LATE MODERN WOMEN CRITICS:

STANTON, GOLDMAN, GILMAN

From Classics in the Philosophy of Religion, by James Fieser

© 2026, updated 6/1/2026, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

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CONTENTS

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Religion as a System of Female Subordination (from "Religion for Women and Children", "The Worship of God in Man", The Woman's Bible)

• Emma Goldman: Religion as an Obstacle to Human Freedom (from "The Failure of Christianity", "Atheism")

• Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Religion as Social Motherhood (from His Religion and Hers)

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, early defenders of women's rights, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, focused primarily on reforming education and social policy. While they recognized that religious arguments were used to keep women subordinate, they generally avoided a direct attack on Christian doctrine itself. That changed at the turn of the twentieth century with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Emma Goldman. These thinkers were among the first female critics to target the Christian religion directly, arguing that traditional theology, biblical interpretation, and church authority were the ultimate sources of female subordination. At the same time, academic philosophy of religion remained an almost exclusively male discipline centered on abstract metaphysics, proofs for God's existence, and new theories of cosmic evolution. Stanton, Gilman, and Goldman bypassed these technical debates entirely. Instead, they evaluated religion through its real-world impact, asking whether traditional religious structures helped or harmed human equality. All three argued that religion's greatest negative impact is felt in the daily lives of women and children. Stanton writes that traditional religion has long served as "a powerful police institution… to rob the poor, to suppress free thought," imposing "crippling superstitions…on the minds of…women and children." Not only did these thinkers reject inherited religious dogma, but they also avoided the nineteenth‑century effort to rebrand God in new metaphysical terms. Goldman discarded religion entirely as an obstacle to human freedom. Stanton and Gilman took a different path; they stripped religion of its supernatural and biblical foundations, then rebuilt it around human cooperation and the moral insight of women. By doing so, they shifted the subject of philosophy of religion from abstract belief to lived experience, focusing on how religion shapes the social lives of women. Their willingness to confront religious authority directly established a lasting precedent, paving the way for modern feminist theology and contemporary religious critiques.

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ELIZABETH CADY STANTON:

RELIGION AS A SYSTEM OF FEMALE SUBORDINATION

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was born in Johnstown, New York, to Daniel Cady, a prominent lawyer and judge, and Margaret Livingston Cady. She received an unusually strong early education at the Johnstown Academy and at Emma Willard's Troy Female Seminary, where she graduated in 1832.  While studying law informally in her father's office, she became acutely aware of the legal disabilities imposed on women, a realization that shaped her lifelong commitment to reform. In 1840 she married the abolitionist Henry Brewster Stanton and, during their honeymoon at the World Anti‑Slavery Convention in London, witnessed the exclusion of women delegates, an experience that forged her friendship with Lucretia Mott and inspired their resolve to organize a women's rights convention.  Settling eventually in Seneca Falls, she helped convene the 1848 meeting that produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which she drafted and which marked the first organized demand for women's suffrage in the United States.  Over the following decades she became a leading figure in the women's rights movement, collaborating closely with Susan B. Anthony, writing speeches, essays, and books—including The Woman's Bible and History of Woman Suffrage—and advocating reforms in property law, education, marriage, and political rights.  She remained an active and controversial voice until her death in New York City in 1902 at the age of 86. The selections below are from three of her works.

          In the selection on religion for women and children, Stanton argues that traditional religion functions as a system of social control that harms the poor, women, and children. She rejects the claim that religion is needed to govern the "laboring classes," noting that the Church has historically served as a "powerful police institution" that suppresses free thought, protects its own interests, and rarely defends the oppressed. She next argues that religious leaders refuse to teach truth because they believe the people are "not ready," even though fear‑based doctrines—an angry God, a devil, judgment, eternal punishment—inflict deep psychological harm. She explains further that educated clergy have a duty to lead moral progress, not to preserve "exploded doctrines," and that withholding truth from the masses is both unjust and cruel. She then describes the disproportionate suffering of women and children, whose greater vulnerability, timidity, and dependence make them especially susceptible to religious terrors; doctrines of sin, punishment, and demonic temptation poison their daily lives. Finally, she offers an autobiographical testimony. As a child she lived under the shadow of Presbyterian gloom—fear of death, hell, predestination, and a personal devil—until her own reasoning powers freed her. These memories convince her that no child should endure such spiritual cruelty. She concludes that although society has modernized, many still believe that old dogmas are "good for women, children, and the laboring masses," a belief she condemns as both paternalistic and morally indefensible.

          In the selection on finding God in humanity, she presents her vision of a future "religion of humanity" that is grounded in the moral and creative capacities of human beings, not in supernatural doctrines. She argues that the next stage of religious development will center on revering the "divine" qualities found in men and women, including the virtues, courage, creativity, and moral insight that history displays. She claims that human achievements, from ancient wonders to modern inventions, reveal power, wisdom, and perseverance that rival the attributes traditionally ascribed to God. She rejects doctrines of human depravity as insults to both humanity and the Creator, insisting instead on the dignity and potential of human nature. She interprets biblical teachings of universal benevolence (justice, mercy, equality) as pointing toward a religion focused on uplifting the lowest social strata. True religion, she argues, begins with improving material conditions, educating the masses, and restructuring society around justice, cooperation, and equal opportunity.

          In the final section on the Woman's Bible, Stanton critiques the Bible's treatment of women and explains why women must reinterpret Scripture for themselves. The Bible, she says, portrays woman as the source of sin, condemned to subordination, silence, and suffering, and these texts are still used to justify women's civil and religious inequality. Because reforms are interdependent, women must challenge the authority of these passages and produce their own commentaries, as in The Woman's Bible. The Bible, she argues, is a human document shaped by male dominance, and unless women reject its degrading teachings, their emancipation will remain impossible.

RELIGION FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN (from "Religion for Women and Children" 1886)

Social Control through Religious Fear

An out-and-out English agnostic remarked to a friend, who wondered that he still said grace at table and regularly attended divine worship: "We must keep up the church as the most powerful police institution we have: it would be an awful calamity to take their religion from the laboring classes, and especially from women and children. All these are more easily governed through their fears, as their capacity to reason is very limited." In regard to the first proposition, all history shows that there have been more outrages committed by the Church through its ecclesiastics, in the name of religion, on the sacred rights of humanity and the best interests of society, than by all other organizations together. It has, indeed, been, in all ages, "a powerful police institution," to rob the poor, to suppress free thought, to make martyrs of noble men and women; but when has it ever risked its own safety to fight the battles of people against the oppressions of the State? When, by wise counsels as a united body, has it ever averted the settlement of one vexed question by war? In the prolonged anti-slavery struggle for forty years, it spoke with no certain sound, until the clashing arms and roaring cannon proclaimed liberty throughout the nation.

