Molasses or Vinegar?

FREETHINKERS are familiar with the pattern of reasoning employed by Mr. X. Here is a man, cultured and refined, who after discarding Christianity, has reasoned himself to the point where he can say, God is "not a fact". Yet he fears, or should we say, avoids the logical label. "I still say I am not an atheist and that I believe in God."

And why? Because B, a pious friend of his, thinks that atheists are scoundrels, and Mr. X believes he must cater to this numbskull to be a "regular fellow". And Mr. X says that I "overrate honesty". Maybe I do; but I have never underrated it.

But why should Mr. X kotow to B because B thinks that atheists are cutthroats and will steal his silverware? Why doesn't Mr. X enlighten B, if he can, or, better still, tell him to "go jump in the lake"? Are there no better men among whom he can be "a regular fellow"?

Mr. X says "atheist" is an offensive label and he will not bear it. If men had not taken on offensive labels in the past, where would we be today? Men have gone to the stake for even advocating "poetic" atheism like Mr. X's. But they made it "respectable" for those who came later.

I do not ask Mr. X to be "a martyr" or even a "militant rationalist" -- it is a matter of temperament -- but he might at least avoid the supercilious mannerism he displays to those who have made his liberties possible. "Truth needs no martyr", says he. Truth needs "martyrs" today as it never did before.

And who is the "mental undertaker" but he who buries the truth because he is unwilling "to take a stigma" on behalf of truth? Who is the "mental undertaker" but he who, having discovered that God is "not a fact", refuses to tell B about it and buries his convictions in order to be "a regular fellow"?

"God is a poem", says Mr. X. God is no more a poem than it is prose, or the arc of a circle, or a barn door. God is a word that stands for an invisible being in the sky, who, according to the Bible, will punish those who say he is "not a fact".

If our neighbors, says Mr. X, "seek knowledge in nature, in time they will see as deeply as we do." But will they? can he be sure about this? "Our neighbors" read delightful books on biology and astronomy, visit the Planetarium, join nature study clubs, hike to the country, study bugs, listen to "Information Please" -- and still swallow the Christian creed: still believe that Jesus rose from the dead and will greet them in heaven! Left to themselves, how many will reason themselves out of superstition? How many neighbors does Mr. X know who will agree with him that God is "not a fact"?

"As a courtesy to believers -- as good manners", says Mr. X, rationalists should so interpret God as not to offend "believers". "Courtesy"! "Good manners"! When did Christian bigots ever know the meaning of these words?

Does Mr. X know nothing of Christian literature: its scurrilities and lies about freethinkers; its deathbed "recantations"; its Billy Sundy gutterisms? Did he never hear of its maliciousness against Paine, Ingersoll and Voltaire? Has he never seen the splenetic and dyspeptic tracts issued by Christian "Truth" societies? "Good manners"! "Courtesy"! I smile. And I smile again when I am asked to be tender to the religious feelings of others. Not being a Christian, I do not turn the other cheeks. I am out -- and out openly -- to smack Christianity.

Mr. X finds "the atheistic ideal unreasonable because it is intolerant and doctrinaire; because it seeks to compel everybody to think in the same way". What does he mean by "compel"? Did any atheist ever "compel" him to say that God is "not a fact"? Where is the intolerance of atheism? Is the advocacy of atheism any different than the advocacy of any other doctrine? No one is compelled to be an atheist except by conviction.

But people are frequently "compelled" -- outwardly, at least - to be Christians. Isn't Mr. X afraid of Mr. B? Who is the "intolerant" one here but the bigoted Mr. B? He has sealed Mr. X's lips and made him hide his conviction that God is "not a fact". "Tolerance and good will are virtues", says Mr. X. Why doesn't he tell it to Mr. B?

Mr. X dislikes the title of my book, because it contains the word "Atheism". Yet that title has not debarred the book from prominent libraries. It is in the Congressional Library and the British Museum, in the libraries of Harvard and Yale. I have heard from men who have read it in as far away places as India, New Zealand, and Australia. A member of Parliament wrote to tell me he had read it in the Tasman Sea. And it had brought me intimate and flattering letters from men of the highest rank in the scientific world. I would not exchange these letters for a bag of gold. And I would not exchange them for the approbation and friendship of Mr. X's acquaintance, the bigoted Mr. B.

Let us forget my "poetic touches". I am not a poet. I merely gather and interpret facts and would not -- unless I were a Lucretius -- think of resorting to poetic imagery as a medium of expression. Those who read me will have to be content with the bluntness of my prose.

It is not often that I toss my personal correspondence into the spot-light of an open discussion, but Mr. X's second letter of criticism, like his first communication, published in the August, 1942, issue offers material that is, I believe, of general interest to rationalists. Because of this, and because the Truth Seeker is tolerant enough to grant a hearing to those who oppose its views, his letter appears.

Here is a man of amiable disposition who sees no justification for a militant attack on religious doctrines, especially when these doctrines are held by "nice" people, whose feelings may be hurt by sharp criticism.

