(Note: The original book was written by US General Lew Wallace shortly after the American Civil War. The following is an imaginary dialogue between Gen Wallace and Colonel Robert J. Ingersoll, both veterans of the bloody conflict and who fought together at Shiloh, written by Guy Endore who suggested this would have been their diverse positions on formal religions as gleaned from their writings and memoires. It was inserted at the end of Endore's 1959 condensation of the original Wallace book as a method of explaining his material selection from the original.)
So you want to talk about religion? Ingersoll said. “I know of only one true religion”
"What religion is that?” Wallace asked.
“Science”, said Colonel Bob. “Science is the true religion. The universe is governed by law. And scientists are daily uncovering its true commandments. Shall we talk about science?”
“No. The religion I want to talk about is revealed religion” said Wallace.
“I don’t know what you mean by revealed religion.”
“I mean the religion of the Bible.”
“Which bible?” the Colonel pursued. “There are a dozen or more bibles. Hindu, Persian, Jewish, Mohammedan, Mormon,
“The Christian Bible.”
“You mean the one the Christians stole from the Jews, don’t you?” the Colonel asked, and went on: “Of course the Jews had no right to it either. The notion of the Last Judgment, they swiped that one from the Egyptians, didn’t they? And the resurrection idea, they absconded with that one too. Remember how this fellow Moses, before he led his people out of Egypt, advised each of them to borrow his neighbours’ jewellery, so they could get away with a bigger swag? He must have advised them to borrow their neighbours’ ideas too. As for the war between good and evil, that one the Jews snagged from the Persians, who had it first. There’s been an awful lot of religious pick pocketing. Our marriage ceremony is no sacrament: it’s a steal. We took it from the Romans. General, I don’t have to tell you that at least ten centuries of pilfering went into the making of what was later to be palmed off on us as ‘revealed’ religion. The light from on high, I say to you it is nothing but a bag of loot. Our deluge, our virgin birth, our crucifixion, our atonement, all, all were filched and no credit given.”
“But the Ten Commandments, Colonel. Surely they seem divinely inspired.”
“Great. But I could have improved on them”
“You don’t mean that!”
“I do mean it. I would have included a commandment against slavery, and against war, and against polygamy, Wouldn’t that have been smarter than the commandment against breaking the Sabbath? Or against making idols? Surely the most trifling sins one can imagine”
“Could you have improved on the New Testament with its message of love thy neighbour?” Wallace asked.
“What message of love?” Colonel Bob cried scornfully. “The New Testament is worse than the Old. Jehovah could be cruel, but his vengeance against man stopped at the tomb. It was reserved for the New Testament to make known the frightful doctrine of eternal punishment in hell-fire. I ask you, can anything be more horrible? As a result the average church today is nothing but a kind of fraudulent insurance scheme, where, by payment of a small premium, you are promised that your particular sect will not roast in hell, while all the other sects—Mormons, Episcopalians and the like—will all sizzle from now to eternity. Don’t tell me you have fallen for this trick, General, and that you fancy yourself in a white nightshirt and a harp, looking down from on high at other souls frying in hell?
“Well, what about the life of Christ? Do you find nothing sacred in it?”
“I think it is beautiful. For centuries that poor peasant lad of Palestine was worshiped as a God. His name carried consolation to the sick and to the dying. It dispelled the darkness of death, and filled the dungeon with light. The outcasts, the deserted, the fallen, felt that they had a friend above, felt that He understood their sorrows and pitied their sufferings. In Christ’s name have been preached charity, forgiveness, love. He brought immortality into our short lives, and millions upon millions have bravely entered the valley of the shadow of death, with their hands trustingly placed in His. All this is true, and if that were all, how beautiful, how touching, how glorious it would be. But it is not! There is another side. In His name, also, millions upon millions of men and women have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. In His name, the thinkers, investigators, have been branded as criminals and progress of whole nations stayed for a thousand years. His gospel has filled the world at times with hatred and revenge, made intellectual honesty a crime, declared that happiness was the road to hell, has canonized credulity, crowned bigotry, and opposed the liberty of man.”
“Would you then abolish Christianity if you could?”
“Let me put it this way, General: I would abolish the type of Christians who think it right and proper to worship a few dead Jews, and persecute a lot of living ones.”
“And the Gospels you reject in toto?”
“On the contrary: I believe in the gospel of good clothes, of good houses, of water and soap. I believe in the gospel of intelligence and in the gospel of education. The schoolhouse, there is my cathedral. The universe, there is my bible. I believe in the gospel of justice and in the iron law that we must reap what we sow”
“And God? Do you deny him?”
“Not at all. To paraphrase Pope (author, not catholic), I say that an honest God is the noblest work of man. Theology is a superstition. But humanity, that’s a religion.”
..... sums up things quite nicely! A logical take on religions, and what is really important!
Garry
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