Has Christianity Bettered Human Conditions? – John T. Bays, 1/3/1909

Republished from the free-thought publication the Blue Grass Blade

It is a progressive general belief that Christianity is a religion and that it has raised our standard of morals and education;
but the truth is far from that. Instead of Christianity raising the standards of morals and education, the standards were
raised in spite of Christianity. To prove this, I will go back and show you the world as Christianity found it, and then show
you the world as Christianity made it. To hear a preacher tell of the world as Christianity found it would give you the
impression that Christianity found the human race all savages and transformed them into civilized men, as Moses
transformed the rod into a serpent. But, thank nature, we have other ways of gaining information than from these
prevaricators. I shall quote, ad verbum, from the historians as to the period before the Christians gained sway (331
A.D.). In speaking of the period before the Christian conquest (I will call it), West says: “An area as large as the United
States, with a population of one hundred millions, rested in the ‘good Roman peace’ for nearly four hundred years.
Never before or since has so large a part of the world known such unbroken rest from the horrors and wastes of war.”
“The people paid but little attention to the rulers, and thought of them chiefly as the symbol of the ruling providence
which, throughout the civilized world, had silenced war and faction and secured the blessings of prosperity and peace,
before unknown.” — Capes, Early Empire The reign of the Antonines (96–192 A.D.) has been called the “golden age
of humanity.” Gibbon believed that a man, if allowed his choice, would prefer to have lived then rather than at any
other period of the world’s history. “And if an angel of the Lord were to strike a balance whether the domain ruled by
Severus Antoninus was governed with greater intelligence and greater humanity at that time or in the present day;
whether civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful
whether the decision would be in favor of the present.”— Mommsen “The roads were safe. Piracy ceased upon the
seas, and trade flourished as it was not to flourish again for a thousand years.”

“From frontier to frontier communication was safe and rapid. The grand military and post roads ran in trunk lines—
a thousand miles at a stretch—from every frontier towards the central heart of the empire, with a dense network of
ramifications in every province. Guidebooks described routes and distances. Inns abounded. The imperial couriers
that passed along the great highways hurried by a hundred and fifty milestones a day, and private travel, from the
Thames to the Euphrates, was swifter, safer, and more comfortable than ever again until well into the nineteenth
century.”— West, Ancient World “Everywhere rude stockade villages changed into stately marts of trade, huts into
palaces, footpaths into paved Roman roads. Roman irrigation made part of the African desert the garden of the
world, where from drifting sands desolate ruins mock the traveler of today. In Gaul, Caesar found no real towns. In
the third century that province had one hundred and sixteen flourishing cities, with baths, temples, amphitheaters,
works of art, roads, aqueducts, and schools of eloquence and rhetoric.”— West The three great centers of learning
were Rome, Alexandria, and Athens, all of which had very extensive libraries and professorships. Marcus Aurelius
began the practice of permanent state endowments. In connection with the universities there were colleges and
grammar schools endowed by the state, similar to ours of the present day. As to the morals of the people, West says:
“Woman became fully the equal of man in law, and his companion instead of his servant in the family.” Plutarch’s
precepts on marriage “fall little, if at all, below any of modern days,” and his own family life afforded a beautiful ideal
of domestic happiness. There was a vast amount of public and private charity. Homes for poor children and orphan
girls were established. Tacitus tells how, after a great accident near Roual, the rich opened their houses and gave
their wealth to relieve the sufferers, which shows that the rich of that day were far better morally than our plutocrats
of the present age. As to the treatment of animals, West says: “There seems little doubt that animals were better
treated under the pagan Empire than in Southern Europe today.” And: “Slavery grew milder. Emancipation became
so common that, on an average, household slaves were freed after six years’ service.”
— West

