Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               11

                      WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.

				IV


     Now, intelligent men, who are not frightened, whose brains
have not been paralyzed by fear, know that the sacred story of
creation was written by an ignorant savage. The story is
inconsistent with all known facts, and every star shining in the
heavens testifies that its author was an uninspired barbarian.

     I admit that this unknown writer was sincere, that he wrote
what he believed to be true -- that he did the best he could. He
did not claim to be inspired -- did not pretend that the story had
been told to him by Jehovah. He simply stated the "facts" as he
understood them.

     After I had learned a little about the stars I concluded that
this writer, this "inspired" scribe, had been misled by myth and
legend, and that he knew no more about creation than the average
theologian of my day. In other words, that he knew absolutely
nothing.

     And here, allow me to say that the ministers who are answering
me are turning their guns in the wrong direction. These reverend
gentlemen should attack the astronomers. They should malign and
vilify Kepler, Copernicus, Newton, Herschel and Laplace. These men
were the real destroyers of the sacred story. Then, after having
disposed of them, they can wage a war against the stars, and
against Jehovah himself for having furnished evidence against the
truthfulness of his book.

     Then I studied geology -- not much, just a little -- Just
enough to find in a general way the principal facts that had been
discovered, and some of the conclusions that had been reached. I
learned something of the action of fire -- of water -- of the
formation of islands and continents -- of the sedimentary and
igneous rocks -- of the coal measures -- of the chalk cliffs,
something about coral reefs -- about the deposits made by rivers,
the effect of volcanoes, of glaciers, and of the all surrounding
sea -- just enough to know that the Laurentian rocks were millions
of years older than the grass beneath my feet -- just enough to
feel certain that this world had been pursuing its flight about the
sun, wheeling in light and shade, for hundreds of millions of years
-- just enough to know that the "inspired" writer knew nothing of
the history of the earth -- nothing of the great forces of nature
-- of wind and wave and fire -- forces that have destroyed and
built, wrecked and wrought through all the countless years.

     And let me tell the ministers again that they should not waste
their time in answering me. They should attack the geologists. They
should deny the facts that have been discovered. They should launch
their curses at the blaspheming seas, and dash their heads against
the infidel rocks.

     Then I studied biology -- not much -- just enough to know
something of animal forms, enough to know that life existed when
the Laurentian rocks were made -- just enough to know that
implements of stone, implements that had been formed by human
hands, had been found mingled with the bones of extinct animals,
bones that had been split with these implements, and that these
animals had ceased to exist hundreds of thousands of years before 
the manufacture of Adam and Eve.

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               12

                      WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.

     Then I felt sure that the "inspired" record was false -- that
many millions of people had been deceived and that all I had been
taught about the origin of worlds and men was utterly untrue. I
felt that I knew that the Old Testament was the work of ignorant
men -- that it was a mingling of truth and mistake, of wisdom and
foolishness, of cruelty and kindness, of philosophy and absurdity
-- that it contained some elevated thoughts, some poetry, -- a good
deal of the solemn and commonplace, -- some hysterical, some
tender, some wicked prayers, some insane predictions, some
delusions, and some chaotic dreams.

     Of course the theologians fought the facts found by the
geologists, the scientists, and sought to sustain the sacred
Scriptures. They mistook the bones of the mastodon for those of
human beings, and by them proudly proved that "there were giants in
those days." They accounted for the fossils by saying that God had
made them to try our faith, or that the Devil had imitated the
works of the Creator.

     They answered the geologists by saying that the "days" in
Genesis were long periods of time, and that after all the flood
might have been local. They told the astronomers that the sun and
moon were not actually, but only apparently, stopped. And that the
appearance was produced by the reflection and refraction of light.

     They excused the slavery and polygamy, the robbery and murder
upheld in the Old Testament by saying that the people were so
degraded that Jehovah was compelled to pander to their ignorance
and prejudice.

     In every way the clergy sought to evade the facts, to dodge
the truth, to preserve the creed.

     At first they flatly denied the facts -- then they belittled
them -- then they harmonized them -- then they denied that they had
denied them. Then they changed the meaning of the "inspired" book
to fit the facts. At first they said that if the facts, as claimed,
were true, the Bible was false and Christianity itself a
superstition. Afterward they said the facts, as claimed, were true
and that they established beyond all doubt the inspiration of the
Bible and the divine origin of orthodox religion.

     Anything they could not dodge, they swallowed and anything
they could not swallow, they dodged.

     I gave up the Old Testament on account of its mistakes, its
absurdities, its ignorance and its cruelty. I gave up the New
because it vouched for the truth of the Old. I gave it up on
account of its miracles, its contradictions, because Christ and his
disciples believe in the existence of devils -- talked and made
bargains with them. expelled them from people and animals.

     This, of itself, is enough. We know, if we know anything, that
devils do not exist -- that Christ never cast them out, and that if
he pretended to, he was either ignorant, dishonest or insane.




                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               13

                      WHY I AM AN AGNOSTIC.

     These stories about devils demonstrate the human, the ignorant
origin of the New Testament. I gave up the New Testament because it
rewards credulity, and curses brave and honest men, and because it
teaches the infinite horror of eternal pain.