Given the problem of how to muddle a man so that he will be unable to discriminate between two antagonistic conceptions that have been taught to him since his childhood, one could never have devised anything more effectual than the education of every young man in our so-called Christian society.
Shocking as it is to contemplate the work of the churches among men, still, if we consider their position, we shall see that they cannot act otherwise. They are face to face with a dilemma: the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene creed; the one excludes the other. If a man sincerely believes the Sermon on the Mount, the Nicene creed must inevitably lose all its meaning for him, and the same would hold true as regards the Church and its representatives; but if a man accepts the Nicene creed, that is to say, the Church, or those who call themselves its representatives, then he will find no use for the Sermon on the Mount. Hence it is incumbent on the churches to make every effort to obscure the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and to endeavor to draw the people toward them. It is only due to their intense activity in that direction that the influence of the churches has not decreased. Let the Church but pause in this effort to influence the masses by hypnotizing men and deceiving children for ever so short a time, and men will comprehend the doctrine of Christ, and this comprehension will do away with churches and their influence. Therefore the churches cease not for one moment their compulsory activity through the hypnotism of adults and the deception of children. And it is this activity of the churches that gives people a false conception of Christ's doctrine, and prevents the majority of men, the so-called believers, from understanding it.
CHAPTER IV
MISCONCEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY BY SCIENTISTS
The relation of scientists to religions in general—What are religions, and their significance to human life—Three conceptions of life—The Christian doctrine is the expression of the divine life-conception—The misconception of Christianity by scientists who study its outward manifestations due to the fact that they consider it from the standpoint of the social life-conception—Opinion resulting therefrom, that the teaching of Christ is exaggerated and unpractical—The expression of the life-conception of the gospel—Erroneous judgments of scientists concerning Christianity are based upon the assurance that they possess an infallible criterion of knowledge—Hence arise two misapprehensions in regard to the Christian doctrine—The first misapprehension concerning the impracticability of the doctrine arises from the fact that the Christian doctrine presents a conduct of life different from that of the social life-conception—Christianity offers not a rule, but an ideal—Christ adds the consciousness of a divine power to that of an animal power—Christianity seems to exclude the possibility of life only when the indication of the ideal is taken for the rule—An ideal cannot be belittled—According to the doctrine of Christ, life is movement—The ideal and the commandments—The second misapprehension arises from the attempt to replace the love of God and His service by the love and service of humanity—Scientists believe that Christianity and their doctrine concerning the service of humanity are identical—The doctrine of love toward humanity has for its foundation the social life-conception—The love for humanity which springs logically from love for the individual has no meaning, because humanity is a fiction—Christian love springing from the love of God has for its object not only humanity but the whole world—Christianity teaches a life in accordance with its divine nature—It indicates that the essence of a man's soul is love, and that its good is obtained from its love of God, whom he feels to be within him through love.
Let us now turn our attention to another fallacious conception of Christianity, which is antagonistic to its actual principles—the scientific conception.
The Christianity of the churchmen is something which they have evolved for themselves, and which they believe to be the only true interpretation of Christian doctrine.
The scientists take the professions of faith of the various churches for Christianity, and assuming that these dogmas embody an exhaustive definition of Christian doctrine, they affirm that Christianity has had its day.
One needs but to take into consideration the important part which all religions, and especially Christianity, have played in the life of man, and the significance which science attaches to them, to see at once how impossible it would be to obtain any just apprehension of Christian doctrine through these conceptions. As each individual must possess certain impressions in regard to the meaning of his life, and, though often unconsciously, conform his conduct thereunto, so mankind in the aggregate, or groups of men living under the same conditions, must likewise possess a conception of the meaning of their common life and its consequent activities. As an individual passing from one period of life to another inevitably changes his ideas, the point of view of a grown-up man differs from that of a child, so also mankind in the aggregate—the nation—inevitably, and in conformity with its age, changes its views of life and the activity that springs therefrom.
The difference in this respect between an individual and mankind in general lies in the fact that while the individual, in forming his conception of the significance and responsibilities of that new period of life upon which he is about to enter, may avail himself of the advice of his predecessors who have already passed that stage, mankind can have no such advantage, because it is advancing along an unbeaten track and there is no one of whom it can ask for the clue to the mystery of life, or how it shall demean itself under these unfamiliar conditions to which no nation has ever yet been subjected.
The married man with a family of children will not continue to view life as he did when he was a child; neither is it possible for mankind, with the many changes that have taken place—the density of the population, the constant intercourse of nations, the perfected means of combating the forces of nature, and the increase of knowledge generally—to view the life of the present day in the light of the past; hence it becomes necessary to evolve a life-conception from which activities corresponding with a new system which is to be established will naturally develop.
And this need is supplied by that peculiar capacity of the race for producing men able to impart a new significance to human life—a significance developing a different set of activities.
The birth of the life-conception, which always takes place when mankind enters upon new conditions and its subsequent activities, is what we call religion.
Therefore, in the first place, religion is not, as science regards it, a phenomenon which formerly traveled hand in hand with the development of mankind, and which has since been left behind; on the contrary, it is a phenomenon inherent to human existence itself, and never more distinctly manifested than at the present day. In the second place, religion defines future rather than past activities; therefore it is evident that an investigation of the phenomena of the past can by no means touch the essence of religion.
The longing to typify the forces of nature is no more the essence of religion than is the fear of those same forces, or the need of the miraculous and its outward manifestations, as the scientists suppose. The essence of religion lies in the power of man to foreknow and to point out the way in which mankind must walk. It is a definition of a new life which will give birth to new activities.
This faculty of foreknowledge concerning the destiny of humanity