Lemuel K. Washburn: “The Measure of Suffering”

The little boy who asked his mother “if hell was worse than the toothache?” imagined that the limits of suffering were reached in his agony. Many of us have doubtless experienced pain that we thought marked the utmost of endurance. In the Christian dream of future punishment man is represented as burning eternally. Fire probably inflicts the most intense pain that the human body has ever suffered. Hell is fitly represented by fire.

Suffering takes various shapes. Pain comes in a thousand forms. But there is a limit to the endurance of pain. Unconsciousness comes to the relief of the mind when agony can no longer be borne. Hell, such as has been taught by Christianity, is not a logical conclusion. All suffering that we know anything about ends itself. The victim is released by exhaustion. Hell is impossible.

The finer suffering which is called remorse, which follows wrong-doing, gradually wears out. Its lash loses its sting. The sinner becomes callous to his act or finds a balm for his regret in the lapse of years. The finger of time erases the memory of every wrong, and soothes with its touch every pang. We can escape the fate of wrong-doing by doing better. Reform opens the door of every hell invented for man’s punishment. The man who does right, wherever he is, will have the reward of right-doing, the fate of right-doing.

It is this fact which makes the idea of endless pain for man’s deeds done on earth illogical. Man can turn around on the road of evil as well as on the road of good, and hence he can change his fate whenever he changes his life. The measure of human suffering makes it impossible for man to endure pain forever. He must either perish utterly as a sentient being or be driven by his punishment to better behavior.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Whatever is Right”

There are a great many familiar sayings that are in the mouths of nearly everybody which are perfect nonsense, and one of these many sayings is the one we have chosen for the subject of this article. One would imagine that falsehood became sacred by repetition, judging from the way that certain un-truths live in the literature and language of mankind. Many a holy text is only holy by being with what is true, as we pay respect to many a man whom we know to be unworthy because he is related to respectable people.

The saying that “whatever is is right,” is a dogma of the philosophy of indifference. To anyone who works for the right and suffers wrong, such a dogma is impertinent. Are the deeds that sink a man to the realm of brutes, and the deed that lifts him to heights where virtue in her high estate dwells alone, both right? The worst light for a human soul is that light in which a bad act looks like a good one. We cannot afford to trifle with things pure and true. To succeed grandly in life we must side with what is right.

There is a class of people that hold a don’t-care philosophy. These people don’t care what they say or do; they don’t care what takes place in the world or what the world suffers or endures. The tent in which they dwell is pitched above the plane of human wants and sufferings. They look from their serene abode upon the troubled elements below, and, in contemplation of what is beneath them, pronounce with pious gravity the highest text of their system of philosophy: “Whatever is is right.”

To those who have never seen the bitter tear start under the infliction of injury; to those who have never heard the sigh that disappointment and deception have wrung from a breaking heart; to those who have never witnessed the sufferings which tyranny imposes upon its victims; to those who have never felt the miseries which selfishness heaps upon human beings, this doctrine may seem true; but to those who have beheld the consequences of evil doing, and felt the hard hand of injustice upon their lives; to those who have been the victims of deception, and realized the terrible fate of disappointment; to those who have been trodden upon and denied the rights of men; to those who have been the slaves of the world’s cruel masters, how false it is!

We cannot disguise the fact that there is wrong in the world. It haunts every dwelling-place of man. It follows man to his business, to his work. It goes with him when he seeks his pleasure. It does not leave him when he enters his home.

Every harsh word is wrong, every unjust judgment is wrong, every cruel act is wrong, every deception is wrong, every wicked or impure thought is wrong. Go where we will and we shall meet the ugly face of wrong. On the street its presence will bring shame into the face; in our dealings with the world it will come before our eyes in all its hideous reality. Even when alone we cannot keep this phantom away.

Is it right that a human being should cause another pain and anguish that will leave their marks on the heart and brow for life? Is it right to make a man suffer unjustly, to add to misfortune the weight of cruelty? Is it right to deprive one of honor, of fortune, of life?

Is it right to bear false witness against a brother-man, to abuse a neighbor, to slander and malign a human soul? Is wrong right?

