F

Clarence Darrow

HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS, GIRARD. KANSAS

1637LITILE BLUE BOOK NO.Edited by E. Haldeman-JuUua

Absurdities of theBible

CopyrightHaldeman-Julius L;u.....}lany

PRINTED Jl'I' THE UNITED STATES OF AMERIO

I,

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLEOlarence Darrow

Why am I an agnostic? Because I don't be­lieve some of the things that other people saythey believe. Where do you get your religion,anyway? I won't bother to discuss just whatreligion is, but I think a fair definition of re­ligion could take account of two things, at least,immortality and God, and that both of them arebased on some book, so practically all of it isa book.

As I have neitller the time nor the learningto discuss every religious book on earth, andas I live in Chicago, I am interested in theChristian religion. So I will discuss the bookthat deals with the Christian religion. Is theBible the worlt of anything but man? Ofcourse, there is no such book as the Bible. TheBible is made up of 66 books, some of themwritten by various authors at various times,covering a period of about 1,000 years-all theliterature that they could find over a periodlonger than the time that has elapsed since thediscovery of America down to the present time.

Is the Bible anything but a human book? Ofcourse those who are believers take both sidesof it. If there is anything that troubles them,"We don't believe this." Anything that doesn'ttrouble them they do b~lieve.

What about its accounts of the origin of theworld? What about its account of the firstman and the first woman? Adam was thefirst, made about less than 6,000 years ago.Well, of course, every scientist knows thathuman beings have been on the earth at least

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4 ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE

a half-million years, probably more. Adam gotlonesome and they made a companion for him.That was a good day's work--or a day's work,anyhow.

From Rib to Woman

They took a simple way to take one of Adam'sribs and cut it out and make it into a woman.

Now, is that story a fact or a myth? Howmany preachers would say it was a myth?None! There are some people who still occupyChristian pulpits who say it is, but they usedto send them to the stake for that.

If it isn't true then, what is? How much didthey know about science in those days, how

.much did they know about the heavens and theearth? The earth was flat, or did God writethat down, or did the old Hebrew write it downbecause he didn't know any better and nobodyelse then knew any better?

What was the heavens? The sun was madeto light the day and the, moon to light thenight. The sun was pulled out in the day timeand taken in at night and the mpon was pulled

. across after the sun was taken out. I don't IIknow what they did in the dark of the moon.They must have done something.

,The stars, all there is about the stars, "thestars he made also." They were just "also."

Did the person who wrote that know any­thing whatever about astronomy? Not a thing.They believed they were just little thinJ.\'S up inthe heavens, in the firmament, just a little way ~

above the earth, about the size of a diamond in :Jan alderman's shirt stud. They always believed C

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE 5

it until astronomers came along and told themsomething different.

Adam and Eve were put in a garden whereeverything was lovely and there were no weedsto hoe down. They were allowed to stay thereon one condition, and that is that they didn'teat of the tree of knowledge. That has beenthe condition of the Christian church from thenuntil now. They haven't eaten as yet, as a rulethey do not.

They were expelled from the garden, Eve wastempted by the snake who presumably spoke toher in Hebrew. And she fell for it and ofcourse Adam fell for it, and then they weredriven out. How many believe that storytoday?

If the Christian church doesn't believe it whydoesn't it say so? You do not find them sayingthat. If they do not believe it here and there,someone says it. That is, he says it at greatdanger to his immortal soul, to say nothing ofhis good standing in his church.

The snake was cursed to go on his belly atterthat. How he went before, the story 'doesn'tsay. And Adam was cursed to work. That iswhy we have to work. That is, some of us­not 1.

And Eve and all of her daughters to the endof time were condemned to bring forth chil­dren in pain and agony. Lovely God, isn't it?Lovely!

Can't Believe Story

If that story was necgssary to keep me olit.of hell and put me in heaven-necessary for

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my life--I wouldn't believe it because I couldn'tbelieve it.

I do not think any God could have done itand I wouldn't worship a God who would. Itis contrary to every sense of justice that weknow anything about.

God had a great deal of trouble with theearth after he made it. People were buildinga tower-the Tower of Babel-so that theycould go up and peek over.

God didn't want them to do that and so heconfounded their tongues. A man would callup for a pail of mortar and they would sendhim up a tub of suds, or something like that.They couldn't understand each other.

Is that true? How did they happen to rightit? They found there were various languages,and that is the origin of the languages. Every­body knows better today.

Is that story true? Did God write it? Hemust have known; he must have been all-know­ing then as he is all-knowing now.

I do not need to mention them. You remem­ber that joyride that Balaam was taking on theass. That was the only means of locomotionthey had besides walking. It is the only onepretty near that they have now. Balaamwanted to get along'too fast and 11e was beat­ing the ass and the ass turned around andasked him what he was doing it for. InHebrew, of course. It must have been inHebrew for Balaam was a Jew.

And Joshua Said to the Sun, "Stand l;tUl."Is that true or is it a story?And Joshua;- you remember allout JORhua.