          But when the indignant masses awake from the lethargy of ages the world over, as they have already in France, and see how they have been deceived, defrauded, and priest-ridden, they will repudiate the Church and the creeds that have so long held them in bondage. As, with more general education, with the light and knowledge of science, the people cannot be much longer swayed by worn-out superstitions, is it not better for their spiritual teachers to begin now to teach them what is true, as far as they themselves know, and to stop teaching them mere speculations and superstitions, the wild vagaries of unbalanced minds, the accumulated errors of the ages? They tell us, by way of excuse for their unfaithfulness, that the people are not ready for a more rational theology, that the undeveloped mind is not prepared for the whole truth about anything. But a measure of the truth, as far as it goes, must be better than error; and, if they are always deluded with falsehoods, how will they ever be prepared to accept what is reasonable? We must remember that truth is the natural food for the human soul, the atmosphere in which all the finest qualities most readily develop. Hence, those who hold the vantage- ground of thought should give freely of their richest treasures to those who would be delivered from errors of the past. We pride ourselves on the munificent charities of this Christian civilization, on our unbounded almsgiving to the poor and needy; but behind those outstretched hands, those appealing eyes and pleading lips, are hungering souls oppressed with fear of an angry God, an all-powerful devil, a judgement day, and everlasting punishment.

Terrors of the Soul and the Demand for Progress

When educated men emancipated from these old errors excuse themselves from preaching the truth as they see it, because the people are not ready to hear it, they should be reminded that, as self- constituted religious teachers, their special business is to prepare the people for steady onward steps. Archdeacon Farrar, in the January number of the North American Review, says truly:

There must be progress. Churches have been very slow to learn this lesson. They have fought to the last for exploded doctrines and antiquated traditions. They have often resisted to the last the advancing of knowledge of mankind. They have become revolutionary and convulsive in the effort to keep things fixed when the world is moving forward, and they have tried to preserve when it was their duty to improve. They have kept their earthen vessels closed, so that the swelling tide of human progress did but shatter them upon the shore, or, at the best, roll them hither and thither with their stagnant doctrines rotting in a dead theology.

Here is the opinion of a churchman as to this "police institution," claimed to be so necessary to the good order of society.

          While the people would be unspeakable happy to be lifted out of all their harassing superstitions and harrowing fears of the eternal future, it is the height of cruelty and injustice for the educated classes, who live on their labor, grinding them to powder by a cunning system of legislation, dooming them in this life to ignorance, poverty, and rags, to fasten on their sorrowing souls the belief that their miseries here are but the foreshadowing of infinitely worst suffering hereafter. If we think it is not safe to tell them the simple truth, that we know nothing of what lies beyond our mortal horizon, we might at least picture for them some beautiful visions of peace and joy in comfortable homes eternal in the heavens. If all fear of future misery could be banished from their minds, the darkest clouds that hang over their earthly pilgrimage would be lifted. It is too bad to defraud them of the comforts and necessaries in this life and of all bright hopes in the celestial world hereafter. If some dreams and speculations must be sent forth as a kind of police chart of instructions, pray let them tell of a golden age to come, when the blessings of life shall be shared equally by all the children of earth.

Superstitions in Domestic Life

And, as to the women and children, -- ah! how little strong men dream of all they suffer in a sincere belief of the gloomy doctrines of our Christian theology! Men, with their steady nerves, strong muscles, equable temperaments, trained to reason and self-reliance, in contact with the stern facts of life, cannot comprehend the multiplied and ever-present fears and apprehensions of coming danger that poison the lives of most women and children, growing out of their more nervous organization, more fertile imaginations, and that natural timidity that accompanies a sense of helplessness in danger. Alas for the children! Their lives are beset with fears. They are afraid of their parents at home, of their teachers in school, of the police in the street, and of the omnipresent God and devil, at all times and in all places. It is folly to hope much less from the lessons of love, taught in sweet sounding phrases, so long as they are reminded every hour in the day that they are doing something to make God angry and the devil smile. While fathers and husbands rejoice in their emancipation from the bondage of the Christian theology, and discuss with each other the rationalism of the great German thinkers, of the French scientists, and the English historians, laughing among themselves at all the gods and the devils of the old theologies that have made humanity tremble, now crumbled to dust, how can they calmly contemplate, from day to day, the fact that all these withering crippling superstitions are being fastened on the minds of their own trusting wives and daughters, and their innocent young children, whom they are bound to protect, not only from physical harm, but spiritual slavery! How carefully they would guard their children from measles, whooping-cough, and scarlet fever -diseases that will never give them one-half the suffering that will come to them with a faith in doctrines of original sin, an angry God, a cunning devil ever whispering in their ears, coaxing them to lie and steal and swear, a day of judgment, the last trump, and everlasting punishment in a lake of fire!

          And alas, too, for the pale-stricken mothers of the race who believe all this, and still more that, through their folly, through that one fatal interview in the Garden of Eden, all this misery entered the world, and hence the pangs of maternity were to be their punishment,-- the curse pronounced in the beginning on all Eve's daughters. And multitudes of women believe this to-day instead of referring their sufferings to their artificial habits of life, to tight waists, heavy skirts, high heels, improper diet, and want of exercise. Passages of Scripture perpetuating all these cruelties and absurdities are still read in our pulpits, with a holy unction that makes them seem plausible to unthinking minds. How can educated men of common sense and kind feeling live side by side with women and children year after year, and never share with them the freedom and blessedness of a more rational religion? A system of theology that agnostics, the scientists, the philosophers, the historians, and the most enlightened and progressive clergymen themselves repudiate cannot be the most nourishing spiritual pabulum for women and children, to say nothing of the laboring masses.

Personal Recollections of Orthodox Gloom

I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years, that all the cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments, of my whole life, are light in the balance with my sufferings in childhood and youth from the horrible dogmas I sincerely believed and the gloomy environments connected with everything associated with the name of religion, -- the church, the parsonage, the graveyard, as it was called in those days, and the solemn tolling bell on Sundays and many other days for funerals, which seemed to be or more frequent occurrence there than any other place in which I have ever lived. Everything connected with death was inexpressibly dolorous. The body, covered with a black pall, was borne on the shoulders of men; the friends in crape walked with bowed heads, weeping and sobbing; the neighbors who had tears to shed did so copiously; and the rest summoned up their saddest facial expressions. Round the grave came the solemn warnings to the living and, sometimes, unwelcome prophecies as to the safety of the dead. And all that pageantry of woe, and visions of the unknown land beyond the grave, haunted my midnight dreams and shadowed the sunshine of my days. The parsonage, with its bare walls and floors, its shriveled mistress and blind sister,-- more like ghostly shadows than human flesh and blood,-- and two black servants racked with rheumatism, odoriferous with a pungent oil they used in the vain hope of making their weary limbs more supple, and the aged graduate from the Scotch University in Glasgow, buried in his library with musty books and papers, one window looking to the south and a flickering fire in the hearth, was the spot where I spent hours in the exhilarating study of the Greek Testament and in recitations from the Westminster Catechism. These were considered special privileges and pleasures, vouchsafed to no other child, as there were none born to that household. The church, with its bare walls and floors and severely angular architecture, with no furnace to keep us warm, no organ to gladden our hearts, no choir to lead our songs of praise in harmony, was sadly lacking in all attractions for the youthful mind. The preacher, shut up in an octagon box high above our heads, gave us sermons over an hour long, and the chorister, in a similar box below him, intoned line after line of David's psalms; and, like a flock of sheep at the heels of their shepherd, the congregation, without regard to time or tune, straggled after their leader.

