An Atheist Manifesto Part 3

And let me tell you: When man is intellectually free, the progress he will make is beyond calculation.

What better ill.u.s.tration than this: More progress has been made since the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution than was made in the previous five thousand years!

Yes, more intellectual and material progress has been made by man since the establishment of the American Republic than during all the intervening years from the Pharaohs of Egypt up to and including the time of "the grandeur that was Greece, and the glory that was Rome."

And there is a good and valid reason for this.

It was because "in 1776 our fathers retired the G.o.ds from politics." The basic principle of the American Republic is the freedom of man in society.

The Declaration of Independence was the product of Intellectual Emanc.i.p.ation, and that is why, from thenceforth, our date of existence should be recorded, not from the mythical birth of Jesus Christ, but from the day of our Independence!

This should be the year one hundred and seventy-eight in our calendar!

Despite discouraging signs here and there, the seeds of freedom planted by the American Revolution will take root, and throughout the world, if man will learn to zealously guard his freedom, Peace and Progress will come to all the world.

Could there be a more significant ill.u.s.tration than this:

Practically in our own lifetime, and certainly since the Declaration of Independence, man has wrought the most amazing achievements in the field of science and progress ever recorded in human history.

Not in their order, nor according to their significance, do I record the following:

Anesthesia was discovered.

Do you know what it means to relieve man of his pain and suffering?

Anesthesia is the most humane of all of man's accomplishments, and what a merciful accomplishment it was.

For this great discovery we are indebted to Dr. W. T. G. Morton.

Do you know that the religionists opposed the use of anesthesia on the ground that G.o.d sent pain as a punishment for sin, and it was considered the greatest of sacrileges to use it--just think of it, a sin to relieve man of his misery! What a monstrous perversion! This one instance alone should convince you of the difference in believing in G.o.d or not.

No believer in G.o.d would have spent his energies to discover anesthesia.

He would have been in mortal fear of the wrath of his G.o.d for interfering with his "divine plan," of making man suffer for having eaten of the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge."

The very crux of the matter is in this one instance.

Man seeks to relieve his fellow man from the suffering of disease and the pangs of mental agony. The believers in G.o.d are content that man's suffering is ordained, and therefore he accepts life and its trials and tribulations as a penance for living.

The fear of the wrath of G.o.d has been a stumbling block to progress.

When Dr. James Young Simpson sought to apply anesthesia to a woman in childbirth, the clergymen of his day foamed at the mouth and spat upon him with vituperation and abuse, for attempting to violate G.o.d's direct command that "in pain thou shalt bring forth children," as based upon the idiotic text of the Bible. But Dr. Simpson persisted despite the ravings of the religious lunatics of his day.

The importance of Dr. Simpson's application of anesthesia to the relief of pain in childbirth, and his open defiance of the religionists, are beyond the measure of words to evaluate.

The X-ray was discovered in our time.

Professor Wilhelm Roentgen deserves our everlasting debt of grat.i.tude for this contribution. Its application alone in the field of medicine makes it one of the greatest contributions to the service of man.

Dr. Karl Lansteiner's discovery of the composition of the blood--made in our time--has been responsible for the saving of countless thousands of lives.

Blood was also feared by the religionists, and a taboo was placed upon all those who touched it, as being contaminated.

Even the dissection of the human body was prohibited by religion.

The study of human anatomy is within our own time, and the fruitful results of this scientific exploring of man's physical structure are incalculable.

It is needless, I think, to tell you why the study of human body is so recent. Until the emanc.i.p.ation of the mind of man from the thraldom and shackles of religion, it was taught and believed as a "religious truth," and maintained under penalty of eternal d.a.m.nation, that if the human body was dissected, G.o.d would not be able to recognize you on the day of resurrection!

Such has been the paralyzing menace of religion that has prevailed over the mind of man.

The discovery of the chemistry of food and its application to nutrition has contributed more to the health of the human race than all the G.o.ds, clergymen and priests since the dawn of existence.

Preventive medicine has accomplished amazing results in bringing health to, and prolonging, the life of the people.

Hygiene and its application have saved millions upon millions from disease and premature death. It has stayed the "hand of G.o.d" in his madness in spreading deaths from epidemics of disease.

Charles Darwin published his "Origin of Species" and the great principle of evolution was promulgated.

Modern emanc.i.p.ated medicine has reduced the infant death rate by more than 50 per cent, and has been responsible for more than doubling the life span of man within the past century.

Just think of it! All of this within our own lifetime!

All of this and more since the day of American independence!

And listen to these words of Dr. Paul D. White, founder of the American Heart a.s.sociation. He said:

"Those of us doctors who graduated from medical school thirty to forty years ago, look back now at the almost unbelievable ignorance about heart disease that then existed. _More knowledge has come since then than had been acquired in all the centuries before._" (Italics mine).

Man was taught in the past that the heart, like the voice, was the "gift of G.o.d," and it was too sacred for man to probe into its workings.

What were the results? Millions died who could have been saved; millions lived as horrible cripples who could have lived a normal life if man in the past, had had the courage, that he has today, to seek relief from the terrors of disease.

Such is the amazing progress that has been made when man relies upon his own efforts to solve his problems, whether they concern his health, or his social or political affairs.

It was only within the past forty years that Dr. James B. Herrick properly diagnosed the cause of coronary thrombosis from which followed the amazing progress that has since been attained in combating this greatest of killers.

I, for one, wish to place upon the brow of Dr. Herrick my laurel leaf of thanks for his great accomplishment in medicine.

What wonders have been accomplished since the invention of the steam engine, the automobile, radio, television, electronic devises, and the thousand and one other discoveries and inventions too numerous to mention.

The educational benefit of the motion picture will far outstrip its entertainment value, and its use in nearly every department of learning makes it one of man's most valuable inventions.

Think of Benjamin Franklin's discovery of the relations.h.i.+p of electricity and lightning and the condemnation heaped upon him for his defiance of "The Prince of the Power of the Air."

And of the Wright brothers, and the dire penalty they were to suffer for "flying into the face of G.o.d."

Lightning, once feared as the wrathful manifestation of an angry G.o.d, was reproduced in the laboratory by that electrical wizard and atheist, Charles P. Steinmetz.

The telephone, wireless telegraphy, the steam engine, refrigeration, the was.h.i.+ng and sewing machines, the mechanical weaving of cloth, and the myriad uses of electric and atomic power will make man the master of his destiny once he frees himself from the myth of a tyrant G.o.d.