The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-02-26
A Quack's Panacea

THE world is becoming educated What better
evidence could offer than a letter. printed in
the Womans Home Companion for February typi-
cal OF thousands of other letters, the essence of
which is What can we believer"
The dark clouds of ignorance, produced by in
censeburnlng exploitcrs, gradually being pene-
trated by the strong clear winds of science Peo-
pie who never thought of doubling the tenets of
religion and economics beginning to wonder and
ask why"
or course, in periodical SC narcotic and sopor-
~ c it is natural that the question is referred to
Mr.. Bruce Barton, the gentleman who signed Jesus
up for his local Rotary Club, to answer. Any well
read of science could have informed the nouir-
ing editor Of the Companion that the answer has
already been written several times by Messrs
Joseph McCabe, Chapman Cohen, Joseph Whelan
Luther Burbank, and many others. But none of
these, unlike Brother Barton, are purveyors of
sweetness and light. So the diplomatic advertis-
ing man, famous the "discoverer" of Jesus and
the Bible, was PACED.
THE problem of religious belief confronts every
when he is suffering from the brth-pangs
of intellectual we'll social emancipation. One
by one he sees his castles in Spain toppe to dust;
he is overwhelmed by the complexities of religious
differences his brain is bewildered by the alb
stractness of the whole subject.
But, as he is nearing the apex of emancipation,
he to realize that religion is only born of
ignorance, and exists through ignorance only; that
the sole reason for the existence of religion is
mans inability, yet to master the great scien-
tific mysteries of the universe. Religion was born
of ignorant assumption; so soon as science, which
demands only the truth based on acid-tested fact
entered the field, the death knell of religion was
sounded.
T n answering the letter. which reveals that the
4 correspondent is bewidered by the religious con-
trOverses reflected in the daily press Friar Bruce
begins with There are three things to be said
before turn directly to answering this letter"
But does he "said"? Mr. Barton would have
been less hypocritical and apologize had he frankly
stated there three premises to be established,
with the consent of the opposition, on which his
treatise would be based. An examination of his
next three paragraphs reveals that the desired con-
sent could not be Forthcoming.
He starts out with the assertion that the church
is very much alive, proving it with an anecdote
around the hackneyed phrase Nobody kicks dead
horse"
THAT the church is alive, | admit, with regret.
But if Barton had taken the trouble to ex-
anime mcroscopically the status of the church To-
day, and compare it with previous epochs in &C. =
clesastical history, he might be willing to admit
that l justified in contending the church is
dying institution. And may / also remind the
scholarly (sie) advertising expert that it is quite
a practice to kick a dying horse, to ascertain
whether his apparent illness is only pretended.
En ISCUSSION and even disagreement are in
- herent in the very nature of Christianity"
he continues, citing the fact that Jesus of Nazareth
had no more bitter opponents than the highly or
gained and very pious church Of his day. This l
will admit with gusto, even going far to sup