          A few years later, the introduction of stoves, a violoncello, Wesley's hymns, and a choir, split the church in twain. The old Scotch Presbyterians were opposed to all innovations that would give to their people paths of flowery ease on the road to heaven. So, when the thermometer was twenty degrees below zero on the Johnstown Hills, four hundred feet above the Mohawk Valley, we trudged along through the snow, foot-stoves in hand, to the cold hospitalities of the "Lord's house," to hear sermons on "predestination," "justification by faith." and "eternal damnation." To be restless or to fall asleep under such solemn circumstances was a sure evidence of total depravity and the machinations of the devil to turn your heart from God and his ordinances. As I was guilty of all these shortcomings and many more, I early believed myself a veritable child of the devil, and suffered endless fears lest he should come some night and claim me as his own. To me, he was a personal, ever-present reality, crouching in a dark corner of the nursery. Ah! how many times I have stolen out of bed, and sat shivering on the stairs for hours, where the hall lamp and the sound of voices from the parlor would in a measure mitigate my fears! With a vigorous constitution and overflowing animal spirits, I endured the strain of all these depressing influences for years, until my reasoning powers and common sense triumphed at last over my imagination. The memory of my own suffering saved me from the cruelty of ever shadowing one young soul with any of the superstitions of our Christian religion.

          But there have been many changes, even in my native town, since those dark days. Our old church is turned into a mitten factory, where the pleasant hum of machinery and the glad faces of men and women have chased the evil spirits to their hiding-places. We now have three beautiful churches, ornamental cemeteries, cheerful parsonages, and some educated men and women, emancipated from the old theologies. But, with many, the dogmas and superstitions of a worn-out faith are still considered good for women, children, and the laboring masses. 

 

FINDING GOD IN HUMANITY ("The Worship of God in Man" 1893)

The Dawn of the Religion of Humanity

As we have not yet reached the ultimatum of religious faith it may be legitimate to ask, What will the next step be? As we are all alike interested in the trend of religious thought no one should feel aggrieved in hearing his creed fairly analyzed or in listening to speculations as to some thing better in the near future. As I read the signs of the times, I think the next form of religion will be the "religion of humanity," in which men and women will worship what they see of the divine in each other; the virtues, the beatitudes, the possibilities ascribed to Deity, reflected in mortal beings.

          To stimulate our reverence for the Great Spirit of life that set all things in motion and holds them forever in their places, our religious teachers point us to the grandeur of nature in all her works.

          By all the wonders and mysteries that surround us we are led to question the source of what we see and to judge the powers and possibilities of the Creator by the grandeur and beauty of his works. Measuring man by the same standard, we find that all the sources and qualities the most exalted mind ascribes to his ideal God are reproduced in a less degree in the noble men and women who have glorified the race. Judging man by his works, what shall we say to the seven wonders of the world, of the Colossus of Rhodes, Diana's Temple at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Pharos at Alexandria, the Hanging Gardens at Babylon, and the Olympian Zeus? True, these are all crumbling to dust, but change is law, too, in all nature's works.

          The manifestation of man's power is more varied and wonderful as the ages roll on.

          And what shall we say of the discoveries and inventions of the past fifty years, by which the labors of the world have been lifted from the shoulders of men, to be done henceforth by the tireless machines?

          Man has manifested wisdom, too, as well as power. In fact, what cardinal virtue has he not shown, through all the shifting scenes of the passing centuries? The page of history glows with the great deeds of noble men and women. What courage and heroism, what self-sacrifice and sublime faith in principle have they not shown in persecution and death, mid the horrors of war, the sorrows of exile, and the weary vears of prison life? What could sustain mortal man in this awful "solitude of self" but the fact that the great moral forces of the universe are bound up in his organization? What are danger, death, exile and dungeon walls to the great spirit of life incarnate in him?

          The old idea of mankind as "totally depraved," his morality "but filthy rags," his heart "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," his aspirations "but idle dreams of luxury and selfishness," are so many reflections on the Creator, who is said to be perfect and to have made man in his own image. The new religion will teach the dignity of human nature and its infinite possibilities for development. It will teach the solidarity of the race that all must rise or fall as one. Its creed will be Justice, Liberty. Equality for all the children of earth.

Biblical Lessons of Universal Benevolence

The Old and New Testaments, which Christians accept as their rule of life, are full of these lessons of universal benevolence. "If you love not man whom you have seen, how can vou love God whom vou have not seen?" Jesus said to his disciples, "Whatsoever you have done unto these, my brethren, ye have done unto me." "When I was hungry ye gave me meat, when naked ve clothed me, when in prison ye ministered unto me." When the young man asked what he should do to be saved, Jesus did not tell him he must believe certain dogmas and creeds, but to go and sell all that he had and give to the poor.

          The prophets and apostles alike taught a religion of deeds rather than forms and ceremonies. "Away with your new moons, your sabbaths and your appointed feasts ; the worship God asks is that you do justice and love mercy." "God is no respecter of persons." "He has made of one blood all the nations of the earth." When the pulpits in our land shall preach from these texts and enforce these lessons, the religious conscience of the people will take new form of expression, and those who in very truth accept the teachings of Jesus will make it their first duty to look after the lowest stratum of humanity.

Social Morality and Improving the Masses

To build a substantial house, we begin with the cellar and lay the foundations strong and deep, for on it depends the safety of the whole superstructure. So in race building, for noble specimens of humanity, for peace and prosperity in their conditions we must begin with the lowest stratum of society and see that the masses are well fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, elevated and enfranchised. Social morality, clean, pleasant environments, must precede a spiritual religion that enables man to understand the mysteries binding him to the seen and unseen universe.

          This radical work cannot be done by what is called charity, but by teaching sound principles of domestic economy to our educated classes, showing that by law, custom and false theories of natural rights, they are responsible for the poverty, ignorance and vice of the masses. Those who train the religious conscience of the people must teach the lesson that all these artificial distinctions in society must be obliterated by securing equal conditions and opportunities for all: this cannot be done in a day; but this is the goal for which we must strive. The first step to this end is to educate the people into the idea that such a moral revolution is possible.

          It is folly to talk of a just government and a pure religion where the state and the church alike sustain an aristocracy of wealth and ease, while those who do the hard work of the world have no share in the blessings and riches that their continued labors have made possible for others to enjoy. Is it just that the in any should ever suffer that the few may shine?

          "Equal rights for all" is the lesson this hour. "That cannot be," says some faithless conservative: "if you should distribute all things equally today they would be in the hands of the few to-morrow." Not if the religious conscience of the people were educated to believe that the way to salvation was not in creed and greed, but in doing justice to their fellow men. Not if altruism, instead of egoism, were the law of social morals. Not if cooperation, instead of competition, were the rule in the world of work. Not if legislation were ever in the interest of the many, rather than the few. Educate the rising generation into these broader principles of government, religion and social life, and then ignorance, poverty and vice will disappear.

