Only a few years ago the Mosaic account was considered true, and Moses was regarded as a scientific authority. Geology and astronomy were measured by the Mosaic standard. The opposite is now true. The church has changed; and instead of trying to prove that modern astronomy and geology are false, because they do not agree with Moses, it is now endeavoring to prove that the account by Moses is true, because it agrees with modern astronomy and geology. In other words, the standard has changed; the ancient is measured by the modern, and where the literal statement in the Bible does not agree with modern discoveries, they do not change the discoveries, but give new meanings to the old account. We are not now endeavoring to reconcile science with the Bible, but to reconcile the Bible with science.
Nothing shows the extent of modern doubt more than the eagerness with which Christians search for some new testimony. Luther answered Copernicus with a passage of Scripture, and he answered him to the satisfaction of orthodox ignorance.
The truth is that the Jews adopted the stories of Creation, the Garden of Eden, Forbidden Fruit, and the Fall of Man. They were told by older barbarians than they, and the Jews gave them to us.
I never said that the Bible is all bad. I have always admitted that there are many good and splendid things in the Jewish Scriptures, and many bad things. What I insist is that we should have the courage and the common sense to accept the good, and throw away the bad. Evil is not good because found in good company, and truth is still truth, even when surrounded by falsehood.
Question. I see that you are frequently charged with disrespect toward your parents—with lack of reverence for the opinions of your father?
Answer. I think my father and mother upon several religious questions were mistaken. In fact, I have no doubt that they were; but I never felt under the slightest obligation to defend my father's mistakes. No one can defend what he thinks is a mistake, without being dishonest. That is a poor way to show respect for parents. Every Protestant clergyman asks men and women who had Catholic parents to desert the church in which they were raised. They have no hesitation in saying to these people that their fathers and mothers were mistaken, and that they were deceived by priests and popes.
The probability is that we are all mistaken about almost everything; but it is impossible for a man to be respectable enough to make a mistake respectable. There is nothing remarkably holy in a blunder, or praiseworthy in stubbing the toe of the mind against a mistake. Is it possible that logic stands paralyzed in the presence of paternal absurdity? Suppose a man has a bad father; is he bound by the bad father's opinion, when he is satisfied that the opinion is wrong? How good does a father have to be, in order to put his son under obligation to defend his blunders? Suppose the father thinks one way, and the mother the other; what are the children to do? Suppose the father changes his opinion; what then? Suppose the father thinks one way and the mother the other, and they both die when the boy is young; and the boy is bound out; whose mistakes is he then bound to follow? Our missionaries tell the barbarian boy that his parents are mistaken, that they know nothing, and that the wooden god is nothing but a senseless idol. They do not hesitate to tell this boy that his mother believed lies, and hugged, it may be to her dying heart, a miserable delusion. Why should a barbarian boy cast reproach upon his parents?
I believe it was Christ who commanded his disciples to leave father and mother; not only to leave them, but to desert them; and not only to desert father and mother, but to desert wives and children. It is also told of Christ that he said that he came to set fathers against children and children against fathers. Strange that a follower of his should object to a man differing in opinion from his parents! The truth is, logic knows nothing of consanguinity; facts have no relatives but other facts; and these facts do not depend upon the character of the person who states them, or upon the position of the discoverer. And this leads me to another branch of the same subject.
The ministers are continually saying that certain great men—kings, presidents, statesmen, millionaires—have believed in the inspiration of the Bible. Only the other day, I read a sermon in which Carlyle was quoted as having said that "the Bible is a noble book." That all may be and yet the book not be inspired. But what is the simple assertion of Thomas Carlyle worth? If the assertion is based upon a reason, then it is worth simply the value of the reason, and the reason is worth just as much without the assertion, but without the reason the assertion is worthless. Thomas Carlyle thought, and solemnly put the thought in print, that his father was a greater man than Robert Burns. His opinion did Burns no harm, and his father no good. Since reading his "Reminiscences," I have no great opinion of his opinion. In some respects he was undoubtedly a great man, in others a small one.
No man should give the opinion of another as authority and in place of fact and reason, unless he is willing to take all the opinions of that man. An opinion is worth the warp and woof of fact and logic in it and no more. A man cannot add to the truthfulness of truth. In the ordinary business of life, we give certain weight to the opinion of specialists—to the opinion of doctors, lawyers, scientists, and historians. Within the domain of the natural, we take the opinions of our fellow-men; but we do not feel that we are absolutely bound by these opinions. We have the right to re- examine them, and if we find they are wrong we feel at liberty to say so. A doctor is supposed to have studied medicine; to have examined and explored the questions entering into his profession; but we know that doctors are often mistaken. We also know that there are many schools of medicine; that these schools disagree with one another, and that the doctors of each school disagree with one another. We also know that many patients die, and so far as we know, these patients have not come back to tell us whether the doctors killed them or not. The grave generally prevents a demonstration. It is exactly the same with the clergy. They have many schools of theology, all despising each other. Probably no two members of the same church exactly agree. They cannot demonstrate their propositions, because between the premise and the logical conclusion or demonstration, stands the tomb. A gravestone marks the end of theology. In some cases, the physician can, by a post- mortem examination, find what killed the patient, but there is no theological post-mortem. It is impossible, by cutting a body open, to find where the soul has gone; or whether baptism, or the lack of it, had the slightest effect upon final destiny. The church, knowing that there are no facts beyond the coffin, relies upon opinions, assertions and theories. For this reason it is always asking alms of distinguished people. Some President wishes to be re-elected, and thereupon speaks about the Bible as "the corner- stone of American Liberty." This sentence is a mouth large enough to swallow any church, and from that time forward the religious people will be citing that remark of the politician to substantiate the inspiration of the Scriptures.