I must remind Mr. X that it was he, not I, who introduced the character Mr. B, the religious blackguard who thinks that all atheists are cutthroats and will steal his silverware. Now he introduces another character, the well-mannered, gentle-minded believer, to whom we must assume "a mental attitude of kindness and tolerance".

The kindest service one man can render another is to help him dispel his illusions. Whenever I think of the great rationalists who have made our own age possible, I invariably recall the words of Professor Bury concerning Voltaire: "When a man has the talent to attack with effect falsehood, prejudice, and imposture, it is his duty, if there are any social duties, to use it." Voltaire accomplished his work, and accomplished it well, yet "no writer has ever roused more hatred in Christendom than Voltaire." But what does Christian "hatred" matter so long as men's minds are freed from superstition? And what is more gratifying to a man than to feel that he has been a little helpful to others in their struggle for enlightenment? One of the most gratifying letters I ever received was from a stranger who had studied for the ministry, and wrote: "I surely intend to look you up if only to grasp you hand and thank you for writing a book that really freed my mind of the absurd God-idea." Such a letter compensates for all the rancorous and embittered letters I receive from God's elect.

I have, throughout my life, been the recipient of many kindnesses from some who call themselves "Christians". But I have found that these kindnesses increase as their religious faith decreases. I am today, for example, a member of a society in England through the sponsorship of a clergyman of the established Church. He is more interested in science than in the crumbling creed of Christianity.

Mr. X is sorry that I have never met any "nice" believers, those who are different from the bigoted Mr. B. But I have. I have met them in their own homes -- and in mine -- and, on several occasions, have addressed them at their own church forums. On one occasion they were so nice that they wanted to oust their pastor for inviting me to speak. He had told me beforehand, in the privacy of his study, what he was up against. I was merely a "chestnut puller" for one who was sickened by their smug complacency and utter ignorance in matters of religion. He had tried the "soft" way, the delicate approach; now he wanted to "shake them up". He did -- but it almost cost him his pulpit job. They were all refined people, the kind that treat you with marked "tolerance" and courtesy when you address them from a platform, then take it out on their pastor's hide the moment you are gone.

Religion, by its very nature, cannot remain long tolerant of disbelief. The Truth Seeker through the years has often opened its pages to religionists, but where is the Christian journal today that will publish an article on atheism or a criticism of Christianity written by an atheist? "Tolerance", Mr. X, is not grounded in religious soil.

Militant rationalism is founded on solid experience. It does not expect to "make over" the world, but denies expediency of round-about, half-way measures. A proposition is either true or false. If God is "not a fact", He doesn't exist. Saying that God "is a poem", as Mr. X does, gets nowhere. Fuzzy language never helped to clear anyone's mind.

"I credit my liberties largely to Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno, Newton, Halley, Darwin, Huxley, and Haeckel", says Mr. X, but "not one of these called himself an atheist."

A man may eat beef all his life, without writing: "I am a beef eater." So with many of those who, by their life work, have rejected or undermined theism without calling themselves "atheists". These men, one and all, upset the apple-cart of faith. Because they did so, theism became, more and more, a discredited idea.

Copernicus and Galileo were "believing Catholics", says Mr. X. If they were, the Church didn't think so. It made a hell on earth for the first, and made the second recant, under threat of torture. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition as "vehemently suspected of heresy". Does Mr. X think that either of these men could have long gone around with a placard on his neck, reading: "I am an atheist"?

As for Bruno . . . why dwell on the gruesome details? He was an atheist, fiery to the point of what Mr. X calls "hornet-minded". He paid for it with his life, and the whole world is indebted to him. "Mingled with his allegorical philosophy," says the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "are the most vehement attacks upon the established religion."

Newton did write "a religious book" (full of trash), but to which is Mr. X indebted: what Newton wrote on Bible prophecies or what he wrote on calculus? Mr. X, I understand, is a mathematician interested in astronomy. What did he ever get from Newton on the subject of religion? M. Biot has shown that Newton's theological writings were "the productions of his dotage." Newton's scientific discoveries helped to cripple theology.

Newton's friend, Edmund Halley, never wrote anything on religion, but he was refused the Savalian professorship at Oxford, says McCabe, "on the express ground of his rationalist opinions". He talked too much, it seems, and incurred the wrath of the gentle Mr. B. "That he was an infidel in religious matters," says Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary, "seems as generally allowed as it appears unaccountable."

Darwin (who never gave much attention to the subject of religion) fluctuated, in late life, between a tenuous theism and a solid atheism. In his lucid moments, he wrote atheistically : "The old argument from design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows."

Huxley (notwithstanding his shuffling "agnosticism") no more believed in God than I do myself. He wrote: "I know that I am, in spite of myself, exactly what the Christian would call, and, so far as I can see, is justified in calling, Atheist and infidel."