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE 1

He was a great general. Very righteous andhe was killing a lot of people and he hadn'tquite finished the job and so he turned to themountain top and said to the sun, "Stand stilltill I finish this job," and it stood still.

Is that one of the true ones or one of the fool­ish ones?

There are several things that that does. Itshows how little they knew about the earth andday and night. Of course, they thought thatif the sun stood still it wouldn't be pulled alongany further and the night wouldn't come on.We know that if it had stood still from thatday to this it wouldn't have affected the day ornight; that is affected by the revolution of theearth on its axis.

Is it true? Am I wicked because I know itcannot possibly be true? Have you got to getrid of all your knowledge and all your commonsense to save your soul?

Wait until I am a little older; maybe I canthen. But my friend says that he doesn't be­lieve those stories. They are figurative.

Are they figurative? Then what about theNew Testament? Why does he believe thesestories?

Here was a child born of a virgin. Whatevidence is there?

'Twas the FashionWhat evidence? Do you suppose you could

get any positive evidence that would make any­one believe that story today or anybody, nomatter who it was?

Child, born of a virgin! There were at leastfour miraculous births .recorded in the Testa-

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ment. There was Sarah's child, there wasSamson, there was John the Baptist, and thel'ewas Jesus. Miraculous 'births were rather afashionable thing in those days, especially inRome, where most of the theology was laid out.

Caesar had a miraculous birth, Cicero, Alex­ander from Macedonia-nobody was in style orgreat unless .he had a miraculous birth. It wasa land of miracles.

What evidence is there of it? How muchevidence would it require for intelligent peopleto believe such a story? It wouldn't be possibleto bring evidence anywhere in. this civilizedland today, right under your own noses. No­body would believe it anyway, and yet somepeople say that you must believe that withouta scintilla of evidence of any sort.

Jesus had brothers and sisters older thanHimself. His genealogy by Matthew is tracedto his father, Joseph, in the first chapter ofMatthew. Read that. What did he do?

Well, now, probably some of his teachingswere good. We have heard about the Sermonon the Mount. There isn't a single word con­tained in the Sermon on'the Mount that isn'tcontained in what is called the Sacred Book ofthe Jews, long before He lived-not one singlething.

Jesus was an excellent student of Jewishtheology, as anybody can tell by reading theGospels; every bit of it was taken from theirbooks of authority, and He simply said whatHe had heard of for years and years.

But let's look at some things charged to Him.He walked on the water. Now how does that

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ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE ~

sound? Do you suppose Jesus walked on thewater? Joe Smith tried it when he establishedthe Mormon religion. What evidence have youof that?

He found some of His disciples fishing andthey hadn't gotten a bite all day. Jesus said,"Cast your nets down there," and they drewthem in full of fish. The East Indians couldn'tdo better than that. What evidence is thereof it?

He was at a performance where there were5,000 people and they were out of food, andHe asked them how much they had; five loavesand three fishes, or three fishes and five loaves,or something like that, and He' made the fiveloaves and three fishes feed all the multitudeand they picked up I don't know how many bar­rels afterward. Think of that.

How does that commend itself to intelligentpeople, coming from a land of myth and fableas all Asia was, a land of myth and fable andignorance in the main, and before anybodyknew anything about science? And yet thatmust be believed-and is-to save us from 0'l:1l"sins.

What are these sins? What has the humanrace done that was so bad, except to eat of tiletree of knowledge? Does anybody need to saveman from his sins in a. miraculous way? It isan absurd piece of theology which they them;selves say that you must accept on faith be­cause your reason won't lead you to it. Youcan't do it that way.

We Must Develop ReasonI know the weakness of human rooflon,

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other people's reason. I know the weakness ofit, but it is all we have, and the only safety ofman is to cultivate it and extend his knowledgeso that he will be sure to understand life andas many of the mysteries of the universe ashe can possibly solve.

Jesus practiced medicine without medicine.Now think of this one. He was traveling alongthe road and somebody came and told Himthere was a sick man in the house and hewanted Him to cure him. How did He do it?Well, there were a lot of hogs out in the frontyard and He drove the devils out of a manand cured him, but He drove them into thehogs and they jumped into the sea. Is that amyth or is it true?

If that is true, if you have got to believethat story in order to have your soul saved,you are bound to get rid of your intelligenceto save the soul that perhaps doesn't exist atall. You can't believe a thing just because youwant to believe it and you can't believe it onvery poor evidence. You may believe it becauseyour grandfather told you it was true, but youhave got to have some such details.

Did He raise a dead man to life? Why, tensof thousands of dead men and women havebeen raised to life according to all the storiesand all the traditions. Was this the only case?All Europe is filled with miracles of that sortthe Catholic church performing miracles al:most to the present time. Does anybody be-

}ieve it if they use their senses? I say, No. Itis impossible to believe it it you use yoursenses.

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Now take the soul. People in this world in­stinctively like to keep on living. They wantto meet their friends again, and all of that.They cling to life. Schopenhauer called it thewill to live. I call it the momentum of a goingmachine. Anything that is going keeps ongoing for a certain length of time. It is allmomentum. What evidence is there that weare alive after we are dead?