Go to the garret of the poor wretch where want stares him in the face, where extortion robs his family of every joy and every comfort, where the day is made dark from no ray of human love coming into the heart, and the night darker from the absence of warmth and light. Go to the home rent asunder by vice and see the broken promises once so fair and bright, now blushing with shame; hear curses from lips that once spoke in love; see the skeletons of vows beautiful when breathed by the lips of the holiest passion on Earth, but now hideous in their ruin. Go to the den of wickedness, to the house of crime supported by lust and greed; look upon the pictures of wretchedness and sorrow, of sin and guilt painted by the hand of wrong; behold the wrecked human lives that are floating on the sea of existence, only drifting until some sudden wave shall overwhelm them and sink them out of sight, leaving behind a memory that man should contemplate with pity and which kindness would blot out forever. See the world in its vice, in its suffering, in its misery, in its tears and its shame and let your lips say, if they can, that “Whatever is is right.”

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Indifference to Religion”

The pulpit complains that people are indifferent to religion. Why shouldn’t they be? It is about time they were indifferent to it. Our wonder is, that the people tolerate a single priest or church on Earth. Of what benefit is religion to mankind? Come now, ye that uphold religion, tell us what it does to make the world better, nobler, truer? Why should man worship God? Why should he build thousands of costly churches all over the Earth, and pay priests and ministers large salaries to preach and pray in these churches?

If the churches were the humblest buildings in the land; if the ministers and priests were paid no more than carpenters or spinners, if there were any agreement between what religion professes to be and what it is as matter of fact, then less could be said in the way of condemnation of religion. But you think that men who live in hovels can respect men who preach in palaces as followers of the man of Nazareth? The thing is too ridiculous. The world is beginning to see how it has been hum-bugged, and it is becoming indifferent. It may in time become indignant. There will then be occasion for ministers to be alarmed.

But just now the people have reached a condition of utter indifference respecting religion. They don’t care for it. They don’t care to build it up or tear it down. They don’t care whether it is good or bad. They don’t care anything about it. Some regret this state of things; we rejoice in it. It shows that the people are thinking, and when the people think long enough they will find what is true and right.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Is the Bible Worth Reading?”

That depends. If a man is going to get his living by standing in a Christian pulpit, I should be obliged to answer, Yes! But if he is going to follow any other calling, or work at any trade, I should have to answer, No! There is absolutely no information in the Bible that man can make any use of as he goes through life. The Bible is not a book of knowledge. It does not give instruction in any of the sciences. It furnishes no help to labor.

It is useless as a political guide. There is nothing in it that gives the mechanic any hint, or affords the farmer any enlightenment in his occupation.

If man wishes to learn about the Earth or the heavens; about life or the animal kingdom, he has no need to study the Bible. If he is desirous of reading the best poetry or the most entertaining literature he will not find it in the Bible. If he wants to read to store his mind with facts, the Bible is the last book for him to open, for never yet was a volume written that contained fewer facts than this book. If he is anxious to get some information that will help him earn an honest living he does not want to spend his time reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Kings, Psalms, or the Gospels. If he wants to read just for the fun of reading, to kill time, or to see how much nonsensical writing there is in one book, let him read the Bible.

I have not said that there are not wise sayings in the Bible, or a few dramatic incidents, but there are just as wise sayings, and wiser ones, too, out of the book, and there are dramas of human life that surpass in interest anything contained in the Old or New Testament.

No person can make a decent excuse for reading the Bible more than once. To do such a thing would be a foolish waste of time. But our stoutest objection to reading this book is, not that it contains anything particularly good, but that it contains so much that is positively bad. To read this book is to get false ideas, absurd ideas, bad ideas. The injury to the human mind that reads the Bible as a reliable book is beyond repair.

I do not think that this book should be read by children, by any human being less than twenty years of age, and it would be better for mankind if not a man or woman read a line of it until he or she was fifty years old.

