The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-09-09
"ONE NAMED GOD"

The French Freethinkers are just now holding
a national convention, and they are seriously per-
picked over the proper policy to pursue towards
Zone named Cod When Free Thought was
synonymous with Free Masonry some fifty years
ago, the name and personality of God were not
such terrible ogres and the French craft actually
recognized him, under pseudonym, it is true, and
styled him the "Architect of the Universe" That
was the first attempt at "laisizng" the deity; and
under the name the Free Masons gave him he was
not very Suspect"
But when the Free Thinkers became a body dis
tinct from the Free Masons they undertook to
complete the work of lacizing the Supreme Being
begun by the latter body. They permitted him a
role in the world of ignorance and superstiton
hesitating to take from the poor and the devout
the consolation that afforded. Supreme CON
fdence was placed in the propaganda of education,
and in books and schools the last of the gods was
to find his grave.
But it seems the Gone named Cod is still an
actually in the world and the fact is startling to
the devotees of Free Thought now assembled in
Paris. Not only do the poor and simple still wor-
ship him, but the rich and cultured are evincing
devotion to him that recalls the horrid Ages of
Faith. France Is more religious today than it was
fifty years ago, and infinitely more so than it was
before the Free Thinkers began their propaganda
Something must be done to suppress the being
whom it has been found impossible to thoroughly
laicize. His name must be blotted out of the
10.
The God Of Christianity must not be referred to-
no, not even under alias, impersonally. The
great hierophant of free thought, Ferdinand Buis-
son, stated a very profound truth without know
ing it. when he declared to his brethren that every
time the name of God was mentioned, aid and com
fort was given to the reaction" 1t is an axiom
of philosophy that the very thought of God is
proof of his existence. We know finite things;
therefore they exist. We know the infinite: there
fore he exists God is postulae of all thinking
Whatever we know we know under its limitations
1t is such and such a thing because of it's many
departures from the absolute and infinite being
we reverently call God The very name of the Great
First Cause is the guaranty of his being; and the
moment that name IS expressed the image of the
Uncreated One rises up before the human vision
as q light rising out of darkness luminous wit
ness of Its own presence. This shows the absurditv
of any organized movement to make infdelity popu-
lar. The worst intidel is oftentimes the bndest
believer. The Free Thinkers spend their time and
waste their energies in fighting a ghost that Will
never down, and whom they in their dying breath
proclaim. People are not religious by any exter-
nal constraint. The church is charged with the
crime of claiming the minds of men with the fet-
tiers of this Christian superstition. Man believed
before there ever was church. They believe now.
not because she commands it, but because they must
If religion is superstition these Free Thinkers
should do honor to the church for having dispelled
all the. grosser superstitions of the past, aad sub
stituted for them what they admit is the least re-
Voting and the most rational of all the forms of
religion the world has yet known If they were
what their name implies and gave free rein to
their philanthropy, they would do what the wisest
of the Roman pagans did-accept publicly and re-
spect truly faith that is the solace of the MANY
the doubt of the few, and the everlasting enigma
of the man who refuses to accept it-Western
Waterman.