But that wasn't the theory of theology.The theory of theology-and it is a part of acreed of practically every Christian churchtoday-is that you die and go down into theearth and you are dead, and when Gabrielcomes back to blow his horn, the dust is gath­ered together and, 10 and behold, you appearthe same old fellow again and live here onearth!

How many believe it? And yet that is theonly idea of immortality that there is, and itis in every -creed today, I believe.

Matter IndestructibleAnd everything that is in the body and in

the man goes into something else, turns intQthe crucible of nature, goes to make trees andgrass and weeds and fruit, and is eaten by allkinds of life, and in that way goes on and on.

Of course, in a sense, nobody dies. The mat­ter that is in me will exist in another formwhen I am dead. The force that is in me willJive in some other kind of force when I amdead. But I will be gone.

That isn't the kind of immortality peoplewant. They want to know that they can recog­nize :\iary Jane in heaven. Don't they? They

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want to see their brothers and their sistersand their friends in heaven. It isn't possible.'We kz:ow where our life -began; we knowwhere It ends.

We know where every individual life onearth began. It. began in a single cell in thebody of our mother, who had some 10 000 ofthose cells. It was fertilized by a sperni;tozoonfrom the body of our father, who had a millionof them, anyone of which, under certain cir­cumstances, would fertilize a cell.

They multiplied and divided until a childwas born. And in old age or accident or dis­ease, they fall apart and the man is done.

Agnostic Because I Must ReasonCan you imagine an eternity with one end

cut off? Something that began but neverended? We began our immortality at a certaintime, when the cell and the spermatozoon con­spired to form a human being. We began then.If I am not the product of a spermatozoon anda cell, and if those cells which are unfertilizedproduce life, and those spermatozoa that fer­tilized no life were still alive, then I musthave 10,000 brothers and sisters on my mother'sside and lj, million on my father's. It is utterlya'bsurd.

Now I am not a revivalist. In fact, I am notinterested. I am asked" to say why I am anagnostic. I am an agnostic, because I trust myreason. It may not be the greatest that everexisted. I am inclined to admit that it isn't.But it is the best I have. That is a mighty"!light better than some other people's at that.

I am an agnostic because no man living can

form any picture of any God, and you can'tbelieve in an object unless you can form apicture of it. You may- believe in the force,but not in the object.

If there is any God in the universe I don'tknow it. Some people say they know it in­stinctively. 'Well, the errors and foolish thingsthat men have known instinctively are so manywe can't talk about them.

As a rule, the less a person knows, the surerhe is, and he gets it by instinct, and it can't bedisputed, for I don't know what is going on inanother man's mind. I have no such instinct.

Let me give you just one more idea of amiracle of this Jesus story which has run downthrough the ages and is not at all the soleproperty of the Christian.

You remember, when Jesus was born in amanger, according to the story, there camewise men from the east to Jerus!tl~m. Andthey were led by a star.

Now the closest star to the earth is morethan a billion miles away. Think of the starleading three moth-eaten camels to a manger!Can you imagine a star standing over anyhouse?

Can you imagine a star standing over theearth even? What will they say, if they hadtime? That was a miracle. It came down tothe earth.

Well, if any star came that near the earthor anywhere .near the earth, it would immedi­ately disarrange the whole solar system. Any­body who can believe those old myths andfables isn't governed by reason.

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REV. BEN M. BOGARD FAILS TO HALTDEVIL DARROW

Olay Fulks

Aha! Now we know that the whilom doughtywarrior of the Lord of Hosts, the Rev. Ben M.Bpgard, D. D., LL. D., President of the Amer·ican Association Agin Evolution (or somethingof that sort) editor of the Baptist and Oom­moner, Envoy Extraordinary and MinisterPlenipotentiary to the Baptists of Arkansas,etc., etc., is, at heart, only a blowzy blowhard,a swaggering spiritual swashbuckler brandish­ing a paper sword! Under the flapping foldsof the lion skin he wears, we can get a peepat the hoofs of an as'S!

Ah, Brother Ben, with what humiliatingchagrin,. what agony of spirit, your most faith­ful followers must learn that their armoredand anointed champion has permitted theDevil's Disciple, Clarence Darrow, to invadethe sacred precincts of Little Rock, pollute thesanctuary with his awful blasphemies, andthen escape unscathed!

Brother Ben cannot plead that he was ta~n

by surprise. It was months ago that the news­papers carried the announcement that a reli­gious organization-presumably one affiliatedwith a local Jewish synagogue-had arrangeda· debate between Darrow and Rabbi Sanders,to be held in the city of Little Rock on No­vember 2. Preparations for the iniquitous eventwere carried on right in broad daylight; therewas no pretense· of secrecy ab'tmt it. Thus the

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Lord had given His prophet Ben timely andample warning of what was coming.

Yet Ben cravenly permitted the Wicked oneto come right into the fold among his flock­and maybe devour some of his little ewelamb'S! Ah, woe is you, Ben! What a shamefuland egregious defection this. I'll bet youJehovah holds you personally responsible. In­deed you need not be surprised to learn that,henc'eforth, on the roll of the Lamb's Book ofLife your name will be Ichabod.

