man lives again or not I cannot pretend to say. There may be another world and there may not be. If there is another world we ought to make the best of it after arriving there. If there is not another world, or if there is another world, we ought to make the best of this. And since nobody knows, all should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that nobody knows.
If we take the Old Testament for authority, man is not immortal. The Old Testament shows man how he lost immortality. According to Genesis, God prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating of the Tree of Life. It is there stated, had he succeeded, man would have lived forever. God drove him from the garden, preventing him eating of this tree, and in consequence man became mortal; so that if we go by the Old Testament we are compelled to give up immortality. The New Testament has but little on the subject. In one place we are told to seek for immortality. If we are already immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it. In another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in marriage. From this one would infer there would be some unworthy to be raised from the dead. Upon the question of immortality, the Old Testament throws but little satisfactory light. I do not deny immortality, nor would I endeavor to shake the belief of anybody in another life. What I am endeavoring to do is to put out the fires of hell. If we cannot have heaven without hell, I am in favor of abolishing heaven. I do not want to go to heaven if one soul is doomed to agony. I would rather be annihilated.
My opinion of immortality is this:
First.—I live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful.
Second.—There was a time when I was not, and after I was not, I was. Third.—Now that I am, I may be again; and it is no more wonderful that I may be again, if I have been, than that I am, having once been nothing. If the churches advocated immortality, if they advocated eternal justice, if they said that man would be rewarded and punished according to deeds; if they admitted that some time in eternity there would be an opportunity given to lift up souls, and that throughout all the ages the angels of progress and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that some time, and no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the children of men would be reasonably happy, I never would say a solitary word against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long I shall oppose them; that is to say, as long as I live.
Question. Do you believe in a God; and, if so, what kind of a God?
Answer. Let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an answer.
First.—Man gets all food for thought through the medium of the senses. The effect of nature upon the senses, and through the senses upon the brain, must be natural. All food for thought, then, is natural. As a consequence of this, there can be no supernatural idea in the human brain. Whatever idea there is must have been a natural product. If, then, there is no supernatural idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain an idea of the supernatural. If we can have no idea of the supernatural, and if the God of whom you spoke is admitted to be supernatural, then, of course, I can have no idea of him, and I certainly can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which I have no idea.
There may be a God for all I know. There may be thousands of them. But the idea of an infinite Being outside and independent of nature is inconceivable. I do not know of any word that would explain my doctrine or my views upon the subject. I suppose Pantheism is as near as I could go. I believe in the eternity of matter and in the eternity of intelligence, but I do not believe in any Being outside of nature. I do not believe in any personal Deity. I do not believe in any aristocracy of the air. I know nothing about origin or destiny. Between these two horizons I live, whether I wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what I find between these two horizons. I have never heard any God described that I believe in. I have never heard any religion explained that I accept. To make something out of nothing cannot be more absurd than that an infinite intelligence made this world, and proceeded to fill it with crime and want and agony, and then, not satisfied with the evil he had wrought, made a hell in which to consummate the great mistake.
Question. Do you believe that the world, and all that is in it came by chance?