THE WOMAN'S BIBLE (from The Woman's Bible, 1895-1898)

The Bible's View of Women (Part 1,  Introduction)

The Bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire on the vital questions of the hour, she was commanded to ask her husband at home. Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up. . . .

          These familiar texts are quoted by clergymen in their pulpits, by statesmen in the halls of legislation, by lawyers in the courts, and are echoed by the press of all civilized nations, and accepted by woman herself as "The Word of God." So perverted is the religious element in her nature, that with faith and works she is the chief support of the church and clergy; the very powers that make her emancipation impossible. When, in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, women began to protest against their civil and political degradation, they were referred to the Bible for an answer. When they protested against their unequal position in the church, they were referred to the Bible for an answer. . . .

          This led to a general and critical study of the Scriptures. Some, having made a fetish of these books and believing them to be the veritable "Word of God," with liberal translations, interpretations, allegories and symbols, glossed over the most objectionable features of the various books and clung to them as divinely inspired. Others, seeing the family resemblance between the Mosaic code, the canon law, and the old English common law, came to the conclusion that all alike emanated from the same source; wholly human in their origin and inspired by the natural love of domination in the historians. Others, bewildered with their doubts and fears, came to no conclusion. While their clergymen told them on the one hand, that they owed all the blessings and freedom they enjoyed to the Bible, on the other, they said it clearly marked out their circumscribed sphere of action: that the demands for political and civil rights were irreligious, dangerous to the stability of the home, the state and the church. Clerical appeals were circulated from time to time, conjuring members of their churches to take no part in the anti-slavery or woman suffrage movements, as they were infidel in their tendencies, undermining the very foundations of society. No wonder the majority of women stood still, and with bowed heads, accepted the situation.

Interdependent Reforms

Listening to the varied opinions of women, I have long thought it would be interesting and profitable to get them clearly stated in book form. To this end six years ago I proposed to a committee of women to issue a Woman's Bible, that we might have women's commentaries on women's position in the Old and New Testaments. It was agreed on by several leading women in England and America and the work was begun, but from various causes it has been delayed, until now the idea is received with renewed enthusiasm, and a large committee has been formed, and we hope to complete [volume two of] the work within a year. . . .

          Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever is done to establish one principle on a solid basis, strengthens all. Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon. The object of an individual life is not to carry one fragmentary measure in human progress, but to utter the highest truth clearly seen in all directions, and thus to round out and perfect a well balanced character. Was not the sum of influence exerted by John Stuart Mill on political, religious and social questions far greater than that of any statesman or reformer who has sedulously limited his sympathies and activities to carrying one specific measure? We have many women abundantly endowed with capabilities to understand and revise what men have thus far written. But they are all suffering from inherited ideas of their inferiority; they do not perceive it, yet such is the true explanation of their solicitude, lest they should seem to be too self-asserting.

          Again there are some who write us that our work is a useless expenditure of force over a book that has lost its hold on the human mind. Most intelligent women, they say, regard it simply as the history of a rude people in a barbarous age, and have no more reverence for the Scriptures than any other work. So long as tens of thousands of Bibles are printed every year, and circulated over the whole habitable globe, and the masses in all English-speaking nations revere it as the word of God, it is vain to belittle its influence. The sentimental feelings we all have for those things we were educated to believe sacred, do not readily yield to pure reason. I distinctly remember the shudder that passed over me on seeing a mother take our family Bible to make a high seat for her child at table. It seemed such a desecration. I was tempted to protest against its use for such a purpose, and this, too, long after my reason had repudiated its divine authority.

          To women still believing in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, we say give us by all means your exegesis in the light of the higher criticism learned men are now making, and illumine the Woman's Bible, with your inspiration.

          Bible historians claim special inspiration for the Old and New Testaments containing most contradictory records of the same events, of miracles opposed to all known laws, of customs that degrade the female sex of all human and animal life, stated in most questionable language that could not be read in a promiscuous assembly, and call all this "The Word of God."

          The only points in which I differ from all ecclesiastical teaching is that I do not believe that any man ever saw or talked with God, I do not believe that God inspired the Mosaic code, or told the historians what they say he did about woman, for all the religions on the face of the earth degrade her, and so long as woman accepts the position that they assign her, her emancipation is impossible. Whatever the Bible may be made to do in Hebrew or Greek, in plain English it does not exalt and dignify woman. My standpoint for criticism is the revised edition of 1888. 1 will so far honor the revising committee of wise men who have given us the best exegesis they can according to their ability, although Disraeli said the last one before he died, contained 150,000 blunders in the Hebrew, and 7,000 in the Greek.

God."

          But the verbal criticism in regard to woman's position amounts to little. The spirit is the same in all periods and languages, hostile to her as an equal.

God."

          There are some general principles in the holy books of all religions that teach love, charity, liberty, justice and equality for all the human family, there are many grand and beautiful passages, the golden rule has been echoed and re-echoed around the world. There are lofty examples of good and true men and women, all worthy our acceptance and imitation whose lustre cannot be dimmed by the false sentiments and vicious characters bound up in the same volume. The Bible cannot be accepted or rejected as a whole, its teachings are varied and its lessons differ widely from each other. In criticising the peccadilloes of Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, we would not shadow the virtues of Deborah, Huldah and Vashti. In criticising the Mosaic code, we would not question the wisdom of the golden rule and the fifth Commandment. Again the church claims special consecration for its cathedrals and priesthood, parts of these aristocratic churches are too holy for women to enter, boys were early introduced into the choirs for this reason, woman singing in an obscure corner closely veiled. A few of the more democratic denominations accord women some privileges, but invidious discriminations of sex are found in all religious organizations, and the most bitter outspoken enemies of woman are found among clergymen and bishops of the Protestant religion.

God."

          The canon law, the Scriptures, the creeds and codes and church discipline of the leading religions bear the impress of fallible man, and not of our ideal great first cause, "the Spirit of all Good," that set the universe of matter and mind in motion, and by immutable law holds the land, the sea, the planets, revolving round the great centre of light and heat, each in its own elliptic, with millions of stars in harmony all singing together, the glory of creation forever and ever.

Escaping Religious Mythology (Appendix)

In reading some of these letters and comments [in support of the Woman's Bible]I have been deeply impressed with the difficulty of substituting reason for superstition in minds once perverted by a false faith. Women have been taught by their religious guardians that the Bible, unlike all other books, was written under the special inspiration of the Great Ruling Intelligence of the Universe. Not conversant with works on science and higher criticism, which point out its fabulous pretensions, they cling to it with an unreasoning tenacity, like a savage to his fetich. Though it is full of contradictions, absurdities and impossibilities, and bears the strongest evidence in every line of its human origin, and in moral sentiment is below many of the best books of our own day, they blindly worship it as the Word of God.