Haeckel was an atheist in spite of his pantheistic phraseology and poetic imagery. Says the Encyclopaedia Britannica (article "Haeckel"): "Haeckel was led to deny the immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will, and the existence of a personal God." This is the inevitable conclusion for anyone who has read Haeckel's writings. "The notion of a personal God," wrote he, "has entirely disappeared from anogics [the inorganic world], while it still persists, in defiance of all pure reason, in the vitalistic and teleological school of biology." Haeckel, like Darwin and Huxley, rejected the idea of "design" in nature. He was, moreover, a militant rationalist and was friendly to The Truth Seeker.

Ingersoll not only smacked the church, and smacked it hard, but, in a letter to Dr. Field, called himself "an atheist". (The full text of his letter is before me.) In his last public address, he said: "If matter and force are from and to eternity, it follows as a necessity that no God exists." He also said: "Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery."

To claim, as Mr. X does, that "Paine and Ingersoll were not of the Truth Seeker party" is mere shambling. It is even more: it is inexcusable in an educated man. Both these men were anti-Christian, both rejected the Bible, both scorned the shams and lies that this paper scorns. Ingersoll was not only a reader of The Truth Seeker but a contributor to its columns.

Paine professed a belief in God, but his "deism" never got him anywhere with the religious crowd. Those who love their neighbors as they do themselves did nothing but blacken his memory. It is the freethinkers who have kept his memory green and his books in print. What Christian outfit ever published "The Age of Reason"? For publishing this book, Eaton, a freethinker, "was condemned to eighteen months' imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month." Richard Carlile, another freethinker, spent three years in prison for publishing the work. They had offended Mr. B, the bigoted blockhead to whom Mr. X thinks we should show "a mental attitude of kindness and toleration".

"The relatively few men who meanly attacked Paine and Ingersoll are dead now, and I don't worry about their successors", says Mr. X. That's just the trouble: he should. Their "successors" have just succeeded in blocking a statue to Paine in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Mr. X should trouble himself about this, as he does about the "martyrs" who made his liberties possible. The man who sponsored American Independence is dead, also. Erecting a statue to him would merely offend Mr. B and Christians like him. We must be nice to them, not give them offense. "The crime of ingratitude", wrote James Monroe, in a letter to Paine, "has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character." But it has. And Christian bigots are responsible for the stain.

Mr. X pleads for "kindness and tolerance" in presenting our views. "Kindness and tolerance" to whom? To the raw, insufferable gang that makes up our church racketeers, living on the plight of frightened men and women, starved in understanding and bedraggled in the rags of superstition? Come out of your complacency, Mr. X, and be "a regular fellow" among atheists. There is work to be done.

And my forte "is sedition", says Mr. X. Well, some of us are glad to be "seditionists", mindful, at least, that there are things worth fighting for in this whirligig world, among them the overthrow of superstition, with all its degrading and demoralizing doctrines. It is the "sedition" of rationalism that is helping men to think sanely in an insane world and lighten the load of popular ignorance. Whoever contributes to this effort, is conferring a benefit on others that far transcends the simple niceties and conventional kindness of the Ella Wheeler Wilcox creed.

Egoism and Altruism Considered

I WILL stake a guess that Mr. William T. Nicholas derived a lot of satisfaction from writing his criticism of me. He got more satisfaction when, later, he reflected on how nicely he had revealed Mr. Teller as a shocking little cynic, governed by self-centered interests; and when he sees his letter in print, he will get still more satisfaction.

And why shouldn't his letter give him satisfaction? Isn't self-gratification the prime mover in all we do? All the pretty talk about doing things for the good of others, about "love of humanity" and disinterested service is mere rubbish. Mr. Nicholas wrote his letter because it give him satisfaction.

Altruism, like the doctrine of free will, is a sheer delusion. Men are motivated in their behavior, whether good or bad, by the inexorable demands of self-interest. The kindest, the noblest act in the world, as well as the basest, springs from a desire for self-satisfaction. Why bedrape the fact with tinsel trappings about "our love of others"? Even our "self-sacrifices'' and "selt-denials" give us satisfaction.

I write for realists, not for those who crave sugary pap. My statement --"awful'' to Mr. Nicholas -- that I do things because they give me satisfaction, and not through altruistic motives, will be understood by everyone who appreciates the motivating factors that underlie behavior. Everything that gives me satisfaction is determined by my likes and dislikes; these, in turn, are determined by my whole conditioning. If writing for a Fundamentalist paper gave me greater satisfaction than writing for The Truth Seeker, I would probably be writing for the religious press. As it does not, and since I despise religion, I am doing what is natural in the case: writing for The Truth Seeker "as a matter of habit". And isn't Mr. Nicholas advocating his opinions as "a matter of habit"? Isn't his own conditioning responsible for everything he does?

Let us suppose that I, who am not an altruist, get satisfaction in helping a blind man cross the street. (Mr. Nicholas, for the sake of the argument, will have to assume that I sometimes do a good deed). The blind man reaches the other side, grateful for the assistance. Down the street, Mr. Nicholas assists another blind man cross the street. Mr. Nicholas, being an altruist, is sure that he does not do this for his own gratification, but for a burning love of mankind, a disinterested zeal for his fellow men. Isn't the result the same? Both blind men reach the other side, one through the assistance of.the low-minded, self-gratifying Mr. Teller, the other through the lofty, benevolent, "disinterested" Mr. Nicholas. And which of the blind men gives a care which of us helps him across as long as he reaches the other curb?