Sympathies broadened. Philosophers were fond of dwelling upon the thought that all men are brothers. Marcus Aurelius
said: “As Emperor, I am a Roman; but as a man, my city is the world.” I will quote some of the moral teachings and let
the reader judge the moral nature of the people by them: “The best way to avenge thyself is not to become like the evildoer.”
“Suppose that men curse thee, or kill thee; if a man stand by a pure spring and curse it, the spring does not cease to send
up clear water.” “Everything harmonizes with me which harmonizes with thee, O Universe! Nothing is too early or too late
which is in due time for thee. Everything is fruitful to me which thy seasons bring, O Nature! From thee are all things; in
thee are all things; to thee all things return.”— Marcus Aurelius I think this is a fine sample of reverence for those who feel
grateful to the powers that made them. Aurelius did not picture some fabulous god and pay reverence to it for what Mother
Nature does, but paid his reverence to the one to whom it justly belonged. “Pass through this little space of time conformably
to Nature, and end thy journey in content—just as an olive branch falls when it is ripe, blessing Nature who produced it
and thanking the tree on which it grew.”— Marcus Aurelius “Nothing is smaller than love of pleasure and love of gain and
pride. Nothing is superior to magnanimity and love of mankind and benevolence.” “No man who loves money and pleasure
and fame also loves mankind, but only he who loves virtue.” “When you die you will not exist, but you will be something else
of which the world has need; you came into existence not when you chose, but when the world had need of you.” “It is not
possible to be free from faults, but it is possible to direct your efforts incessantly to bring faultlessness.”— Epictetus This
empire was made up principally of liberals and freethinkers, and: “The empire encouraged the utmost freedom of thought
upon all subjects.”— West This is something that cannot be said of any Christian nation. I think I have shown very fully
that the world, as the Christian religion found it, was highly advanced in every respect; and now I will show, by the same
unbiased authorities, that the Christian religion pulled down this highly advanced civilization and proved itself a scourge
to the earth. We all know that Christianity was put into power by Constantine, who had been converted to their faith in the
beginning of the fourth century.

I shall continue to quote from the same authorities concerning this period, from where Christianity takes hold of the world
onward. Let the reader decide whether the world advanced or retrograded. The first heading I notice in this period, in
West’s Ancient World, is the following: “Decay in Literature.” Great names in poetry, history, and science cease. Philosophy
and theology became a weary waste of controversy. We have multitudes of “Apologies” for Christianity from the Church
Fathers. The next heading is “Persecution by the Church.” “In 312, as we saw, Christianity secured perfect toleration
for its worship, and soon after it was given an especially favored place among the religions of the Empire. Almost at
once it began to use violence to stamp out other religions.”— West “In centuries to come this persecution by the Church
dwarfed into insignificance even the terrible persecutions it had suffered. The motive, too, differed widely from that of
the old imperial persecutions. It was not political. In general, each persecuting sect since has justified its action on the
ground that belief in its particular faith was necessary to salvation. Therefore, it seemed right and merciful to torture
the bodies of heretics in order to save their souls and protect the souls of others. Under cover of such theory, they
now began a dark and bloody chapter in human history, to last for over twelve hundred years.”— West “The period
was one of intellectual decay. There were no more poets and no more new discoveries in science; even the old
science and literature were neglected.”— West “The peasantry became serfs; they were bound to their labor on the
soil and changed masters with the land they tilled.”— West The Christian religion brought on a caste system in all
other lives as well as among the peasants. Every laborer or artisan was compelled to stay in the same vocation for
generations, until “freedom of movement seemed lost.” “In its industries and its social relations, as well as in government,
the Empire was becoming despotic and oriental.”— West “The earth swarmed with the consuming hierarchy of
extortion, so that it was said that they who received taxes were more than they who paid them.”— Goldsmith

And these taxes “were no longer spent in aiding industry; they went to support the machinery of government and
the luxury of court.” “One cause of the rapid intellectual decline of the fourth century is that many Christians were
hostile to pagan science and literature, while for a long time the Christian world produced little to take its place.”
Here West says “pagan science,” but it was not because of the pagans having developed the sciences that caused
the Christians to be hostile to them. Christianity was hostile to science then for the same reason that it is now and
always has been. Science shows the Bible to be false, and that is why they threw away science when they were
in power, and why they would throw it away today should they gain power again. During this dark and bloody epoch
of Christian rule, called the “Dark Ages,” nearly all that civilization had been piling up for centuries was swept away,
and a period of confusion, lawlessness, and ignorance—the lowest point ever reached by European civilization—was
the result. The whole four hundred years (from 400 to 800 A.D.) are properly called the “Dark Ages.”— West West
is or was a Christian and shows some partiality in giving the account of them, but is not this a pretty bad statement
to have to make about the influence of one’s religion upon the world? “Classical literature suddenly became extinct.
The old Roman schools disappeared, or were represented only by new monastic schools of meager instruction. The
new ruling classes were grossly ignorant and did not care for the old literature and science, even so far as it had
survived.”— West I could give page after page showing up the Christian rule, but I think you all understand how
it was in the Christian period commonly called the “Dark Ages.” After the Church ruled for several centuries, it
burst into fragments, and freethought and science began to revive and have not been put to sleep since. The
Church did not completely lose its grip, but it lost nearly all of its controlling power. Now I shall leave it for the
reader to decide whether Christianity has been for the betterment of the human race or not.