It'is true that Ben tries to salve his con·. science and save his face by emptying onelittle vial of wrath into his Baptist OommonerAFTER the Wicked One had licked his bloodychops and departed. But note what a weak,insipid solution he had in that little vial:

The coming of the noted infidel. Clarence D!lr­row, to debate wit~ Rabbi Sanders,. gave occaSIOnfor a display of thIS arrogance and msolence. T.heInfidel part of the lawyers used the Bar ASSOCIa­tion to give Darrow the glad han~ and then gavehim a reception at one of the bIg hotels and aseoond reception In the form of a smoker and thuslauded him to the skies and flaunted th.is a~"atheist In the face of the church people .m LIttleRock In addition to that they spent theIr moneybUYI~g seats at a dollar and fi~ty cents ~ach. Thisdisgraceful thing was held In the hIgh schoolauditorium. When Bryan came to ~ittle Rock afew years ago and lectured on evolut.IOn, althoughhe had been three times the nominee of the Demo­cratic party for preside!'t an?- was the m,?st out­standing man In American life at· that tIme. nobunch of lawyers gave him the glad hand. Noreception was given, and Instead of that some orthem scoffed at him. I had rather be a dead"nigger" In a backwoods graveyard than to be intheir shoes. What a pity that we have come uponsuch times.

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Think of it! The biggest and worstest oldogre in the country comes from his lair inChicago right down into Beulah Land amongthe church people of Little Rock, desecratesthe sanctum, as it were, and gets away todesecrate other sanctums and perhaps devourmore little ewe Iambs.

And Ben, what did he do? Not a thing.How different were the prophets of old!

When, for example" Servetus, who had ex­pressed some doubts about the Holy Trinity,came to. Geneva in 1553 the great saint, John,Calvin, captured him and burned him at thestake. There was a man filled with the HolyGhost, a man not afraid to do the will or

'Jehovah. 'Yet with that shining example, andhundreds of other such examples before him,Brother Benjamin, hidden under the bed, per­haps, allowed Clarence Darrow, a far worseogre than Servetus ever was, to come amongthe church people of Little Rock, gorge his fill,and get away. But Servetus didn't get away.Bruno didn't get away. There were thousands

ubf other heretics in the days of the Old-TimeReligion who didn't get away. This was prob­ably what Brother Ben had in mind when helamentl;Jd: "What a pity that we have come uponsuch times."

Ah, Brother BeJ;ljamin, you carinot hope toescape the consequences of your pusillanimousnegligence by hiding behind the times. "God isthe same, yesterday, today, and forever." Heprobably sent the ogr€ Darrow down to LittleRock just to try your faith. Then you hadyour opportunity. But instead of rising to it

nobly, as Calvin rose to his when God sentServetus to Geneva, you cowered in the back­ground and failed ignominiously. Now youwhine a'bout the times.

J And what an opportunity Brother Ben letslip. If he had captured Darrow and burnedhim 'at the stake, why, Ben's name would havebeen bandied about the world for ages to come;and five hundred or a thousand years fromnow he might have been canonized-by fenowsof his own kidney. And, moreover, what a starhe would have got in his crown! (Being amere worldly man and therefore carnal-minded,I have no way of estimating the candle-powerof that hypothetical star, but surely it wouldhave been dazzling enough to satisfy such aFollower of the Lamb as Brother Ben.)

Ben may think that he can obfuscate theminds of his followers by printing a little edi­torial denouncing Darrow in his paper-'andmaybe he can~but He Who sees all the Eng­lish sparrows fall and keeps a careful recordof the number of hairs on Ben's pate certainlyhas not failed to take note of Ben's apostasy.

Personally, I am fair enough to admit thatthere appear to be some extenuating circum­stances which, taken into account, might ex­cuse him under our present loose worldlystandards of requirement. For instance, hadBeEl and his Baptist brethren undertaken toburn Darrow at the stake, it is quite likelythat the police, if they could have reached the

\ scene in time, would have interfered andstopped them. Bu~, evidently, Ben didn't eventry! He might have gone ahead and done JLis

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dU'ty as- a bold soldier of the Cross, leaving theresults .of his. efforts in the lap of Jehovah.Or, if he felt so sure that the secular authori- \ties would not permit him to deal with Darrowas Calvin dealt with Servetus, he might havegathered a few husky anthropoid Baptistsarouu,d him and stoned Darrow to death. Buthe didn't even attempt Ulat. In fact, he didnothing, and l)erein he 1>etrayed his· lack ofthe ancient faith and really proved himself anapostate.. For this he win surely. have to an·swer at the Last Judgment. . /

Brother Ben,· I fear, cannot even plead ig·norance. Ignorant as he notoriously is concern.ing the frivolous and ephemeral things of taisworld, he knows, perhaps, as much as Calvinknew about the High and Mighty Things be­yond this vale of tears-the things Occult, , iSpooky, and Heavenly. He may kn'ow littleabout the world and the flesh but certainly heknows his devil. His knowledge of things di- •vine is really marvelous; indeed, he is a. regu-lar practicing doctor of divinity. No, Ben can'tplead ignorance at the High Court of Heaven.

