The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition | Page 4

manifested itself in history, and prevails today throughout the world;
that is to say, institutions having fixed dogmas and "revelations",
creeds and rituals, with an administering caste claiming supernatural
sanction. By such institutions the moral strivings of the race, the
affections of childhood and the aspirations of youth are made the
prerogatives and stock in trade of ecclesiastical hierarchies. It is the
thesis of this book that "Religion" in this sense is a source of income to
parasites, and the natural ally of every form of oppression and
exploitation.
If by my jesting at "Bootstrap-lifting" I have wounded some dear
prejudice of the reader, let me endeavor to speak in a more persuasive
voice. I am a man who has suffered, and has seen the suffering of
others; I have devoted my life to analyzing the causes of the suffering,
to find out if it be necessary and fore-ordained, or if by any chance
there be a way of escape for future generations. I have found that the
latter is the case; the suffering is needless, it can with ease and certainty
be banished from the earth. I know this with the knowledge of
science--in the same way that the navigator of a ship knows his latitude
and longitude, and the point of the compass to which he must steer in
order to reach the port.
Come, reader, let us put aside prejudice, and the terrors of the cults of
the unknown. The power which made us has given us a mind, and the
impulse to its use; let us see what can be done with it to rid the earth of

its ancient evils. And do not be troubled if at the outset this book seems
to be entirely "destructive". I assure you that I am no crude materialist,
I am not so shallow as to imagine that our race will be satisfied with a
barren rationalism. I know that the old symbols came out of the heart of
man because they corresponded to certain needs of the heart of man. I
know that new symbols will be found, corresponding more exactly to
the needs of our time. If here I set to work to tear down an old and
ramshackle building, it is not from blind destructfulness, but as an
architect who means to put a new and sounder structure in its place.
Before we part company I shall submit the blue print of that new home
of the spirit.
* * * * *

#BOOK ONE#
#The Church of the Conquerors#
I saw the Conquerors riding by With trampling feet of horse and men:
Empire on empire like the tide Flooded the world and ebbed again;
A thousand banners caught the sun, And cities smoked along the plain,
And laden down with silk and gold And heaped up pillage groaned the
wain.
Kemp.
* * * * *

#The Priestly Lie#
When the first savage saw his hut destroyed by a bolt of lightning, he
fell down upon his face in terror. He had no conception of natural
forces, of laws of electricity; he saw this event as the act of an
individual intelligence. To-day we read about fairies and demons,

dryads and fauns and satyrs, Wotan and Thor and Vulcan, Freie and
Flora and Ceres, and we think of all these as pretty fancies,
play-products of the mind; losing sight of the fact that they were
originally meant with entire seriousness--that not merely did ancient
man believe in them, but was forced to believe in them, because the
mind must have an explanation of things that happen, and an individual
intelligence was the only explanation available. The story of the hero
who slays the devouring dragon was not merely a symbol of day and
night, of summer and winter; it was a literal explanation of the
phenomena, it was the science of early times.
Men imagined supernatural powers such as they could comprehend. If
the lightning god destroyed a hut, obviously it must be because the
owner of the hut had given offense; so the owner must placate the god,
using those means which would be effective in the quarrels of
men--presents of roast meats and honey and fresh fruits, of wine and
gold and jewels and women, accompanied by friendly words and
gestures of submission. And when in spite of all things the natural evil
did not cease, when the people continued to die of pestilence, then
came the opportunity for hysterical or ambitious persons to discover
new ways of penetrating the mind of the god. There would be dreamers
of dreams and seers of visions and hearers of voices; readers of the
entrails of beasts and interpreters of the flight of birds; there would be
burning bushes and stone tablets on mountain-tops, and inspired