What I want to say is this, that there is nothing in the Bible that is of the least consequence to the people of this century. English literature is richer a thousand fold than this so-called sacred volume. We have books of more information and of more inspiration than the Bible. As the relic of a barbarous and superstitious people, it should have a place in our libraries, but it is not a work of any value to this age. I pity men who stand in pulpits and call this book the word of God. I wish they had brains enough to earn their living without having to repeat this foolish falsehood. The day will come when this book will be estimated for what it is worth, and when that day comes, the Bible will no longer be called the word of God, but the work of ignorant, superstitious men.

Lemuel K. Washburn” A Walk Through a Cemetery”

In walking through a country graveyard one sees a prominent granite or marble monument here and there, but more of the stones that mark the resting-places of the dead are modest in appearance, plain and humble. But there are some graves that are unmarked by any outward token of remembrance. Such graves may hold the dust of as great and good men and women as those spots above which has been raised the lofty shaft and costly design.

Graveyards are just as deceptive as are the homes of the living. A fine house is not proof of the moral, the manly or womanly worth of its occupant. Saints do not sleep beneath the gilded roof any more than under a leaky thatch. So also the wise, the good, the true, are not the ones over whose ashes rises the chiseled stone. The dead may deserve monuments that the living are not able to buy.

A graveyard might be called a library of lies. Epitaphs are to be read, and believed, if you can believe them. We have found as big falsehoods in cemeteries as in newspapers. “Say nothing bad of the dead” is kindly counsel, but, say nothing of the dead on a tombstone, is wiser.

We have seen a towering stone covered with words of praise over the ashes of a man, who, while living, was simply a lover of money. We have seen the sunken grave of a woman, with no marble to adorn it, who lived a heroic life of love and duty beyond words to tell. If virtues bore monuments one would rise over the neglected grave of that saintly woman that would reach the clouds, and that other grave would be stripped of its marble and left to oblivion.

Though a cemetery is more or less a museum of vanity and pride, there is at the bottom of the costly display of granite and marble a tender feeling, a commendable virtue. There may be as much love and respect for those in unmarked graves as for those who sleep in costly masonry or beneath sculptured stone. In walking through a graveyard, if our steps should go to the places where no monument invited the eye, they would be more likely to walk over the dust of those who did life’s duty well, than if they paused only before the imposing shaft or read the marble tale of virtue that never was told in deeds.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Save the Republic”

Which shall it be, Christianity or the Republic? It is apparent that the Christian church under a purely secular government, where justice is granted to all and where favors are allowed to none, cannot long survive. The Christian church in this country today is the worst foe of our free republic that exists within its borders. If the state survives it is plain to us that the church must perish, and the church can only flourish on the ruins of free institutions. We may have Christianity with a certain form of human government in America, but if the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the rights implied in the national constitution are to survive, then we cannot have Christianity in this land.

The next conflict in our nation is to be between secularism and ecclesiasticism, between men who love liberty and priests who uphold tyranny, between the lovers of our republic and the foes of secular institutions. This conflict is nearer than the public imagines; in fact, it is already going on, and the growth of sentiment in the next generation in favor of human freedom and human rights will determine whether secularism will be upheld in our nation, or whether the reign of ecclesiasticism is to be dethroned.

The work of the Christian church throughout the land is to prevent the spread of secular principles and to hinder the further secularization of the government. This is the only hope of saving Christianity. If the state will not continue to exempt church property from taxation, to uphold the Christian sabbath, to prescribe prayers and Bible-reading in the public schools, to enforce the oath in courts of justice, and to otherwise lend its aid and support to the Christian religion, there is no chance of this religion resisting the spread of science and the arguments of rationalism.

Every victory won by Christianity is a nail in the coffin of this republic. Our government at the present time is a travesty of free institutions. Where does the freethinker have equal rights with the Christian, equal freedom, equal justice? He is obliged to take a Christian oath or have his word discredited in court; he is taxed to help support Christian chaplains in the state prisons, in the legislatures, and in the army and navy; he is made by law to pay the taxes on church property which is no benefit to him; he has to send his children to schools where religious services are conducted that to him are false and foolish, and in many other ways help maintain a religion that he considers more injurious than beneficial to the world.