Can Mr. Nicholas think of a single kindly act of his that hasn't given him satisfaction? Can he recall a single act of his of any kind that, at the moment, wasn't governed by self-interest? Good or bad, wise or foolish, every act is grounded in satisfaction.

Here is Mr. Nicholas, with all the dignity of one delivering a baccalaureate sermon, telling us that self-interest will not do, that unless we perform acts above and beyond our personal gratification, everything will crack. Something must be done about it, says Mr. Nicholas. And mustn't we put a curb on Mr. Teller for teaching this cynical and debasing doctrine! How can freethought countenance his diabolical viewpoint? Maybe it is even high time "to dispense with the services of Mr. Teller".

Well, my work for freethought is a matter of public record. Such as it is, it is governed by pure egoism: my own gratification.. The years that have been spent (quite apart from my commercial pursuits) in the unremitting drudgery of research and writing have been repaid a thousandfold by a personal satisfaction that has outweighed all the blatant detractions and pious acrimonies which beset the militant freethinker. What is Mr. Nicholas' record? Have his highminded altruism and flamboyant love of mankind added anything to his own record of accomplishments in the field of rationalism? Have my self-centered activities for the advancement of culture been affected, one way or the other, by my narrow self-interests? Would my own activities for the furtherance of freethought be any better, or any worse, if they were accompanied by verbal embellishments and pyrotechnic dramatics about my great love and devotion for mankind!

Have I admiration for the abstraction called "Man"? I have not. Put that down, once and for all, in your mental note-book. The human race, as a whole, has been, for me, a contemptible species. Read human history, and the glimmer of decency you find is like a candle glowing in a blackout. I leave Mr. Nicholas to wax eloquent over his adoration of the Race. I find in five thousand years of history little else than a sickening picture of bipedal depravity.

If I can distil a basic thought from Mr. Nicholas' letter; it is that he wishes to be both an egoist and an altruist at one time; a sort of combination of both, or, as he himself puts it, an egoist-altruist. This, in the nature of the case, is logically impossible.

Egoism and altruism are antagonistic and incompatible doctrines. Each excludes and nullifies the other. One can no more believe in egoism and altruism at the same time than he can accept both determinism and free-will. An egoist-altruist is as, much of an anomaly as a theistic atheist.

Must I define the word "altruism"? This is a matter for the dictionary. My Funk and Wagnalls' defines the term as "Devotion to the interests of others; disinterested benevolence; opposed to egoism".

Altruism, therefore, in the standardized meaning of the term, is the direct opposite of egoism. Yet Mr. Nicholas ignores the accepted usage of the word and would introduce his own brand of "altruism", which, he says, includes self-interest. What kind of dialectical legerdemain is this that seeks to harmonize two conflicting and irreconcilable doctrines? Being an egoist, I marvel at the statement that "altruism" can include self-interest. This, to put it mildly, is a mere distortion of the issue, a misuse of words.

Mr. Nicholas contends that there are altruists and "pseudo" altruists. I do not draw any such distinction. To me, all who call themselves "altruists" are "pseudo", doing whatever they do, and behaving as they must, for the same reason I do things for self-gratification, though differing from me in their unwillingness to acknowledge the prime motivation responsible for their conduct. They think it sounds nobler and finer, and will merit greater respect, to say they are doing something for others than to admit that they are doing it for themselves.

Mr. Nicholas concedes that there is self-interest in all we do, but supposes that we are governed by degrees of self-interest. There is "relatively disinterested behavior", says he. This I deny. His endeavor, for example to show that his position is valid in this discussion is not limited to a partial self-interest. He is wholly self-interested in showing that egoism is wrong.

Mr. Nicholas states that he too, dislikes "the sentimental claptrap" and boasting of pseudo-altruists". He should. Their effusions are nauseating. They are, in fact, the chief cause of my criticism of the Humanist movement, which is constantly prating of its "love of mankind". Those who talk in this way talk like politicians on the eve of an election. Give me the men who never use these honeyed phrases and nine times out of ten they are doing more substantial good in the world than those who boast of their "altruistic" service.

I subscribe to the Hobbes school of thought rather than to that of Auguste Comte and the English Positivists, who formulated "altruism" "as a convenient antithesis to egoism", This "convenient antithesis" is a pure perversion of the facts that underlie behavior -- and I dislike perversions whether they are "convenient" or otherwise.

Altruism, therefore, is a false and pernicious doctrine: false because it ignores the basic facts that determine conduct; pernicious because it would have us love all mankind. This, by the nature of things, is impossible. He who says he loves all mankind is either soft in the head or a liar.

Ethically considered, altruism is a corroding and demoralizing doctrine. No one can love all mankind, or all men. We cannot love the child-beater, the swindler who defrauds his victims, the cruel Inquisitor, the Gestapo agent. We cannot love the hordes of human jackals that have reddened the pages of history or the billions of persons who have lived on the misery of others. Neither can we love those who pollute the world with tyranny and oppression. To say we do, is sheer hypocrisy.