Just. what his alibi will be flor this grossneglect of duty I have no idea.

The plain truth of the matter, however, isthat the Church of Yahweh has fallen uponevil times-that is to say, upon civilized times--and its present-day prophets are becomingweak and flabby mollycoddles. They have be­come soft, rotund, fat-jowled, and compromis­ing. They have more lard in them than theyhave faith; more paunch than Christian forti­tude. They have indulged their appetites for

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the modern fleshpots too much; and BrotherBen, I fear, belongs to that plump and contliDt-ed category. .

If he_ would shoulder up his cross and taketo the iiesert mountaiBS, clad in a good stiffbreech-clout, and would go on 'a diet of mannalocusts, and wild honey, he would undoubtedlyrecapture much of the ancient faith. That's\What Brother Ben needs, I feel sure-a fewgood ~esses of locusts. Look what John didon a -dIet of that sort. Ben might do just as

I much.. Who knows? In the ,bsence of locusts,he might find grasshoppers JJfficacious in re­storing his waning faith.

. Let Brother Ben trY this good old' saintlyplan. Let him gather a trusted few of hisfa~thful followers around him and do thispraying, meanWhile, unceasingly. Then letClarence Darrow, or any other infidel, goamong them advocating rationalism and weshftIl see that Yahweh is still in His Heaven'ana that the flames. of a holy fire will stillroast 11. heretic as eagerly as they did in theday of the Inquisition.

WHAT CHURCH STATISTICS SHOWJ. H. Patterson

'Some interesting facts have been brought tolight ·in the "Comparative .Summary of thePresbyterian Church in the United States forthe Last Five Years" published in the July 2issue of the Oaristian Observer. "In this treatise, •we learn that the P.resbyterian Church in theUnited States, with .a little more than 2,000,000communicants, has lost 4,322 members since·1926. This is eertainly not an insignificant

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IOi3fL And, too, the decrease in new members'for 1929 was 2,500 over the decrease in newmembers for 1928. (The figures for the 1928over 1927 decrease in .new members were notgiven.) This means that within the past fewyears the Presbyterian church has been re­ceiving several thousand less new membersyearly than was expected. In other words, ~otas many people are joiIiing the PresbyterIanchurch now as formerly. '

It is indeed interesting to note that, whilethe membershiv has plainly decreased, thenumber of ministers has constantly increased.The Presbyterian church has 174 more min­isters tlian it had in 1926. More men are com­ing to the pulpit each year. More people areleaving the church. More pulpits, more min­isters; smaller and smaller congregation~.What does it all mean? When a church smembership decreases, it follows, per corollary,that its contributions decrease. So the situ­.ation. is that of an ever-decreasing member­£hip supporting an ever-i~creasing m~nistry.

The predicllrment is a ludlCrou.s 0I!'e, mdeed.,But imagine how much worse It WIll be, say,twenty years from now. Every church wi~lhave at lea£t one minister for each commum­cant. This means that every church memberwill have to support, oesides his own family,:/. minister with his family.

'fhe church has already noted the effect ofits' failing membership. Contributions for thelast five years have decreased $1,000,000. Thepastors are plainly worried about this. Onebrother, Rev. Bernard Bain, has hatched a

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plan with which to kill the deficit. His plan,in short, is to start advertising for souls. Hefigures that every soul saved will mean thatmuch more monel:: in the pot. Fearing hisplan would shock the conservative Presby­terians-the Blue Stockings-Rev. Bain split ahair:

I do not hold up money as the motive but thereSUlt. of soul winning. "I'Ve are traveling over atreacherous sea of financial depression. In thedIstance beam two lights side by side: one is a~lowwith spiritual fervor, while the other is bea~irig,vith evangelistic zeal.

.Rev. Bain suggested the "indirect method" ofadvertising. He said, "If the church is to havefinancial success, we must not only get thememsers to give more, we must get more memobers.' Clever, indeed!

~o, in the future we may expect the Presby_terrans, long noted for their coldness and dig­nity, to adopt the Big Business tactics of theranting-panting Baptists and Methodists. Thehigh-hat Blue Stockings will fight .this with allltheir old hauteur. But the Methodists andBaptists may as well gird rrp their loins, andprepare for a new era of competiiton in theSoul Saving Business.

HOLINESS AND HALITOSISWilliam H. Burquest

Although the Bible emphatically admonishesits faithful to maintain pure, healthy and un.deftIed bodies-living temples for the receptionof the holy spirit-yet numerous Christiansconstantly violate that injunction.

For example, why are there so many "badbreath guys" among the pious!

22 ~URDITI~S OF THE BIBLE

This is often rancidly evident when one con­verses ,with those nice, sleek brothers of theblataIit, evangelical sects-those tremulousneurotics with inc,urable complexes for "savingsauls." . .

These holy halitosis brethren, usually' ofinane, anemic visage, with about as much

, expression as a pan of dough, may belong totypical fundamentalist creeds such as Moody's,Aimee Semple McPherson's or any of the halle­lujah breeds which typify religion.

