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FAITH OR FACT

ILLUSTRATING CONFLICTS BETWEEN CREDULITY AND VITALIZED
THOUGHT; SUPERSTITION AND REALISM; TRADITION AND
VERITY; DOGMA AND REASON; BIGOTRY AND TOLERANCE;
ECCLESIASTICAL ERROR AND MANIFEST TRUTH; THEOLOGY
AND RATIONALISM; MIRACLE AND IMMUTABLE LAW; PIOUS
IGNORANCE AND SECULAR INTELLIGENCE; HYPOCRISY AND
SINCERITY; THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY.

BY

HENRY M. TABER.

WITH PREFACE BY

COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

"-Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast

To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last."-Moore.

NEW YORK.

PETER ECKLER, PUBLISHER,

No. 35 FULTON STREET.

12

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897,

BY HENRY. M TABER,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.

THE ECKLER PRESS 35 FULTON ST.

NEW YORK.

INTRODUCTION.

N introducing Faith or Fact to my readers I wish to say that it is composed of a series of articles which have appeared from time to time, within the past seven years, in the Freethought Magazine of Chicago, and that I have yielded to the flattering solicitations of many of my best friends in placing this collection before the public in its present form.

I ask for a candid, unprejudiced judgment on my book, and nothing will give me greater pleasure than to have pointed out to me any error of fact into which I may have, inadvertently, been drawn ; my aim having been to search for and to record the truth.

It is significant that, in support of my positions, I furnish authorities mostly from Christian writers, the larger number whom being clergymen.

It appears to me that Christianity has invited criticism, if not censure, by reason of its inculcation of belief by faith alone regardless of opposing and incontrovertible fact; by reason of its credulity, its superstitions, its intolerance; of its arrogant pretensions; its dogma of inspiration, of the fall of man, of eternal punishment, of the trinity, of the atonement, of a personal devil; its pretended knowledge of the "unknowable,' and of a future life; its anathema of doubt; its insistence upon unprovable miracles; its antagonism to the later discoveries of science; its conflict with civil liberty; its unjustice in the matter of exempting church property from taxation, and of its

persistence in the teaching of religion in the public schools; its efforts in behalf of uniting the church with the state (even to the extent of christianizing the constitution of the United States) thus endangering the very life of the nation; its untruthful claim that there is authority (even on Christian grounds) for the religious observance of Sunday and its wrongful and tyrannical denial of innocent amusement on that day; its assumption of superior wisdom, higher civilization and purer morality; its unsupported claim to greater respect for the position of woman; its false claim that Christianity is an original (and not a borrowed) religion; its departure from the religion of Christ and its substituting therefor the religion of Paul, supplemented by that of the church fathers; its unwarrantable claim that there is reliable evidences of answer to prayer; its sometimes questionable methods in making converts to its doctrines. These, one and all, (and more than these) would seem to render Christianity amenable to careful enquiry and rigid scrutiny. When I speak of Christianity, I refer to the orthodox branch of that system of religion and not to the true followers of Christ, who reject the unbelievable dogmas of that (the larger) branch of the Christian church. HENRY M. TABER.

May, 1897.

I

PREFACE BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

LIKE to know the thoughts, theories and conclusions of an honest, intelligent man; candor is always charming, and it is a delight to feel that you have become acquainted with a sincere soul.

I have read this book with great pleasure, not only because I know and greatly esteem the author, not only because he is my unwavering friend, but because it is full of good sense, of accurate statement, of sound logic, of exalted thoughts happily expressed, and for the further reason that it is against tyranny, superstition, bigotry, and every form of injustice, and in favor of every virtue.

Henry M. Taber, the author, has for many years taken great interest in religious questions. He was raised in an orthodox atmosphere, was acquainted with many eminent clergymen from whom he endeavored to find out what Christianity is-and the facts and evidence relied on to establish the truth of the creeds. He found that the clergy of even the same denomination did not agree—that some of them preached one way and talked another and that many of them seemed to regard the creed as something to be accepted whether it was believed or not. He found that each one gave his own construction to the dogmas that seemed heartless or unreasonable. While some insisted that the Bible was absolutely true and the creed without error, others admitted that there were mistakes in the sacred volume and that the creed

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