The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-02-01
Danville. Ind, Jan. 81.
ATHEISM.
iIvEN FERN. "

How 1t Appears to ''Hawkeye's" Mind from
Various StandpOints.
It is impossible that the idea of the ex-
istence of God is fantasy, born of the
Imagination of man, born Of clod of dirt,
lighted only BY the eternal darkness of
chaos; whose highest thought, deepest
knowledge and wisdom. is the product OF
the chemical cauldTon of our world.
Ii would make our life worse than
nothing, orr faith, hope. love, sym pathy,
and all we can see or feel, or hear. or
think, an inconceivable cheat, palmed Oft
on Ehe human race by the demon "chemi-
cal force" the fortuitous concourse of
atoms" II this is true no person should
ever tell it. IL can do no good and would
not pay for telling. We should write OF
faith, hope and love, peace, Joy and happi-
ness with God, on earth, in heaven above.
in the bound ess universe, now and ever
more. TO write of atheism is task
l tried to avoid, but IL IA pressed on me,
little as l feel inclined or capable OF pre-
senting Its weakness and FOLLY. Is Is the
most illogical idea that ever entered the
mind of man. Life from no lie, thought
ATOLu nu tAOuEltAg sDllctDtiiE ltbiil hONAiA ~
a universe OF cyphers, standing for the
number of every thing that is. Rlind
force creating ali variety of being, filling
all minds, supplying all thought, ali atfec-
ton, ali aspiration. faith and hope, and all
this to cheat and blight the lives of those
created. 1t can not be. Man can not be
ell a fantasy. his life an illusion. a
thousand decillion of chances In a chance
world could not create gnat TO cay
nothing OF creating a man. And the
same number of chances could
not give it power to produce after
its kind; it would take as many
chances 20 create every other one or any
other form of being. III human reason
can solve the problem OF how blind, think
less, chemical force could create, it must
be done by mathematical calculation.
based on the number of chances nothing
has of turning itself into something. OF
no being nothing, producing q being
Aud after all creatures We're scattered
over the earth and in the sea and life es-
tablished. what a stupendous miracle II
would take TO supply mind thought, feel
ing, affection, aspiration, hope and fear,
faith and love. 1t would be as great as to
create a god and set him 20 work as ruler
of the universe. And human reason
staggers worst of ell at the I'm possibility OF
figuring out the miracles that produced the
thought of immortality, If IT is ali lie
and cheat. What malicious meanness
| 1t would be tn put in man such longing,
loving, hopeful idea of immortality that
! never was TO be realized.
There can be no mode Of reasoning that
| can possibly bring US into the idea OF so
many amazing miracles rs would have 70
| be performed by blind force. 1t would he
| billions upon billions of times more I'M
reasonable than all the stories of miracles
| ever told on earth. 1t is beyond the power
| of perception. or conception; no mortal
! can conceive il to be true or reasonable
/ In fact, there could be no truth and nc
reason. The universe would be nothing
| but a stupendeous lie The mind is dazed
| the reasoning faculties exhausted. figures
obliterated and calculation destroyed Il
we could grasp the universe and fill she
| immensely OF space with fig
| ures they would fail to ex.
press the miracles it would take &c
/ bring the idea OF a God out of being
made by a clod, and fasten the hope oil
| immortality in him, and rivet 1t in hil
| deepest consciousness, weave IL into hi,
| being by ali the hope, sympathy and love
/ man possesses, when 1t stands alone like
the sphinx In the desert, the most stupen
dous lie in the universe.
No human mind can grasp nor com
/ prehend the possibility of this lie of let
nor the miracles that brought it out o
choas. il man lives no more after thil
| life, il there is no God. No, we can no
reason nor figure out the number o
| chances in a chance world il would take &
create man and invest him with all hit
| powers, his thoughts, his symDathies
hopes and fears and place in him such
| nigh aspirations for a God, a HEAVIER
| and Immortality, when it neve
was, never could be; and til,
| thought Of these are all illusions, fanciei
! born of nothing and go to nothing. If 1
man can figure it out he can cut off al
endless number of figures and nave enough
| left to demonstrate how blind force cat
| Just a. eaaily make the God, the HEAVIER
and the Immortality to satisfy the craving
it created in man.
| This would DO no more unreasonable
| than to create the being TO entertain the
hope and desire to enjoy it, and then dash
! IL to pieces.
II the idea OF an infinite God is a mvs
terry and taxes our power OF comprehen
/ sion. to suppose 1T Is a foolish fancy, moth
ing but delusion, taxes it a Thousand
times as much. is immeasurably greater
and farther from our faculty of reason.
| Ii is impossible to suppose tha
all we see and feel and beal
came of itself by nothing. nothing. moth
ing, out of nothing and goes TO nothing
OF all the wild stretches OF fancy that evel
entered the mind of man; OF ali the IN
credible beliefs that was ever held by q
human being, the belief of the atheis
taxes credulity the most and bewilders
reason the worst. In fact 1t wines out rea
son. judgment. faith, hope, love, honor
truth and everything else but pbsntasy
delusion and worse than devilish cnemica
force Ii makes intelligence an impossi
bility, reason and science a myth, destroy,
the very foundation of all goodness, truth
virtue, honor, purity and love, so tina
thers ia no duty nor proof to establish
anything. Existence itself is a chemica
nothing and knowledge nowhere. There
can be no laws nor principle IL
| nothing, no matter how many
you imagine there are. There is M
| foundation for reason, based on eterna
nonentIty; We must have some premis,
to start on, and an eternity OF negatives
or vacuity does not give IL Reason i
blown away by the cyclone of delusion
and lies manufactured by chemical force
and to be consistent atheists, seeingail hopl
dead, faith destroyed, reason and judg
ment dethroned, he must believe man j
no more today than he was in the eternit,
of nothipgns SIS. He started in and endi