          When you point out what in plain English it tells us God did say to his people in regard to woman, and there is no escape from its degrading teaching as to her position, then they shelter themselves under false translations, interpretations and symbolic meanings. It does not occur to them that men learned in the languages have revised the book many times, but made no change in woman's position. Though familiar with "the designs of God," trained in Biblical research and higher criticism, interpreters of signs and symbols and Egyptian hieroglyphics, learned astronomers and astrologers, yet they cannot twist out of the Old or New Testaments a message of justice, liberty or equality from God to the women of the nineteenth century!

          The real difficulty in woman's case is that the whole foundation of the Christian religion rests on her temptation and man's fall, hence the necessity of a Redeemer and a plan of salvation. As the chief cause of this dire calamity, woman's degradation and subordination were made a necessity. If, however, we accept the Darwinian theory, that the race has been a gradual growth from the lower to a higher form of life, and that the story of the fall is a myth, we can exonerate the snake, emancipate the woman, and reconstruct a more rational religion for the nineteenth century, and thus escape all the perplexities of the Jewish mythology as of no more importance than those of the Greek, Persian and Egyptian.

Response to Criticism ("Is The Woman's Bible A Success?" 1895?)

The blacked page in sacred and profane history, in Canon and Civil Law, is the position of woman, for which the Church still claims divine authority. The Woman's Bible denies this claim, and declares that like the other books, it emanated from the brain of man. Today it is the greatest block in the way of freedom for woman. While recognizing the beauty of its poetry in parts, the broad principles of justice mercy and equality here and there enunciated by the prophets and apostles, it is folly to make a fetish of the Bible as a whole blasphemous and attribute to the Great Spirit of all Good such teachings to the mothers of the race. Why should the myths and fables of the Hebrews have more influence with us in deciding the status of women than those of the Greeks! They made the same pretentions to work miracles and talk with their Gods face to face. The object of "The Woman's Bible" is to emancipate women from all these degrading superstitions and inspire them with new hope and self respect.

          The fact that women themselves denounce "The Woman's Bible" has no significance. Men have their denounced scientists and scholars all through the centuries, imprisoned tortured and killed them outright for every discovery that conflicted with a text of scripture. At one time it was as great a heresy to say that the earth was a sphere and the sun the center of the solar system and as it is now to say that women should have an equal place in the state and church.

Source: Elizabeth Cady Stanton. "Religion for Women and Children", The Index, March 11, 1886; "The Worship of God in Man", Open Court. Vol. 7 7 (Oct 26, 1893); The Woman's Bible. European Publishing Company (1895-1898), adapted.

 

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EMMA GOLDMAN:

RELIGION AS AN OBSTACLE TO HUMAN FREEDOM

Emma Goldman (1869–1940) was born in Kovno, in the Russian Empire (now Lithuania), to a poor Jewish family. When a teenager, she emigrated to the United States in 1885, settling in Rochester, New York, where harsh factory work and exposure to radical politics shaped her early convictions. Moving to New York City in 1889, she entered the anarchist circles surrounding Johann Most and soon emerged as an influential lecturer and writer, advocating a combination of individual freedom, social revolution, and feminist critique that made her one of the most recognizable radicals of her generation. Her speeches and essays were later collected in Anarchism and Other Essays (1910) and The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914). These addressed issues of state power, economic inequality, free speech, sexual autonomy, and the institution of marriage, while her activism brought repeated arrests and periods of imprisonment. She was deported to Russia in 1919 during the Red Scare. Though she initially supported the revolution, she soon became a critic of Bolshevik authoritarianism, a position she articulated in My Disillusionment in Russia (1923). She spent her remaining years in Europe and Canada, continuing to write and lecture until her death in Toronto in 1940 at the age of 70. The selections below are from two of her essays on the subject of religion.

          In her essay "The Failure of Christianity," Goldman argues that religion functions as a life-denying system of social control that trains individuals for obedience and perpetuates the injustices it claims to oppose. In the first section, she posits that Christianity operates as a slave morality that dulls independent thought. For, inherited religious language preserves outdated ideas while rulers recognize that moral dogmas pacify the oppressed far more effectively than brute force. The second section asserts that Christ's own teachings promote a life-denying ethic of submission, since the "ethical Christ" is uniquely dangerous; his ideals of meekness and non-resistance have seeped into modern moral thinking, thus stifling the courage needed for real social change. In the third section, Goldman explains that religion serves as a deliberate tool to keep the poor submissive and the powerful secure. Promises of heavenly reward, then, drain human self-respect while the Sermon on the Mount glorifies poverty in ways that make people easier to dominate. In the fourth section, she contends that these celestial promises actively block the pursuit of earthly justice. Biblical commands like "Render unto Caesar" offer no practical path to change and instead legitimize submission, thereby trapping people in passivity. Finally, the fifth section argues that the ideal of a self-effacing Christ has crippled human dignity, for theistic ethics burden the spirit with a demand for eternal gratitude. Accordingly, Christian morality stands fundamentally opposed to the passion and independence required for genuine freedom, as it glorifies the very weakness that prevents humanity from affirming its own strength and creative potential on earth.

          In her essay on Atheism, Goldman argues that the God-idea is a human invention that has outlived its usefulness. Only by abandoning belief in supernatural authority can people reclaim their reason, freedom, and capacity to build a just world. In the opening section, she states that this concept grew out of primitive fear and ignorance, for early humans invented gods by projecting exaggerated versions of their own traits onto supernatural beings. Accordingly, as science expands, this creation becomes increasingly vague and less compelling. The second section argues that theism is visibly losing its hold because people are turning their attention from heavenly speculation to the concrete problems of earthly life. This decline terrifies religious leaders; they sense that the masses are growing indifferent to metaphysical claims, which prompts elites to scramble to revive belief. In the third section, Goldman explains that organized religion functions as a coordinated industry designed to preserve compliance, since political and economic elites support this system because divine authority remains a reliable tool for producing a submissive population. In the fourth section, she argues that the God-idea is morally bankrupt, for no deity has ever alleviated human suffering, despite centuries of praise and promises. Consequently, a growing human realization dictates that justice must come from people themselves, not from heaven. Finally, the fifth section frames atheism as a positive affirmation of human freedom and dignity, since theistic obedience imposes a life-denying weight on the human spirit. Reclaiming our moral vitality requires breaking these psychological chains of fear and reward; therefore, only on purely human terms can we affirm life's beauty and remake society.

THE FAILURE OF CHRISTIANITY (from "The Failure of Christianity", 1913)

Christianity as a System of Slave Morality

The counterfeiters and poisoners of ideas, in their attempt to obscure the line between truth and falsehood, find a valuable ally in the conservatism of language.

          Conceptions and words that have long ago lost their original meaning continue through centuries to dominate mankind. Especially is this true if these conceptions have become a common-place, if they have been instilled in our beings from our infancy as great and irrefutable verities. The average mind is easily content with inherited and acquired things, or with the dicta of parents and teachers, because it is much easier to imitate than to create.