They infest tabernacles and places .where"revival meetings" are in progress, being muchless in evidence 'among the modernistic de­nominations. This, apparently, is "because the

-latter are more progressive. They don't takereligion so terrifically seriously, devoting'ampleattention to secular matters, such. as personalhygiene, clean teeth and wholesome' breath.

If there's anything that damns a person incultured society, it's halitosis. Certain brandsof Christians manifest a tremendous interestin an alleged damnation hereafter, but areutterly indifferent about being socially damnedhere 'and now. Strange it is that these pious,evangelical gentlemen don't get next to them­s·elves. The least they could do would be. toinvest five cents for Life Savers. This, at anyrate, would redeem their breath to some extent.

One would na;turally suppose -that a whole­some breath should be a very important propo­sition, considerin~the large number of personstb.ese evangelical birds are contacting. How­ever, it appears they don't bother about it atall.. The Lord will take care of everything,

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even their breaths. If they are sweet andwholesome spiritually, why trouble about cor­poreal things? That's the' way these fellowsreason., Their mental 'and emotional processesare really astQunding; in fact, too recondite formere free thinkers or unbelievers to begblfathoming.

Among tllls type of Christians the bubreath m~aay prevails with the.' men, tire'women belDg generally immune from it. An.this is not difficult to understand, inasmuch aswomen, the world over, devote more time totheir tonet than do men.

I've encountered many of these holy halitosisgents. ~ver ~nd anon. to vary the interest bf'an eveDIng, I ve dropped into tabernacles orrevival halls, just to observe how theSeneurotics-these intellectually submergell folk-conduct themselves under the emotionalstress of religious frenzy. • ,. I've liI!gere~ to talk with some of them, get­

tmg, theIr CUrIOUS reactions on points of logicand common sense. Aside from the' obviousfact that nearly all had tlle mentality of eight­year-old c.hildren, and often were distinctpsy~hopathic cases, I have on frequent oe­caSlOns bee~ well nigh nauseated--or I shouldsay asphYXIated-by whiffs of the - rankestkind of halitosis. I've reflected that some sortof strong deodorant or, perhaps gas maskwould have been in order as. ~ protectiv~measure.

The said gents were, of course zealouslybent,. on "saving my soul," but I'absolutelydidn t click. l?uring my colloquy with them,

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24 ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE

I kept dodging my ,head strategically in dif·ferent directions to avoid the halitosis barrage,and from' being literally overcome by it.

And along with this-very putrid odor assault­ing one's olfactory organ, I've perceived that agodly percentage of these tabernacle and re­vival-fanatics will unconsciously "spray" one'sface when conversing at close range. Theyseem to have saliva sprinkler systems. Afriend of mine who has also noted this phe­nomenon suggested that it wouldn't be a badidea for one to carry an umbrella or, perhaps,wear an ulster with a high collar (turned up)when conversing with the holy gentry.

Instead of attempting to "save souls" from. an abstract and fictitieus hell, it would b€ in­

flnitely more rational for these foul-breathingpsalm singers to first save themselves from avery real and obD()xious sin-the halitosis cor­ruption-in whiCh they appear to move andhave their being.

I've often felt impelled to take one of theseglib ignoramuses aside and talk to him, ratherhard-boiled and like a Dutch, unc1e, as follows:

"Say, for the love of Mike, do, somethingdrastic to ·cure that rotten breath of yours.Par,don me for being frank, but I think it's agood thing to speak the truth once in a while.And the truth is something you should gladlywelcome. Otherwise you're a mighty poorstick. Now, take a tip from me-an unbelieverin your childish, hocus-pocus stuff-and getbusy and consult a doctor. You're doubtlesssuffering, either from bad teeth or constipation.And, by the way, it's obvious that you're suf-

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE :':5fering also from constipation of the brain. Goand get a sound education or a fair semblanceof one. You'll find plenty of night schools andlibraries in this man's town. After a few yearsof diligent study of the thoughts of the world'sgreat thinkers-the'outstanding scientists andphilosophers-you'll quite likely wake up, asfrom a nightmare, and you'll not kneel, butstand erect, and be a real man. You'll quit10aIing around tabernacles and silly revivalrendezvous, 'and you'll forget all about thisasinine 'soul-saving' business. Then you'llreally ·bEii...lborn again, but not in the way thepulpit racketeers have been telling you about.

,At any rate you won't be a holy halitosisbrother any more."

TIlE WAR BETWEEN SCIENCE AND FAITHClay FUlks

Glancing over tha:t page of the :New YorkTimes of Monday, October 13, 1930, which car·ries reports of "Sermons Preached Yesterdayin the Metropolitan District," my eye caughtthe headlines: "Science Found Void Comparedto Faith-Dr. G. J. Russell Says It Will NeverDethrone God."

What! Have I carelessly picked up a copyof the Log Cabin Democrat?-and am I read­ing a report of Elder Simpleton's latest sermonpreached to the peasants and possum-huntersof Podunk Hollow, sent in by Bud Bartlett,correspondent from that neck of the woods?Again I glance at the top of the sheet. No,it is the New York Tin~es, and the sermon is<me delivered in the metropolitan district ofNew York-in the Second Presbyterian Church.