Love is that feeling of tenderness and devotion which we bestow on those who are nearest and dearest to us and who give us our greatest satisfaction. It is an exalted gratification. As such, it is a limited and restricted emotion. To love all mankind is an impossibility. To claim to do so, is to act the hypocrite.

Hate is as imperative as love in the moral balancing of our lives. Unless one hates he cannot be a moral person. He must hate injustice, hate cruelty, hate those who injure and despoil others. Hate is the emotional urge by which men express their execration of the vile and their loathing of the vicious. Without hate, man vegetates. No one can help the world by pretending to love everybody. The altruistic Jesus who tells us to "love" our enemies talked twaddle.

Just: now there is a man in Germany who is hated in nearly every quarter of the globe and whom moral decency and right feeling are striving to exterminate by forceful means. Altruism is forgotten -- and rightfully so in the world-wide endeavor to crush "this evil man". It is a healthy "hate". And such a hate finds its finest summation in the battle-cry of Voltarire: "Crush the Infamous !"

That; we do not love, and cannot love all mankind, is shown by our daily acts. Back in the days of Charles II, Thomas Hobbes wrote:
"Does not a man when taking a journey, arm himself, and seek to go well accompanied? When going to sleep, does he not lock his doors? Nay, even in his own house, does he not lock his chests? Does he not accuse mankind by his action, as I do by my words?"

It is a long time since Hobbes put pen to parchment, but we are still in the same social mess. We instinctivety distrust our fellow men. We still put padlocks on our doors and keep our valuables in safes. We "bond" those whom we employ and consummate agreements with written contracts. For the most part, a man's word is his bond when it is put in writing.

Mr. Nicholas is interested in fine conduct. So am I. But what a man is and how he will behave under various circumstances, depends on numerous factors. These include his biological breeding, his cultural training, his environmental background. Yet these, one and all, are subordinate to the incessant urge of self-interest. Self-interest will dominate every act of his life. Whether he is noble or base, refined or vulgar merciful or cruel, generous or selfish, he is moved by self-interest.

And here is where the altruist is led astray. He thinks that in performing a good deed, he is actuated by something that is not governed by self-interest. He is ashamed or fearful to concede that he, and not the recipient of his kindness, is the center of his interest.

To be an altruist one would have to perform a deed behind which there is no self-interest. There is no such deed. He cannot escape the dominating urge for self-gratification. When a man's egoistic impulse confers a benefit on others, he is still an egoist. He could only be an "altruist" if he could perform an act independent of self-interest.

Altruism, then, is an escape, or an attempted escape, from realism. It seeks to hide the real cause of action, by pretending that an act of goodness springs only from a love of the one on whom the goodness is bestowed.

Are men guided by different motives? Of course they are. There is a vast difference between the assassin who sticks a knife in another man's stomach and, the surgeon who makes an abdominal incision. Both are egoists, but their motives are different. Each, however, is seeking self-satisfaction: the one by killing his victim; the other by saving the life of his patient. There is no "relative disinterestedness" here, merely two egoists bent on obtaining complete and unconditioned satisfaction.

While all men are governed by self-interest, their behavior will be different because their self-interests are different. Each will seek his gratification along the lines of his conditioning. The miser and the spend-thrift, the gentleman and the rowdy, are the products of their conditioning.

The superior man will be he who has reached a high level of biological breeding and cultural understanding. His egoism will give vent to the finer impulses of his heritage and training. The inferior man will be he who responds to the baser elements of his conditioning. They will both be egoists finding their self-gratification in different ways.

My chief point of emphasis is that altruism is a delusion. All men are egoists, whether they know it or not, and they do things for their own gratification rather than for a love of others.

The waiter who refuses a tip may look like an altruist, but back of his refusal is a motivation that yields him a greater satisfaction than the acceptance of the gratuity: the "good will" of the diner. This "good will" is a more important to him at the moment, or for later possibilities, than the acceptance of the money. Egoism again in all its barest simplicity.

There are, therefore, no altruists. Those who call themselves such are merely misguided or mistaken. In sum, their generous acts are as much the result of self interest as the acts of those who darken the world with their misdeeds.

Being a determinist, I realize that all men act the way they do because they cannot act otherwise. But this does not eliminate the forming of individual judgments. I praise or censure others, as others praise or censure me, on the basis of likes and dislikes. Each of us is a machine, the result of millions of years of biological evolution. Our responses to our biological mechanism are as mechanical as a plant's responses to air and moisture. And our judgments of others are as determined as the mechanistic responses of our eyes to light. Whatever we like we approve; whatever we dislike we condemn. We pat a beautiful dog and we destroy vermin. The cockroach is not responsible for being a cockroach -- but we kill it if we can. It is no more responsible for being what it is than we are for being ourselves. And men will judge men as long as the race lasts. "Judge not, that ye be not judged" is a silly teaching.

Humanism - A New Religion

WHAT is Humanism ? What do Humanists believe?