The church in this country is not working for the good of the nation; it is working to save itself. What they, who love our free land, should do, is to make the government secular in every part, and compel Christianity to take its grasp off of the nation’s life. We must destroy Christianity if we would save the republic.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “The Drama of Life”

With the passing of the season we are reminded of the rapid flight of life. It seems but yesterday that the first bluebird of spring lit on the bare bough of the apple-tree in the orchard near by, and the early robin sang his welcome notes in our glad ears, and yet the bluebird and robin are seen and heard no more, and the green promise of spring has changed to the brown harvest of autumn, which will soon be stored for winter’s use. This is the way every season comes and goes; a little long in coming sometimes; but never long in going; and every year grows shorter as we grow older, and every year goes more quickly as we near the border of old age. Life soon changes from a glad look ahead to a sad glance behind. From baby to boy, from boy to man, from man to tottering age, — how swiftly the scenes change, and life comes and life goes, and the door of death opens almost before the door of birth closes. The cradle and the grave touch, and the blithe youth that lends his strength to feeble age finds himself ere long leaning upon the arm of youth and strength. The circle of years soon rolls round, and life is but a day of toil and a night of dreams. As we look back upon vanished time and see the happy scenes of childhood mingled with the surroundings of later life, days and months shrink to hours, and years seem to be spanned by a sunrise; and a sunset with a little laughter and perhaps some tears between. We who have travelled more than half way on the road cannot look backward without a sigh, cannot think backward without a pang. Many of us have left the graves of father and mother behind, perhaps the smaller graves of children, where some of our heart lies buried too. The storms that beat on us make life seem shorter; make the days go faster, and the night draw nearer; and all of us have already, or must sometime, bow our heads to the blast.

One human being in the great world of man, and in the greater world of Nature, plays but a small part. Of but little account is a human life in the vast, limitless universe. A man fills but a little space while alive, and touches but a few hearts when he dies. We are fortunate if we make during life, one true, loyal friend who stands by us while that life lasts. We reckon this, after all, the grandest triumph of the human soul. It is not difficult to gather dollars — quite a number, at least, — nor to win a measure of fame, but to live, to be, to act, in such way as to bind one true heart to ours, is a victory which we may be proud of. Some lives have larger circumferences than others, radiate farther, influence more, but none can win the rare tribute of perfect friendship from more than one or two. Yes! man plays but a small part in the great drama of life. He is on the stage but a few short hours, and most men are but poor or indifferent actors at best.

Who cares when a man dies? Not the sun, for it shines just as gaily when he closes his eyes to its golden light; not the birds, for they chatter and sing over his coffin, and hop and sing on his grave; not the brook, for it runs laughing on and never stops its gambols and song; not any of the things of earth, but man.

When man dies, a few say, Is he gone? and then forget that he ever lived; a few go to help carry his dead body to the grave, and then turn away to join the business and pleasure of life, and forget that they have buried a man; a few, some days after, call at the house where he lived and drop a tear of sympathy for the weeping widow and tearful children, and then forget that the husband and father is no more. But does no one care? Perhaps a wife, who will carry his dead image in her heart as long as it beats; perhaps a daughter, who will remember him a year or two, or a little longer, who will miss his happy greeting, his loving kiss, his proud, kind look as he lifts the heart’s dearest idol to his knee; and this is all. And this is enough. We care for only a few; and why should many care for us?

Though life is short and not always heroic; and though, when it ends, the world goes on just the same, we love life and it is sweet while it lasts. Though we travel quickly over the road, we enjoy for the most part, the journey of life. We have pain, it is true; we learn of sorrow and grief; we feel the pang of parting and weep on the white face of some loved one, and yet, we find happiness, we enjoy living, and we regret when the curtain is rung down and our part is played and the lights turned out. When we strike the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, happiness and misery, most find that life is worth living.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “A Cruel God”

There may be some other religion in the world that sings of a God more cruel than the God of Christianity, but we do not know of any. At any rate, we believe it is safe to say that no religion of a civilized people has a God who is more vindictive. We have always wondered how men and women could set such infernal ideas to music as we find in Christian hymns. It is really too bad that human beings are compelled to sing such lies as we find in the pious song-books of the church. The sentiments contained in them are not fit for savages. It can only brutalize the heart to sing of blood, and nothing but blood, no matter whose blood it is. The “precious blood of Jesus” is just as suggestive of cruelty as the blood on the executioner’s knife. Men become what they read, what they think, what they sing, what they believe. Religions have made men wicked, cruel, hard, unkind. It is impossible to have faith in a God of wrath and vindictiveness without in time developing these qualities. Men grow into the likeness of their belief. As a man believes, so is he, to a certain extent.

