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Show THE FREE LANCE SOCIETY AND THE CHURCHES. Yesterday was tbe day of Freethinkers at the Lagoon. The speech of the occasion was delivered by A. T. Scbroeder. He is one of the leading agnostics of the West, and seems to be proud of it. In order to give the religious readers of The Akqcs an opportunity to tear his fallacies to pieces, to expose his errors and checkmate the evil which may ret, The Ahguh presents the address of sult from Mr. Sclimcder in full. Bead it and go for it. Ed. free-though- Ladies and Gentlemen: On this, the first public gatheriug of the Free Lance society, it would seem that nothing could be more appropriate than to define the attitude of this society toward the church creeds of this community. Since the society has never formulated any definite platform in this particular, and probably never will, I can only do the next best thing, and that is to tell you what I believe ought to be the attitude of all rationalists toward revealed religions. While neither the society, at whoso invitation I am here, nor any individual member thereof is bound by my utterances, yet I am confident that I will not entirely mistake their sentiments in expressing my own. All religions are growths. The sacred writings contain a record of the hopes, the aspirations, and the fears of the people. Of necessity, therefore, much good is incorporated in all religions, the quantity depending directly upon the moral and intellectual standing of their founders. We are glad to embrace the good wherever found, just as we are willing to combat evil and error whenever encountered. We join with the most devout religionists in an earnest hope for a hereafter, where we may again fondle those loved ones, whose absence makes life seem a dreary pathway through a desert. Personally, I am unable to find any satisfactory evidence upon which to base a belief that my hopes for a future life will ever be realized. Yet the belief of others as to a hereafter is to me a matter of indifference. While I do not care to destroy any ones belief in the abstract proposition that there is a life after this one, yet 1 would if I could destroy the belief entertained by many to the effect that some particular man or priesthood or church is the owner of the only turnpike road leading to a pearly gate, beyond whose golden portal all is eternal bliss. Whenever man locates the priest with a power of attorney from the Almighty to collect tolls or tithes along the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven, that man ceases to be a free moral agent, because from that time on, every rational inclination must yield if necessary to seof the supposed gatekeeper to cure the good-wil- l eternal bliss. Not long ago I read a 6ermon preached by one of those who is supposed to jossess superior wisdom because of his close acquaintance with the Holy Ghost. He said, in substance, that no man could get through the gate leading into the kingdom of God without passing the inspection of certain Mormon leaders. I do not believe that St. Peter ever resigned from the position of heavens gatekeeper, and must consider it a matter of infinite arrogance for any one to assume to have superseded him. It is belief in such doctrines as this that I would destroy, because where generally accepted, there must be general servitude. That obedience to the counsel of those who, through alleged agency for God, assume to control the eternal destinies, can be too easily made a dangerous instrumentality, dangerous alike to those who serve and those who reject the prophets. As we would not destroy the hope for a here so-calle- d after, so neither would we destroy the belief in the existence of a God. Many of the members of this society will find themselves unable to discover any satisfactory reason for believing in the existence of a being superior to and independent of nature. Yet, as to the points of difference between the Theist and the Atheist we care but little. Belief in God in the abstract injures no one. The belief in God becomes injurious only when man undertakes to define Gods nature by attributing to him our own passions, prejudices and ignorance. Mans attempts' to describe his God usually result in a sort of stereopticon effect by which he projects his own ideals upon the canvass of the outerworld. The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair. The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shapeeyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman Senate. The Gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The Gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur ; those of the tropics were naked. The Gods of India were often mounted upon elephants ; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the dieties of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whales d blubber. When those who speak in Gods name are only half civilized they make their Gods indorse their own barbarious thirst for blood. Hence in the Bible we find God commanding an army of invasion under certain circumstances, to leave alive nothing that breathes. When the mouthpiece of God is ambitious to be a tyrant, or covets favor