Humanism, it seems, is made up largely of backsliding church members, "liberal'" clergymen, fallen Christians, Unitarians, Quakers, timid professors, and soft-spoken freethinkers who do not like the atheist label. There are probably a few agnostics. Rev. John Waynes-Holmes, Humanist, who opens his church services with prayer, considers that nine out of ten Humanist's are theists like himself. He is probably right. And he believes that these Humanists would not only repudiate atheism but "do it pretty vigorously". "Religion", in any guise, is not for the out-and-out atheist.

Dr. Charles Francis Potter of the First Humanist Society of New York is a mystic who writes books on telepathy, clairvoyance, and dreams. He doesn't believe the Bible and has written against it, but he can substitute enough supernatural-stories out of his own life to compensate for his Biblical loss of faith. Humanism, it appears, is a drag-net for various types, from the vigorous William Floyd (who brought the Rimmer suit and is an aggressive Agnostic) to the "liberal" professor he named who declined to be a witness for him against the Fundamentalists, because "the resulting publicity would be fatal" to his publishers.

Humanism has been called "a religion minus theology". It sounds well enough until you examine it closely. "Theology" means religious belief methodically arranged, and since Humanism is an organized "religion", it has a creed. That creed is embodied in its Humanist Manifesto, proclaimed in 1933. I understand, however, that this creed is to be revised. The point is, there are certain doctrines which Humanists accept, and one is, that "this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions." It affirms, also, that,''religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life". Anyone who can swallow that can swallow anything.

There is much in Humanism which the Atheist can indorse, but there is much also from which he will dissent. A new "religion" has no appeal the word "religion" has too many bad connotations to make it respectable. It would be better for a forward-looking movement to discard the word entirely.

Humanism stresses the "humanities" the finer values of life, abundance for all, helpfulness, fraternal feelings, mutual service, peace, kindliness, justice. These are stock phrases--pretty enough in themselves --but meaningless as slogans in a world loaded with selfishness and scoundrelism--and stark-reality. We cannot feel friendly toward the individual hoodlum or the gangster nations. The tyrant, the cheat, the brigand, the liar, the kidnapper, the swindler do not arouse our affection. Loving our neighbors as we do ourselves is all right until we find out that the man next door beats his wife.

One can appreciate and practice the social virtues without making copy-book creeds or a "religion" out of them. To say,''I am in favor of justice", is like saying, "I am in favor of good health". Humanism is largely made up of gilded platitudes.

Humanism is described by one Humanist (Dr. Lowell H. Coate) as "the only religion of American origin". In this he is wrong. Mormonism and Christian Science are of American origin. So are the more than 57 varieties of religion concocted by the American Indian. From the barbaric Aztecs to the silly Christian Scientists, America has had its own brands of religion, and these have been not a whit better than those of Asiatic import. Why straddle us with a new religion called Humanism when we have had enough?

To those who have abandoned Christianity, Humanism may serve as a convenient stepping-stone. But, as someone once remarked, a stepping-stone is all right if you do not sit on it. What we need today are men and women of vigor, who, acquainted with the ancient struggle between rationalism and religion, are ready to align themselves against all superstitions. There are no half-way stopping places. One cannot reach his destination quickly by lingering on the way, and being "agnostic" on God is like being "agnostic" on the existence of witches.

Humanism is a pacifist movement. No one will quarrel with the idea of trying to settle international differences by arbitration. But there is a limit to this ideal in a world of dictatorships and thugs. One might as reasonably expect to do away with our police force as with our national armament.

Humanism is "for absolute pacifism, resistance to all wars at all times.for whatever purpose". It will not countenance-war under any circumstances even in protecting one's homeland from invasion or in over-throwing tyrants. Right must never fight. It must arbitrate, pacify--as if one could argue with a Hitler or a Stalin.

Paine, though opposed to willful and offensive war", was not a pacifist. He sponsored the American Revolution. Ingersoll was not a pacifist; he donned his country's uniform to fight in a good cause. War is the lesser of two evils when one is confronted with tyranny and oppression, and some would rather go down fighting like the Finns than to be slaves like the Czechs.

The history of the world shows that decency has to fight for its existence. It is glib nonsense to suppose that right will triumph by itself, always and everywhere. Time may be the mother of truth, but there is many, a miscarriage. Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again--if someone doesn't kick her down. Civilization will never win by passive resistance to the forces of evil.

Humanism, whatever its finer features, must face a definite issue. Is it to stand supinely by, indulgent of superstition, cultivating a coy and lady-like decorum, or is it ready to fight -- fight to the last ditch -- against the gross and vulgar teachings of organized theism? There are some in the Humanist movement who know what the conflict is about. But the stronger element of leadership is in the hands of those whose rose-water policies will end in social amenities and the airing of platitudes.

No thinking person, least of all the atheist, is indifferent to a movement which seeks to develop a higher degree of culture and the nobler qualities of men. But it needs some of the Ingersollian blood injected into its veins, so one of that fine, fearless character that at all times, in all places, was ready to wage war against the ghost business.