The influence of cruel sentiments on the mind is greater with the young than with adults. Some hymns sung in Christian churches are positively brutal in tone. Think of human beings singing the following verse: 

“But vengeance and damnation lie
On rebels who refuse His grace;
Who God’s eternal Son despise,
The hottest hell shall be their place.”

Christians seem to delight in pictures of hell. God would hardly be God to them if he did not damn somebody. In painting the divine idea vengeance and damnation are laid on thick.

Here is the Christian notion of father and son:

“How justice frowned and vengeance stood
To drive me down to endless pain!
But the great Son propos’d his blood,
And heavenly wrath grew mild again.”

Think of the religion based on such an idea of God! And think on the terrible effect on men and women which such religion must have!

The following description of the Christian God was probably written by one of his adorers:

“Adore and tremble for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise His vengeance higher.

“Almighty vengeance, how it burns,
How bright His fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for His foes.

“Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are force into a flame:
But kindled, Oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend all nature’s frame.

“At His approach the mountains flee,
And seek a watery grave;
The frighted sea makes haste away,
And shrinks up every wave.

“Through the wide air the weighty rocks
Are swift as hailstones hurled;
Who dares engage His fiery rage,
That shakes the solid world?

“Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
A fiery tempest pour,
While we, beneath Thy sheltering wings,
Thy just revenge adore.”

And we are asked to love this God! We should just as soon think of loving a tiger, a cyclone, a deluge, a fiend. Love goes out to what is lovely. We can love what is good, what is beautiful, what is noble; a great-hearted man, a pitying woman we cannot help loving, but if we should say that we love such a God as is pictured in the words of that hymn we should lie. Man cannot love hate, vengeance, wrath – even in a God.

The Christian church, down through the ages, has been like the God it worshiped — full of hate, malice and cruelty. The world has grown kind and humane just in proportion as it has given up worship of this divine monster. We judge gods as we judge men, and we can respect and love only what is worthy of respect and love from a human point of view. If there is such a God as is painted in Christian literature he deserves, not to be worshiped, but to be ignored.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Bible-Backing”

There is less backing one’s thoughts with the Bible than formerly. The world is getting weaned from this book. The idea is gaining ground that, if anything is true, it can support itself. When a man leans on God he is so much less a man. Mental uprightness disdains the Bible’s support. Honest thought can defend itself without appealing to divine authority.

Once a man hardly dared speak unless he quoted from the Scriptures a line or verse that ran parallel with his speech.

Today men say what they think, without caring whether Moses, or David, or John, agree with them or not. We have reached a healthy independence. We have commenced to trust our convictions. Such a stage of intellectual development is not favorable to the divinity of one’s thoughts. The report of one mind is no more divine than that of another, and no more to be trusted, only as it is more accurate. There is a higher standard than the word of God for this age that is, the word of truth. Whosoever speaks truth can face the world alone.

When a man needs to go to the Bible to sustain his argument he has a weak argument. When a dogma does not commend itself to human intelligence it is useless to declare it infallible. It will die, even though it be professed a thousand years. It can be accepted only by ignorance and avowed only by hypocrisy.

Any man who will quote a Bible-text to defend his opinion in the sense that such text proves his opinion true, proves himself a dolt. A Bible-text is only a human opinion, and as humanity surpasses it in the evolution of experience, it loses its authority and force. We have learned that human reason does not need to be backed by the Bible, and we have learned also that the Bible does need to be backed by human reason, or it has no value.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “The Roman Catholic God”

Cicero said that “men, having exhausted all the mad extravagances they are capable of, have yet never entertained the idea of eating the God whom they adore.” The extravagance which was beyond the contemplation of the Pagan mind, is an every day affair with a large part of the Christian world. The Roman Catholic eats his God every week, and Catholics have been guilty of this religious cannibalism for centuries.