          Our age has given birth to two intellectual giants, who have undertaken to transvalue the dead social and moral values of the past, especially those contained in Christianity. Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner have hurled blow upon blow against the portals of Christianity, because they saw in it a pernicious slave morality, the denial of life, the destroyer of all the elements that make for strength and character. True, Nietzsche has opposed the slave-morality idea inherent in Christianity in behalf of a master morality for the privileged few. But I venture to suggest that his master idea had nothing to do with the vulgarity of station, caste, or wealth. Rather did it mean the masterful in human possibilities, the masterful in man that would help him to overcome old traditions and worn-out values, so that he may learn to become the creator of new and beautiful things.

          Both Nietzsche and Stirner saw in Christianity the leveler of the human race, the breaker of man's will to dare and to do. They saw in every movement built on Christian morality and ethics attempts not at the emancipation from slavery, but for the perpetuation thereof. Hence they opposed these movements with might and main.

          Whether I do or do not entirely agree with these iconoclasts, I believe, with them, that Christianity is most admirably adapted to the training of slaves, to the perpetuation of a slave society; in short, to the very conditions confronting us to-day. Indeed, never could society have degenerated to its present appalling stage, if not for the assistance of Christianity. The rulers of the earth have realized long ago what potent poison inheres in the Christian religion. That is the reason they foster it; that is why they leave nothing undone to instill it into the blood of the people. They know only too well that the subtleness of the Christian teachings is a more powerful protection against rebellion and discontent than the club or the gun.

The Teachings of Christ as Life‑Denial

No doubt I will be told that, though religion is a poison and institutionalized Christianity the greatest enemy of progress and freedom, there is some good in Christianity "itself." What about the teachings of Christ and - early Christianity, I may be asked; do they not stand for the spirit of humanity, for right and justice?

          It is precisely this oft-repeated contention that induced me to choose this subject, to enable me to demonstrate that the abuses of Christianity, like the abuses of government, are conditioned in the thing itself, and are not to be charged to the representatives of the creed. Christ and his teachings are the embodiment of submission, of inertia, of the denial of life; hence responsible for the things done in their name.

          I am not interested in the theological Christ. Brilliant minds like Bauer, Strauss, Renan, Thomas Paine, and others refuted that myth long ago. I am even ready to admit that the theological Christ is not half so dangerous as the ethical and social Christ. In proportion as science takes the place of blind faith, theology loses its hold. But the ethical and poetical Christ-myth has so thoroughly saturated our lives that even some of the most advanced minds find it difficult to emancipate themselves from its yoke. They have rid themselves of the letter, but have retained the spirit; yet it is the spirit which is back of all the crimes and horrors committed by orthodox Christianity. The Fathers of the Church can well afford to preach the gospel of Christ. It contains nothing dangerous to the regime of authority and wealth; it stands for self-denial and self-abnegation, for penance and regret, and is absolutely inert in the face of every [in]dignity, every outrage imposed upon mankind.

          Here I must revert to the counterfeiters of ideas and words. So many otherwise earnest haters of slavery and injustice confuse, in a most distressing manner, the teachings of Christ with the great struggles for social and economic emancipation. The two are irrevocably and forever opposed to each other. The one necessitates courage, daring, defiance, and strength. The other preaches the gospel of non-resistance, of slavish acquiescence in the will of others; it is the complete disregard of character and self- reliance, and therefore destructive of liberty and well-being.

          Whoever sincerely aims at a radical change in society, whoever strives to free humanity from the scourge of dependence and misery, must turn his back on Christianity, on the old as well as the present form of the same.

          Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it.

          The Christian religion and morality extols the glory of the Hereafter, and therefore remains indifferent to the horrors of the earth. Indeed, the idea of self-denial and of all that makes for pain and sorrow is its test of human worth, its passport to the entry into heaven.

Christianity as a Tool of Social Control

          The poor are to own heaven, and the rich will go to hell. That may account for the desperate efforts of the rich to make hay while the sun shines, to get as much out of the earth as they can: to wallow in wealth and superfluity, to tighten their iron hold on the blessed slaves, to rob them of their birthright, to degrade and outrage them every minute of the day. Who can blame the rich if they revenge themselves on the poor, for now is their time, and the merciful Christian God alone knows how ably and completely the rich are doing it.

          And the poor? They cling to the promise of the Christian heaven, as the home for old age, the sanitarium for crippled bodies and weak minds. They endure and submit, they suffer and wait, until every bit of self-respect has been knocked out of them, until their bodies become emaciated and withered, and their spirit broken from the wait, the weary endless wait for the Christian heaven.

          Christ made his appearance as the leader of the people, the redeemer of the Jews from Roman dominion; but the moment he began his work, he proved that he had no interest in the earth, in the pressing immediate needs of the poor and the disinherited of his time. what he preached was a sentimental mysticism, obscure and confused ideas lacking originality and vigor.

          When the Jews, according to the gospels, withdrew from Jesus, when they turned him over to the cross, they may have been bitterly disappointed in him who promised them so much and gave them so little. He promised joy and bliss in another world, while the people were starving, suffering, and enduring before his very eyes.

          It may also be that the sympathy of the Romans, especially of Pilate, was given Christ because they regarded him as perfectly harmless to their power and sway. The philosopher Pilate may have considered Christ's "eternal truths" as pretty anaemic and lifeless, compared with the array of strength and force they attempted to combat. The Romans, strong and unflinching as they were, must have laughed in their sleeves over the man who talked repentance and patience, instead of calling to arms against the despoilers and oppressors of his people.

          The public career of Christ begins with the edict, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."

          Why repent, why regret, in the face of something that was supposed to bring deliverance? Had not the people suffered and endured enough; had they not earned their right to deliverance by their suffering? Take the Sermon on the Mount, for instance. What is it but a eulogy on submission to fate, to the inevitability of things?

          "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

          Heaven must be an awfully dull place if the poor in spirit live there. How can anything creative, anything vital, useful and beautiful come from the poor in spirit? The idea conveyed in the Sermon on the Mount is the greatest indictment against the teachings of Christ, because it sees in the poverty of mind and body a virtue, and because it seeks to maintain this virtue by reward and punishment. Every intelligent being realizes that our worst curse is the poverty of the spirit; that it is productive of all evil and misery, of all the injustice and crimes in the world. Every one knows that nothing good ever came or can come of the poor in spirit; surely never liberty, justice, or equality.

          "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

          What a preposterous notion! What incentive to slavery, inactivity, and parasitism! Besides, it is not true that the meek can inherit anything. Just because humanity has been meek, the earth has been stolen from it.

          Meekness has been the whip, which capitalism and governments have used to force man into dependency, into his slave position. The most faithful servants of the State, of wealth, of special privilege, could not preach a more convenient gospel than did Christ, the "redeemer" of the people.

Christian Promises as Barriers to Justice

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled."

          But did not Christ exclude the possibility of righteousness when he said, "The poor ye have always with you"? But, then, Christ was great on dicta, no matter if they were utterly opposed to each other. This is nowhere demonstrated so strikingly as in his command, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

          The interpreters claim that Christ had to make these concessions to the powers of his time. If that be true, this single compromise was sufficient to prove, down to this very day, a most ruthless weapon in the hands of the oppressor, a fearful lash and relentless tax-gatherer, to the impoverishment, the enslavement, and degradation of the very people for whom Christ is supposed to have died. And when we are assured that "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled," are we told the how? How? Christ never takes the trouble to explain that. Righteousness does not come from the stars, nor because Christ willed it so. Righteousness grows out of liberty, of social and economic opportunity and equality. But how can the meek, the poor in spirit, ever establish such a state of affairs?