\26 ABSuRrirrIEs OF THE BIBLE

C~ntral Park~West and' Ninety-sixth Street, tobe exact.

"Science found'void compared to faith." Well,well, the report of a divine message headed likethat should be worth 10Qkj.ng into. I read on.

"If God should. ever go out of style alto­gether and if the whole, nation should suc­cumb to the materi~ progress of sc.ience, . • •America is. doomed to meet the same tate asSodom cand old Rome. ' . , \

, "while there ;Dever has been a ~ime whenGod was fully in style, the great material prog­ress of the country does not justify a certainbelief that science has dethr9ned God and thatpeople ha'Ve no' need for religion, for the crea­ture of science can never replace God and thescientist lacks interest in the tiner spiritualthings. , '.'

"Sometimes the vice 'prevailing in this CItyis very discouraging to-observe, Indifferenc~,pleasure and materialism is [sic] prevalentliere. Lack of faith in God is amazing. Butthe city' is not the whole nation or the wholeworld. In the old days the city· was the centerof religion. '!'Ie peasant, or, as the wordmeant then, the pagan, was the heathen. To­day the peasant is more religious than the city.dweller. . . ,

"Cynics with toothach66 in their souls mustnote that today more attention is given to re­ligion than ever be(ore..

"What can science ten as to what will hap­pen' to us in the great unknown or where weshall go and' what we shall do?' The serviceereience can do is to 'enhance the material side

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE 27

of our lives. It goes to pieces when it comesto God and things spil:itual."

Why, this is the same sort 'of mental pabu­lum that is regularly ladled out to village,Fundamentalists down South! To what strat­um of New York society do the members of DrIl.ussell's flock belong? Can it be tl1at they

, are on the same .intellectual level as that oc­cupied by the village rustics of Arkansas? Ap­parently' that is the case, if this sort of stuffis s~ited to their tastes. There is, perhaps,nothmg ,remarkable in the fact that holy­mountebanks, willing to supply such stuff forsay, five or ten thousand dollars A year anda furnished home, are to be found in the met­ropolitan distr~ct of New York; but it is sur­prising that they' can find enough customersthere to make such business pay. Then,' for­tune-tellers apd voodoo doctors should be ableto get awng very well there. '.~atdo religionists like Dr. Russell think ,

science is, anyway?~and what do they takethe purpose and function of science to be? Dothey think of science as simply a conglomerateof published guesses made by hardened, edu·cated "old infidels" concerning things of whichthey are either wholly ignorant or only super­ficially informed?-and that its only' useful­Iless and legitimate function is to minister t6the "low," base, and material wants of man?Evidently, this is the caBe.

Of course it is not reasonable to expect theFundamentalist mind to hold anything ap­proaching a real and adequate conception ofscience; to 'have any knowledge of scientific

2S ABSURDITIES OF THE. BIBLE

methods of investigation; any understandingof the sci-entific attitude; any appreciation ofthe scientific spirit; or any respect for the in­tegrity of the scientific mind. Indeed it is theinability to do these things that leaves theunfortunates exposed to the Fundamentalistblight. It is the ability to do these thingsthat distinguishes intelligent persons fro.mFundamentalists.

Everybody, excepting the Fundamentalist,understands that science-and its applicationthrough the arts-has been the sble means ofelevating a portion of the race from a' primi­tive, universal state of savagery to its presentstage of culture. Had all men relied on faithalone-using the term ih its theological sense-the whole race would have remained fixed ina permanent conditfon of savagery.

Maybe, however, a savage who is filled with, the "simple, trusting faith" is acceptable to

Jehovah whereas a scientific-minded civilizedperson is not. Indeed, as I now recall, this isan acknowledged belief of the religionists.

A "worldly" faith founded on actual experi­ence and observation-as faith in Nature andhuman nature-is, of course, a fine and sensi­ble thing; but that is something vastly, I·mightsay, diametrically, different from what thetheologians mean by faith. What they meanby faith is that blind, unquestioning credulitywhich can swallow any imaginable tale of thesupernatural; that pop-eyed, gaping credulitywhich, everywhere and always, finds it infinite­ly easier to accept the fantastically impossiblethan the natural and probable and taJtes to

ABSURDITI,ES. OF THE BIBLE 29

fetishism, incantations, "signs," and the boom·a-lay of resounding tom-toms as naturally as· aduck takes to water. Faith, in this sense, be·longs to the arrested and static mentality­the type of mentality that delights ill contem­plat~ng .the unreal, the magical, and the fan­tastlC;.m a wOJ;,d, the "finer spiritual" things.the thmgs not of "this world." Science, onthe o.ther hand, appeals to the inquiring, de­velopmg, and dynamic mind-the type of mindthat normally prefers to grapple with the realand the actual, the things of this wnld.