with slave holders, he will be inspired to declare with Paul that slaves should be obedient to their masters, since it is the will of God. When the prophet is a man whose petty ambition to be a boss can be gratified only by meanness toward his wife, his God will say that even as Christ is the head of the church, so shall man be the head of the family, and the wife will be commanded thus, thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. If the Lord chooses as his representative on earth a woman who is averse to assuming the responsibilities of maternity, her God will command a life of celibacy. When the chosen subject for inspiration is a man in whom there has been extinguished the fires of love once kindled by his lawful wife, he will receive a revelation directing the practice of polygamy. WThen the prophet knows no better his God will reveal to him that the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around this world as the centre of the universe. It is because the Bible thus reflects the moral and social sentiments of the time in which it was written, that we find in it anything of value ; for the sake of this we desire to have it preserved, though we would destroy belief in it as an infallible moral guide and would deny that its unscientific absurdities are inspired of God. We do this because the bigoted belief in the practical infallibility of Christian teachers and of the Bible, has produced more sorrow than probably any other cause. It was Spanish monks with the famous Las Cases at their head who introduced slavery into America, and its strongest defense came from Bible sources. In Spain Catholic supremacy resulted most disastrously to the progress ot civilization, and not least of the wrrongs perpetrated was the ex pulsion of 100,000 Moriscoes from their native soil, largely at the behe st of Spanish priests. During that infamy of infamies, the inquisition, over SO, 000 persons were burned at the stake, and 200,000 condemned to other punishments. The controversy it is estimated cost from 300,000 to 400,000 lives. The useless image controversy cost 50,000 more. During the Manachean controversy 100,000 persons shed their blood upon Grecian soil. The killing of 50,000 persons in the Netherlands under Charles the V. and many thousand more under the reign of his son, must be added to the list of horrors. Hundreds of thousands have been killed in obedience to the Bible command, Thou shalt not suffers witch to live; apd 5,000,000 of men gave up their lives in the crusades against Palestine because the Bible said, unto thy seed will I give this land. These, and many other horrors, are chargeable to Christianity. Is it strange that rational beings should question the infallibility of a book, or code of ethics, which has produced such results? Five hundred years before Christ thinking-meconcluded that the world was round instead of flat ; 1500 years after Christ the priests and popes were still denying the correctness of this scientific conclusion and justifying their belief by infallible scripture. In the year 1600, Bruno, after sixteen years of imprisonment, was burned at the stake for asserting that the universe was infinite. The inspired priests could not tolerate the suggestion that other worlds existed beside this special was erected by God apparently for their benefit. In the seventeenth century Galilee was made to get upon his knees and with his hand on the Bible recant the statement made by him that the earth moved around the sun, and notwithstanding the recantation he suffered ten years of imprisonment and was denied burial in consecrated ground. Is it strange in the light of all this that we should doubt the inspired scientists? Centuries ago thinking men came to the conclusion that man was the product of evolualmost every scientist of note tion ; in this theory, and yet we frequently read in the Salt Lake papers, sermons coming from those who are supposed to speak by the powers of the Holy Ghost, in which sermons the theory of evolution is declared to be erroneous, because not in accordance with the dreams of prophets. How- long will it be before the prophets learn that their Gods know no more about evolution than they did about the shape of the earth, which they are supposed to have created? I believe it was Magellan who said, The church says that the earth is flat, but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church. The church eventually admitted that the shadow furnished better evidence upon which to base scientific conclusion than did the word of God. It is true that the great mass of Christians now generally reject inspired science, and many of them have become so far ashamed of the Bible absurdities that they now content themselves with attempting to prove the substantial verity of the historical part cf the New Testament. In this community, however, we are supposed to be more fortunate than elsewhere because the dominant church here is attempting to reestablish primitive Christianity. Wilford Woodruff once preached a sermon and doubtless would yet have his followers believe in it, in which ho said that no matter what Trans-substantiatio- n . one-whic- h . . to-da- y, be--liev- es - . |