THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM

I. THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 21

II. THE KORAN, THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS 31

III. THE PROPHETS MOHAMMED, JESUS,
AND MOSES CHARLATANS OR VICTIMS
OF MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DISEASE 65

IV. SOUNDNESS OF A FOUNDATION FOR A
BELIEF IN A DEITY 94

V. THE PERSISTENCE OF RELIGION 115

VI. RELIGION AND SCIENCE 120

VII. RELIGION AND MEDICINE 126

VIII. RELIGION AND ASTRONOMY 148

IX. RELIGION AND GEOGRAPHY 151

X. RELIGION AND CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 154

XI. RELIGION AND GEOLOGY, PHILOLOGY,
AND EVOLUTION 157

XII. RELIGION AND WITCHCRAFT 163

XIII. RELIGION AND MORALITY 193

XIV. CHRISTIANITY AND WAR 211

XV. CHRISTIANITY AND SLAVERY 214

XVI. CHRISTIANITY AND LABOR 224

XVII. RELIGION AND WOMAN 242

XVIII. THE PHILOSOPHERS AND THE GREAT
ILLUSION 251

XIX. THE DOOM OF RELIGION; THE NECESSITY
OF ATHEISM 269

XX. CONTEMPORARY OPINION 309




PREFACE


Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the
freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox
believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would
remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs
are "crutches" hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing
humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness
in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of
freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances.

Havelock Ellis has stated that, "The man who has never wrestled with his
early faith, the faith that he was brought up with and that yet is not
truly his own--for no faith is our own that we have not arduously
won--has missed not only a moral but an intellectual discipline. The
absence of that discipline may mark a man for life and render all his
work ineffective. He has missed a training in criticism, in analysis, in
open-mindedness, in the resolutely impersonal treatment of personal
problems, which no other training can compensate. He is, for the most
part, condemned to live in a mental jungle where his arm will soon be
too feeble to clear away the growths that enclose him, and his eyes too
weak to find the light." The man who has allowed his mental capacities
to clear his way through the dense underbrush of religious dogma finds
that he has emerged into a purer and healthier atmosphere. In the
bright light of this mental emancipation a man perceives the falsities
of all religions in their historic, scientific, and metaphysical
aspects. The healthier mental viewpoint holds up to scorn and discards
the reactionary religious philosophy of morals, and the sum total of his
conclusions must be that religion is doomed; and doomed in this modern
day by its absolute irrelevance to the needs and interests of modern
life. And this not only by the steadily increasing army of freethinkers,
but by the indifference and neglect of those who still cling to the fast
slipping folds of religious creeds--- the future freethinkers.

It was Spinoza who remarked that, "The proper study of a wise man is not
how to die but how to live." Religious creeds can but teach how man
should live, so that when he dies, he may be assured of salvation; and
the important thing is not what he does to help his fellow men while he
is living, but how closely he lives in conformity to a reactionary code
of dogmas. Religion has always aimed to smooth the sufferer's passage to
the next world, not to save him for this world.

Freethought has dethroned the gods from the pedestal, and has replaced,
not an empty idol, but an _ideal_, the ideal of a man who is his own
god.