No physician would think of curing his patient by telling him how he contracted a disease. Yet there are some Humanists, like Dr. A.E. Haydon of the University of Chicago, who think it quite sufficient to tell the believer how "he got that way", "to explain the gods" rather than become "a polemical atheist". To the militant atheist, it is less important to know how, we got the gods than how to get rid of them. The Humanists will assist in the elimination of superstition if they will drop their theism and the eccentric notion that they need a "religion".

"Religion", said Ingersoll, in his last public address, "can never reform mankind because religion is slavery."

If all Humanists were as opposed to superstition as my friend William Floyd, there would be less to complain of in the Humanist movement. But I fear, in spite of his assurance to the contrary, the greater part of its membership is made up of those who still adhere to mystical ideas and reflect that attitude in their thinking and behavior. Has not Mr. Floyd told us that "Humanists do not like the atheist label"? That is a sure sign they are not yet out of the theological woods.

I mentioned John Haynes Holmes and Charles Francis Potter as two leading Humanists who accept the supernatural. Holmes prays to God and Potter believes in clairvoyance. Each, in his own way, accepts a supersensual world with the credulous simplicity of a professing Christian. Holmes talks to a Ghost; Potter, like the seers and visionaries of the Bible, thinks he can perceive things beyond the range of his senses. It is all very pathetic from the standpoint of science.

Mr. Floyd assures us that Holmes "is not a Humanist". This is news to me, especially in view of Mr. Floyd's statement, in the Arbitrator, that "at the Community Church of New York, Rev. John Haynes Holmes eloquently and valiantly expounds Humanism". If Holmes "expounds Humanism" he must be a Humanist, and, if.he expounds it "eloquently and valiantly" he must be a particularly good Humanist. I am at a loss to understand why, after this generous praise, he is read out of the movement by Mr. Floyd himself.

"What distinguishes Humanists from Christians", says Mr. Floyd, "is their repudiation of the Bible as the Word of God or a guide for conduct". How fine this would be if Humanists practiced it. But do they reject the Bible? At the recent Rimmer trial in New York, both Holmes and Potter "repudiated" the Bible by swearing on it in court. Each, when called to testify, put a hand reverently on God's Word, and lifting the other solemnly above his head, swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. If that is repudiating the Bible, I should like to know what one has to do to accept it? Potter, I suspect, has no more respect for the silly book than I have myself, yet he swore by it. As for Holmes, one may expect any kind of dramatic pose by him... I have my own ideas of moral values and behavior.

Mr. Floyd stands for "absolute pacifism, resistance to all wars at all times for whatever purpose". This seems to be a definite part of the Humanist program. Dr. Holmes, too, "intends, should the United States go to war, to uphold the rights of those among its people who, in sincerity and truth, may refuse to participate in war". This should be good news to the type of individual of whom Paine wrote: "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman". That is language which the theological stay-at-home cannot appreciate.

I am quite sure that a community of William Floyds would be a delightful place in which to live, but I cannot embrace pacifism in a world where gangster nations exist and William Floyds are scarce. I do not believe in turning the other cheek, either for Jesus' sake or for Humanism. When one's country is attacked there is one thing to do: fight back. Nor can I see in a plea for American disarmament anything less than an invitation to national extinction. There are too many cut-throat nations today ready to plunder our shores.

I see Paine is now claimed as a Humanist, Whatever Paine was he was not a pacifist. He believed in armed resistance to tyranny and oppression. In his "Epistle to Quakers", he roundly rebuked the pacifists of his time: "Beneath the shade of our own vines we are attacked; in our own houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view our enemies in the character of highwaymen and housebreakers, and having no defense for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the military one, and apply the sword in the very case where you have before now applied the halter." Like the Quakers, the Humanists teach that under no circumstances should an American take up arms in defense of his country. Such a doctrine makes for weaklings and poltroons. A man who isn't willing to fight for a good country doesn't deserve one.

Mr. Floyd asks what is my objection to Humanist slogans. The trouble is everybody is mouthing them. From the Pope to Stalin every one is preaching "the brotherhood of man". "Peace," "justice, and "democracy" are an the lips of every dictator-assassin and political demagogue. Every fire-side chat is filled with honeyed phrases about "the more abundant life" I haven't met anybody who wasn't in favor of good health but the undertaker. What is the use of repeating a lot of trite phrases and truisms which every one professes! A movement to succeed must have a workable program. Humanism hopes to remodel the world with a bagful of platitudes.

"What distinguishes Humanists from atheists," says Mr. Floyd, "is their faith in man's ability to do what God has failed to accomplish--make the world a happier abode." I fail to see wherein the Humanist can claim a greater interest in humanity than the atheist. Atheists are doing a specific job in exposing superstition. They are to be found, also, fighting an idea which Humanists still cling to, namely, that "religion" is respectable. They are fighting -- openly and above deck -- the vulgar notion that a God exists and are united in teaching that religion is a despicable, and corroding influence.