          "Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven."

          The reward in heaven is the perpetual bait, a bait that has caught man in an iron net, a strait-jacket which does not let him expand or grow. All pioneers of truth have been, and still are, reviled; they have been, and still are, persecuted. But did they ask humanity to pay the price? Did they seek to bribe mankind to accept their ideas? They knew too well that he who accepts a truth because of the bribe, will soon barter it away to a higher bidder.

          Good and bad, punishment and reward, sin and penance, heaven and hell, as the moving spirit of the Christ-gospel have been the stumbling-block in the world's work. It contains everything in the way of orders and commands, but entirely lacks the very things we need most.

          The worker who knows the cause of his misery, who understands the make-up of our iniquitous social and industrial system can do more for himself and his kind than Christ and the followers of Christ have ever done for humanity; certainly more than meek patience, ignorance, and submission have done.

          How much more ennobling, how much more beneficial is the extreme individualism of Stirner and Nietzsche than the sick-room atmosphere of the Christian faith. If they repudiate altruism as an evil, it is because of the example contained in Christianity, which set a premium on parasitism and inertia, gave birth to all manner of social disorders that are to be cured with the preachment of love and sympathy.

          Proud and self-reliant characters prefer hatred to such sickening artificial love. Not because of any reward does a free spirit take his stand for a great truth, nor has such a one ever been deterred because of fear of punishment.

          "Think not that I come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."

          Precisely. Christ was a reformer, ever ready to patch up, to fulfill, to carry on the old order of things; never to destroy and rebuild. That may account for the fellow- feeling all reformers have for him.

          Indeed, the whole history of the State, Capitalism, and the Church proves that they have perpetuated themselves because of the idea "I come not to destroy the law." This is the key to authority and oppression. Naturally so, for did not Christ praise poverty as a virtue; did he not propagate non-resistance to evil? Why should not poverty and evil continue to rule the world?

Christian Morality as an Obstacle to Human Liberation

Much as I am opposed to every religion, much as I think them an imposition upon, and crime against, reason and progress, I yet feel that no other religion has done so much harm or has helped so much in the enslavement of man as the religion of Christ.

          Witness Christ before his accusers. What lack of dignity, what lack of faith in himself and in his own ideas! So weak and helpless was this "Saviour of Men" that he must needs the whole human family to pay for him, unto all eternity, because he "hath died for them." Redemption through the Cross is worse than damnation, because of the terrible burden it imposes upon humanity, because of the effect it has on the human soul, fettering and paralyzing it with the weight of the burden exacted through the death of Christ.

          Thousands of martyrs have perished, yet few, if any, of them have proved so helpless as the great Christian God. Thousands have gone to their death with greater fortitude, with more courage, with deeper faith in their ideas than the Nazarene. Nor did they expect eternal gratitude from their fellow-men because of what they endured for them.

          Compared with Socrates and Bruno, with the great martyrs of Russia, with the Chicago Anarchists, Francisco Ferrer, and unnumbered others, Christ cuts a poor figure indeed. Compared with the delicate, frail Spiridonova who underwent the most terrible tortures, the most horrible indignities, without losing faith in herself or her cause, Jesus is a veritable nonentity. They stood their ground and faced their executioners with unffinching determination, and though they, too, died for the people, they asked nothing in return for their great sacrifice.

          Verily, we need redemption from the slavery, the deadening weakness, and humiliating dependency of Christian morality.

          The teachings of Christ and of his followers have failed because they lacked the vitality to lift the burdens from the shoulders of the race; they have failed because the very essence of that doctrine is contrary to the spirit of life, exposed to the manifestations of nature, to the strength and beauty of passion.

          Never can Christianity, under whatever mask it may appear-be it New Liberalism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, New Thought, or a thousand and one other forms of hysteria and neurasthenia-bring us relief from the terrible pressure of conditions, the weight of poverty, the horrors of our iniquitous system. Christianity is the conspiracy of ignorance against reason, of darkness against light, of submission and slavery against independence and freedom; of the denial of strength and beauty, against the affirmation of the joy and glory of life.

 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM (from "The Philosophy of Atheism" 1916)

The Evolution of the God‑Idea

To give an adequate exposition of the Philosophy of Atheism, it would be necessary to go into the historical changes of the belief in a Deity, from its earliest beginning to the present day. But that is not within the scope of the present paper. However, it is not out of place to mention, in passing, that the concept God, Supernatural Power, Spirit, Deity, or in whatever other term the essence of Theism may have found expression, has become more indefinite and obscure in the course of time and progress. In other words, the God idea is growing more impersonal and nebulous in proportion as the human mind is learning to understand natural phenomena and in the degree that science progressively correlates human and social events.

          God, today, no longer represents the same forces as in the beginning of His existence; neither does He direct human destiny with the same Iron hand as of yore. Rather does the God idea express a sort of spiritualistic stimulus to satisfy the fads and fancies of every shade of human weakness. In the course of human development the God idea has been forced to adapt itself to every phase of human affairs, which is perfectly consistent with the origin of the idea itself.

          The conception of gods originated in fear and curiosity. Primitive man, unable to understand the phenomena of nature and harassed by them, saw in every terrifying manifestation some sinister force expressly directed against him; and as ignorance and fear are the parents of all superstition, the troubled fancy of primitive man wove the God idea.

          Very aptly, the world-renowned atheist and anarchist, Michael Bakunin, says in his great work God and the State:

"All religions, with their gods, their demi-gods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the prejudiced fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but the mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovered his own image, but enlarged and reversed -- that is divinized. The history of religions, of the birth, grandeur, and the decline of the gods who had succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. As fast as they discovered, in the course of their historically progressive advance, either in themselves or in external nature, a quality, or even any great defect whatever, they attributed it to their gods, after having exaggerated and enlarged it beyond measure, after the manner of children, by an act of their religious fancy. . . . With all due respect, then, to the metaphysicians and religious idealists, philosophers, politicians or poets: the idea of God implies the abdication of human reason and justice; it is the most decisive negation of human liberty, and necessarily ends in the enslavement of mankind, both in theory and practice."

Thus the God idea, revived, readjusted, and enlarged or narrowed, according to the necessity of the time, has dominated humanity and will continue to do so until man will raise his head to the sunlit day, unafraid and with an awakened will to himself. In proportion as man learns to realize himself and mold his own destiny theism becomes superfluous. How far man will be able to find his relation to his fellows will depend entirely upon how much he can outgrow his dependence upon God.

The Decline of Theism in the Modern World

Already there are indications that theism, which is the theory of speculation, is being replaced by Atheism, the science of demonstration; the one hangs in the metaphysical clouds of the Beyond, while the other has its roots firmly in the soil. It is the earth, not heaven, which man must rescue if he is truly to be saved.