In the celebration of the eucharist, which is a service commemorative of the death of Jesus, bread and wine are used in Protestant churches as emblems of the body and blood of the crucified one. But in Roman Catholic churches the real presence of Jesus is seen in the “host,” which, in itself, is a little wafer of baked flour and water, but when consecrated by the priest and offered as a sacrifice, during mass, becomes the actual body of God. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, dough is changed to Deity by the mumbling of a few Latin words over it by a priest. When the priest swallows the consecrated wafer he really swallows this God he adores.

There is an absurdity which the doctrine of transubstantiation is accountable for, which cannot be paralleled among all the religions of heathenism. Not only does this doctrine make it possible for one God to be eaten by one priest, but for thousands of gods to be thus devoured. The Roman Catholic religion teaches that God is manufactured out of flour and water by a pastry cook. Every time a wafer is turned into a “host,” a God is made.

Were there a tribe in Asia or Africa guilty of such ridiculous practices as are witnessed in the Roman Catholic church, missionaries would be sent out to them. It seems to us, that if people know no better than to believe that when the priest swallows a little lump of bread he is actually swallowing the body of a person who lived eighteen hundred years ago, whom they look upon as God, they are not intelligent enough to be ranked in the army of progress and civilization.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Singing Lies”

Go into any Christian church and you will hear the choir and the congregation singing lies. Is it not time to stop it? Is music married irrevocably to falsehood? Take up an ordinary hymn-book and you will hardly find a sensible line in it. The entire contents of the book is about God, heaven, salvation, and other equally unknown quantities, states and conditions. Why not sing sense? Why not sing facts? Why not sing truth? Why not Sing the glories of Nature, of life, of man?

Music is a wonderful power, a wonderful educator of the feelings and emotions. It is essential, therefore, that music be inspired by what is true, by what is good, by what is right. Truth should be set to music and the lips taught to sing what science has discovered, what art has done, what the universe reveals, what the world is living for.

The common Christian music is a wail of despair, a cry of sorrow, a shriek of fear. It is composed of false conceptions of Nature, of humanity, of life. It is a “doleful sound.” The triumph of faith which it celebrates is not a full, round, complete joy.

The Church does not know the music of laughter, the music of the heart. Its song seems always to hover on the brink of fear. It is not the glad note of natural freedom, but the uncertain joy of the escaped convict.

The free song must come from the free heart, must denote the free thought. Let life that is healthy, happy and human be set to music. Let us sing as we live, as we think, as we feel. The music of the hand, the mind, the heart, should be on the lips. If we could only sing what sings through us, the world would listen with rapture. We do not want “harmonious madness” nor harmonious idiocy. Pious music is stupid, false. It is inspired by the sickness of the world. We need a stronger note, a sturdier song.

Lies enough have been sung. Let truth now fill the air. Out of the great hope of the race let new songs come. We are beginning to live for life on earth, for happiness here, for love here, for victory here. Let the hands and feet, the brains and hearts of men and women move to the music of truth.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “The Judgment of God”

We hear less of what is called the “judgment of God” than formerly, but quite enough to show that this foolish superstition still lingers in the human mind. It used to be believed that God was on the lookout for the bad boy who went fishing or skating on his holy sabbath and that when he caught him he immediately made use of him to prove his loving-kindness and tender mercy by making him get into the water where he could drown him. It was never related that God took this boy by the shoulder or even by the ear and led him back home to his parents with the request that they take better care of him in the future. This was not God’s way. There would be no judgment in this. God must murder the poor boy who could see no difference in the conduct of the birds and fishes on Sunday from their conduct on Saturday, and have him carried back to his father’s arms and his mother’s heart a corpse, a cold, dead thing, no longer needing love, kindness, and a parent’s great, forgiving charity. This was God’s way. He delighted in seeing a dead boy taken out of the frozen stream and laid down in the presence of his poor, grief-crazed mother. He thought this would make the mother love him more and other boys keep his holy sabbath. So when any misfortune befell on Sunday a human being who was not on his way to God’s house, or engaged in other pious occupation, it was believed to be a judgment of God and people took care to avoid a similar punishment. This kind of religious teaching does not enjoy the reputation that it once did for the reason that it has become discredited by human experience. All things considered it is just as safe to go sailing or swimming, fishing, or driving, on Sunday as on Monday and men have learned that no penalty attaches to violation of the fourth commandment. As people become sensible they cease to be religious.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Christian Happiness”