Take, to begin with, the body of knowledgeembra~ed by cosmogony, cosmography, cosmicevolut~on, and astronomy. How much of itwas gIVen us by faith and how much by sci·ence? Faith gaye us just what Jehovah knewwhen h: submitted his well-known MSS. tothe publIshers and it has not given us a scrapof information since. All the rest of our knowl·ed.ge of those subjects has been given us bySCIence. Of course the Fundamentalist regardsTycho Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Copernicus, New- .t?n, Laplace and all. other scientists in tha tfIeld as fa;ker.s; but worldly-minded personsare much lI;clIned to accept their discoveriesan~ conclusIOns, or at any rate, to take themserIOusly.

Consider our knowledge of biology. Howmuch of such knowledge was given us by faithand how much by science? Faith has given~s what we were able to derive from the pub·lIshed reports of Yahweh's casual researchesand not one bit more. All the rest of ourknOWledge of that subject has been given us

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30 ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE

by science. The true Christian, of course, wl:l.ohas been washed in the Blood of the Lamb,regards Lamarck, Darwin, Huxley, and all oth­er biologists as unscrupulous nature-fakers; butwicked worldings treat them and their discov­eries and arguments with profound respect.

Take pathology, pharmacology, and hyg~ene.

How much of our knowledge of those subJect.swas ,given us by faith and how much by SCI­ence? Through faith man learned that he was"pos~essed" of devils and that the "cure" camefroI!1 (lxorcism, incantation, and pray~r. Notanother iota of knowledge of these subJects hasfaith ever contributed. (All the !es~ of ourknowledge has been contributed by SCIence.

But hold! Here I must pause to conf~ssthat I was a bit hasty in saying ~hat faIthhas made no progress in therape~tlcs; fo.r Irecall that in addition to exorcism, mcantatlOn,and pray~r, faith has discovered and madeknown to the world an impressive number andvariety of "remedies" for diseases, many ofwhich are successfully applied in Fundamen­taldom today. But I have space to cite onlya few. An Irish potato carried in the pocketwill cure "rheumatiz." Chicken feathel's .burntunder the child-birth bed will stop hemorrhage."Thrash" may be cured by having one, whohas never seen his father, blow his breath intothe patient's mouth. That dread disease ~nownas hives can be cured by giving the patlent a

."solution" of buckshot. "Sheep-pill" tea is !1nunfailing remedy for measles. (My own lIfewas saved by a timely administering of thatgreat specific by one of my grandmothers when,

ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE $1

as a puling infant, I had the measles, so I waslater informed.) Rattlesnake oil, skunk oil,buzzard oil, and goose grease were found tohe sure shots for many dangerous diseases.The seventh son of the seventh son of a Funda­mentalist carried a mysterious assortment ofspecific remedies up his sleeve by means ofwhich he could cure many of the worst dis­eases that flesh is heir to. Many ··'yarbs"­catnip, horehound, mullein, poke, etc.-whengathered on the dark of the moon and brewedwith the proper mystic ceremony, were foundto be sure cures for many maladies. And,moreover, candor compels me to go a stepfurther and confess that faith made some prog­ress in preventive therapeutics. A ball ofasafetida, wrapped in a frog skin and sus­·pended from the neck by an eel-skin string,rendered the wearer immune to contagious dis­eases. It was also good against fits. Fruitof the buckeye, carried in the pocket, wouldkeep off malaria and rheumatism.

But to resume the argument. What has beenremarked of the above-mentioned branches of!'icience 'is equally applicable to all otherbranches:

Of course science doesn't undertake to "tell~ to what will happen to us in the great un­known or where we shall go and what weshall do." Why should it-when theology it­self has so thoroughly and authoritatively d.oueall that?

"It [science] goes to pieces," says Dr. Rus­sell, "when it comes to God and tllings spirit.uaL" Just what the reverend doctor means

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3:1 ABSURDITIES OF THE BIBLE

by a statement like that I have no idea. WhatI should mean by such a statement is that ifscience were t~ undertake to do such a fatuou.sthing, it would instantly cease to be scienceat all and would degenerate into theology.

"In the old days," the doctor reminds 'us,"the city was the center of religion," whereas"today the peasant is more religious than thecity dweller." This statement is undoubtedlytrue, and, it may be added, religion will prob­ably become the exclusive possession of thepeasantry. Certainly, nearly all intelligentpersons have become thoroughly ashamed of it.

The learned doctor admits "there never hasbeen a time when God was fully in style" butif he will review the history of the Dark Ages,he should not fail to note that there was ati~e when God was perilously near "fully instyle" which is precisely what made the DarkAges so damned dark. .

"Lack of faith in God is amazing," says thereverend doctor. But this doesn't seem to har­monize with his statement that "today moreattention is given to religion than ever before";since, clearly, he means favorable attention, forit is to this assumption that he so triumphantlycalls the attention or' "cynics with toothachesin their souls." Lack of faith in God may beamazing to such as Dr. Russell, but to manyothers, equally as wise, it is the exact oppositethat is so amazing. When, however, faith inGod finally becomes the exclusive possessionof the peasantry, the phenomenon will cease tobe so amazing. In fact, abnormal psychologyhas pretty well explained it already.