Ingersoll, who is now claimed by the Humanists, was not afraid of the atheist label but wore it himself, "I am exceedingly gratified," wrote he, in a letter to Rev. Field, "that you and I have demonstrated that it is possible for a Presbyterian and an Atheist to discuss Theological questions.. ." It is too bad there is not more Ingersollian blood in the Humanist ranks.

My article on "Humanism -- a New Religion" has drawn forth three official protests from Humanist sources, two of which appear in The Truth Seeker. One of these two is from Dr. Edward W. Ohrenstein, minister of a Unitarian - Church and a director of the Humanist Press Association, the other from Dr. Lowell H. Coate, director of:the Humanist Society of Friends, Los Angeles, Calif. I shall first consider Dr. Ohrenstein's criticisms.

One would suppose, in reading his letter, that Humanism is a highly complicated subject requiring a vast amount of research. He even compares it to physical science, and thinks I should have studied my subject more before offering criticism. Fortunately, Humanists publish a Manifesto, and this document, I believe, presents the basic principles for which Humanists stand. Assuming that I understand readable English, it take its credo to mean exactly what it says.

"We are convinced", says the Manifesto, "that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism, and the several varieties of new thought'".

So far, so good. But if Humanists are through with "theism" or belief in God, why haven't they enough "paper bravery'' to call themselves atheists? Why must they shun the word and hide, like every orthodox Christian, behind a "religion"? The answer is they are following the, fatal expediency of trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They want to be "god-smashers" on the one hand and "religionists" on the other. This they cannot do, if they wish to be consistent.

Concerning "paper bravery", I have learned to appreciate, in my thirty-five years' attachment to the rationalist movement, that there is considerable truth in what the distinguished chemist, Frederick Mohr, wrote: "More courage is needed to think with consistency or to proclaim new truths, than to charge at hostile cannons." I have learned, too, that there is such a thing as "paper cowardice" cowardice which prevents men from committing their real thoughts to print, and which is harder to overcome, generally speaking, than is physical timidity. "Squeamishness"? Yes. And it is precisely this "squeamishness" in Humanist behavior that calls for condemnation. Men who are supposed to follow consistently a formal announcement of having rejected theism in an official Manifesto, still cover up by repudiating the atheist label, sniping at atheism from the rear, parading as "religious", offering up prayer, swearing on the Bible, calling themselves "ministers" and conducting "churches". And they do not like it when their hedging tactics are pointed out.

What excuse, I ask, has Dr. Ohrenstein, for example, if he has ditched the deity and all other supernatural belief, to sign himself a "minister" of a "Unitarian church"? None that I can think of, unless it is, perhaps, that his status as a clergyman allows him special privileges. As Dr. Coate explains, Humanist ministers "enjoy privileges similar to those of ministers of orthodox churches", such as "reduced rates on the railroads, etc."

As for the atheist "program", permit me to state it in a few words. Atheists are concerned in opposing and discrediting religion. Whatever opinions they hold on matters of Capitalism, Socialism, or the building of lighthouses, are something apart. Editorially, The Truth Seeker is an atheistic publication, and, as a journal devoted to intellectual controversy, encourages discussion. Its readers embrace every shade of political and economic opinion. What more does Mr. Ohrenstein want in the way of a "positive program"?

In view of this, would not "simple modesty" have commended to Dr. Ohrenstein, before he rushed into print, "forbearance from judging" those who are "battling against God"? Are not atheists fighting the very "battle" he should be fighting himself? And aren't they doing it without using "church" frills and "religious" claptrap to cover up?

My second critic, Dr. Coate, takes issue with a statement of mine questioning his claim that Humanism is "the only religion of American origin". I had mentioned the religions of our own Indians, but he says that these are not American, as they antedate the founding of America. He might as well maintain that the Mississippi River is not an American river because it came into existence prior to the naming of this continent. The religions of the American Indians are as much American as the Indians themselves.

As for Christian Science, I still insist that it is an American religion. Mrs. Eddy's "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures" is as important a work to the Christian Science cult as the Bible itself, as without it there would be no "key" of understanding to the book. Christian Science took birth.on American soil. So, too, did Mormonism, which began with the finding of the sacred plates by God's prophet, Joseph Smith. These are American-made religions.

Dr. Coate assures us that there are no theists in his own organization, but of this he cannot be too sure, as I recall a statement which he himself wrote, recently in his own magazine: "Some members of the Humanist Society of Friends do believe in Nature, or a Universal Law, or some other interpretation which they like to think of as God." People who retain a belief in something which they look upon as "God" cannot be said to have abandoned theism.

I agree with Dr. Coate, that "by definition people make religion, as they do most other things, mean what they desire it to mean". This, unfortunately, is a way which many persons have of playing loose with words. And it is because Humanists have this habit of twisting words out of their accepted meaning that I indict them again, Consider the following case:

Dr...Coate's organization, called the Humanist Society of Friends, takes as its slogan: "A scientific religion for a scientific age." This is using words in a distorted sense, since religion has never been or can be a science. There is no more justification for the Humanist calling religion "scientific" than for the Christian Scientist calling science "Christian". Both are guilty of muddling words.