Christians are constantly telling “how happy their religion makes them,” how happy they feel “since they found Jesus.” We will take them at their word and believe that they are just as happy as they say they are. What has their religion done for them, what has Jesus done for them, that they should be so happy? They will answer that they have been saved, that their souls have been rescued from destruction. Without going into the question of whether they need to be saved or whether their souls are in any danger of destruction, let us see what kind of happiness the Christian enjoys. The great song of Christians is, “my soul is saved.” The Christian is happy on his own account alone; he rejoices in his own good fortune; he is pleased to think that he is out of it. The Christian’s happiness is a purely selfish feeling. In his exultation is no thought of another’s condition, of another’s lot.

If some are saved, others are lost, for all do not accept the Christian faith, all do not find Jesus.

The Christian can be happy while others are miserable; he can rejoice while knowing that others are in peril; he can exult over his own salvation while seeing others going to destruction. This is a fiendish happiness, a devilish joy. For one to be happy while knowing that a brother or sister is lost shows a hard, selfish, cruel heart.

Think of the Christian mother being happy for having been rescued from her burning home in whose fatal flames her children all perished! Think of the Christian father filled with joy at his escape from the sinking ship in which his wife and babe sailed to the port of death! Think of a Christian man or woman exulting over their good fortune in not having a disease which took away those who were nearest and dearest! Such joy, such happiness as this, is not human, it is brutish.

The Christian is welcome to all the happiness his heartless religion affords him. I want none of it. Such a religion would drive me mad.

The loving heart is happiest in the joy of those it loves; it is happy in seeing others happy, but there could be no joy for it to be saved while those it loved were lost. Christianity is a heartless religion, a cruel faith, a selfish scheme, and it is for those who care more about being saved than saving others.

Lemuel K. Washburn: “Ideas of Jesus”

There is a vast difference between knowledge of the Bible and knowledge. A person may know all there is in the Bible, and not know but little. In fact, so much of the Bible is either pure fiction or doubtful history that one is not sure when he has got hold of what is reliable. Probably no person whose name appears in the Bible is less a historical figure than Jesus. As we see him in either Gospel he is more the product of the artist than the work of the biographer. He is less a human being than the character of a drama.

Had Jesus been pictured as a man, who was born as men are born, who worked as men worked, who lived and died as men live and die, then there would be less divergence in the views entertained respecting him. Today, the Jesus of Galilee is looked upon as either a God or a tramp; a divine savior or an impostor; the perfect man or a lunatic.

The reason for this is that the Gospels are found, as it were, with photographs of all those characters labeled Jesus.

A person with no fixed idea of what Jesus was, whether human or divine, whether a Christ or a madman, would be unable, after reading the Gospels to come to any intelligent conclusion as to what he was. He certainly could not accept the statements of the authors and regard Jesus as a man.

We fail to understand how anyone can read the New Testament story of Jesus and not regard him as a myth.

No being ever lived on Earth and performed the miracles recorded in the Gospels. That is just as sure as the light of the stars. Miracles are not evidence of divinity, but of falsehood. Where we read that a man was raised from the dead we know that somebody has written what is not true. How human beings, who are possessed of ordinary intelligence, can accept the accounts of miraculous events in the four Gospels as records of actual facts surpasses our comprehension.

Those persons who see in the words of Jesus evidence of his divine character, see in such words, when in the mouth of any other person, proof of insanity.

There are contradictory ideas of Jesus contained in the Gospels. He is spoken of as a man, as a Christ, as a son of God, and as God himself. Now, he could not have been all these. Which was he? Was he God? Was he the son of God? Was he the Christ or king of the Jews? Was he the son of Mary and Joseph? Was he a man? Or was he neither?

Our opinion is that Jesus is a myth, that no such being as is painted in the New Testament ever lived. This seems to be the only rational idea of Jesus.