          The decline of theism is a most interesting spectacle, especially as manifested in the anxiety of the theists, whatever their particular brand. They realize, much to their distress, that the masses are growing daily more atheistic, more anti-religious; that they are quite willing to leave the Great Beyond and its heavenly domain to the angels and sparrows; because more and more the masses are becoming engrossed in the problems of their immediate existence.

          How to bring the masses back to the God idea, the spirit, the First Cause, etc. - that is the most pressing question to all theists. Metaphysical as all these questions seem to be, they yet have a very marked physical background. Inasmuch as religion, "Divine Truth," rewards and punishments are the trade-marks of the largest, the most corrupt and pernicious, the most powerful and lucrative industry in the world, not excepting the industry of manufacturing guns and munitions. It is the industry of befogging the human mind and stifling the human heart. Necessity knows no law; hence the majority of theists are compelled to take up every subject, even if it has no bearing upon a deity or revelation or the Great Beyond. Perhaps they sense the fact that humanity is growing weary of the hundred and one brands of God.

Religion as an Industry of Social Control

How to raise this dead level of theistic belief is really a matter of life and death for all denominations. Therefore their tolerance; but it is a tolerance not of understanding; but of weakness. Perhaps that explains the efforts fostered in all religious publications to combine variegated religious philosophies and conflicting theistic theories into one denominational trust. More and more, the various concepts "of the only tree God, the only pure spirit, -- the only true religion" are tolerantly glossed over in the frantic effort to establish a common ground to rescue the modern mass from the "pernicious" influence of atheistic ideas.

          It is characteristic of theistic "tolerance" that no one really cares what the people believe in, just so they believe or pretend to believe. To accomplish this end, the crudest and vulgarest methods are being used. Religious endeavor meetings and revivals with Billy Sunday as their champion -methods which must outrage every refined sense, and which in their effect upon the ignorant and curious often tend to create a mild state of insanity not infrequently coupled with eroto-mania. All these frantic efforts find approval and support from the earthly powers; from the Russian despot to the American President; from Rockefeller and Wanamaker down to the pettiest business man. They blow that capital invested in Billy Sunday, the Y.M.C.A., Christian Science, and various other religious institutions will return enormous profits from the subdued, tamed, and dull masses.

          Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell; reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment. The truth is that theism would have lost its footing long before this but for the combined support of Mammon and power. How thoroughly bankrupt it really is, is being demonstrated in the trenches and battlefields of Europe today.

The Bankruptcy of the God‑Idea

Have not all theists painted their Deity as the god of love and goodness? Yet after thousands of years of such preachments the gods remain deaf to the agony of the human race. Confucius cares not for the poverty, squalor and misery of people of China. Buddha remains undisturbed in his philosophical indifference to the famine and starvation of outraged Hindus; Jahveh continues deaf to the bitter cry of Israel; while Jesus refuses to rise from the dead against his Christians who are butchering each other.

          The burden of all song and praise "unto the Highest" has been that God stands for justice and mercy. Yet injustice among men is ever on the increase; the outrages committed against the masses in this country alone would seem enough to overflow the very heavens. But where are the gods to make an end to all these horrors, these wrongs, this inhumanity to man? No, not the gods, but MAN must rise in his mighty wrath. He, deceived by all the deities, betrayed by their emissaries, he, himself, must undertake to usher in justice upon the earth.

          The philosophy of Atheism expresses the expansion and growth of the human mind. The philosophy of theism, if we can call it philosophy, is static and fixed. Even the mere attempt to pierce these mysteries represents, from the theistic point of view, non-belief in the all-embracing omnipotence, and even a denial of the wisdom of the divine powers outside of man. Fortunately, however, the human mind never was, and never can be, bound by fixities. Hence it is forging ahead in its restless march towards knowledge and life. The human mind is realizing "that the universe is not the result of a creative fiat by some divine intelligence, out of nothing, producing a masterpiece chaotic in perfect operation," but that it is the product of chaotic forces operating through aeons of time, of clashes and cataclysms, of repulsion and attraction crystallizing through the principle of selection into what the theists call, "the universe guided into order and beauty." As Joseph McCabe well points out in his Existence of God: "a law of nature is not a formula drawn up by a legislator, but a mere summary of the observed facts -- a 'bundle of facts.' Things do not act in a particular way because there is a law, but we state the 'law' because they act in that way."

Atheism as the Affirmation of Human Freedom

The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

          It may seem a wild paradox, and yet it is pathetically true, that this real, visible world and our life should have been so long under the influence of metaphysical speculation, rather than of physical demonstrable forces. Under the lash of the theistic idea, this earth has served no other purpose than as a temporary station to test man's capacity for immolation to the will of God. But the moment man attempted to ascertain the nature of that will, he was told that it was utterly futile for "finite human intelligence" to get beyond the all-powerful infinite will. Under the terrific weight of this omnipotence, man has been bowed into the dust -- a will less creature, broken and sweating in the dark. The triumph of the philosophy of Atheism is to free man from the nightmare of gods; it means the dissolution of the phantoms of the beyond. Again and again the light of reason has dispelled the theistic nightmare, but poverty, misery and fear have recreated the phantoms -- though whether old or new, whatever their external form, they differed little in their essence. Atheism, on the other hand, in its philosophic aspect refuses allegiance not merely to a definite concept of God, but it refuses all servitude to the God idea, and opposes the theistic principle as such. Gods in their individual function are not half as pernicious as the principle of theism which represents the belief in a supernatural, or even omnipotent, power to rule the earth and man upon it. It is the absolutism of theism, its pernicious influence upon humanity, its paralyzing effect upon thought and action, which Atheism is fighting with all its power.

          The philosophy of Atheism has its root in the earth, in this life; its aim is the emancipation of the human race from all God-heads, be they Judaic, Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhistic, Brahministic, or what not. Mankind has been punished long and heavily for having created its gods; nothing but pain and persecution have been man's lot since gods began. There is but one way out of this blunder: Man must break his fetters which have chained him to the gates of heaven and hell, so that he can begin to fashion out of his reawakened and illumined consciousness a new world upon earth.

          Only after the triumph of the Atheistic philosophy in the minds and hearts of man will freedom and beauty be realized. Beauty as a gift from heaven has proved useless. It will, however, become the essence and impetus of life when man learns to see in the earth the only heaven fit for man. Atheism is already helping to free man from his dependence upon punishment and reward as the heavenly bargain- counter for the poor in spirit.

          Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self- righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always the godless ones: the Atheists; they lived, fought, and died for them. They knew that justice, truth, and fidelity are not, conditioned in heaven, but that they are related to and interwoven with the tremendous changes going on in the social and material life of the human race; not fixed and eternal, but fluctuating, even as life itself. To what heights the philosophy of Atheism may yet attain, no one can prophesy. But this much can already be predicted: only by its regenerating fire will human relations be purged from the horrors of the past

          Thoughtful people are beginning to realize that moral precepts, imposed upon humanity through religious terror, have become stereotyped and have therefore lost all vitality. A glance at life today, at its disintegrating character, its conflicting interests with their hatreds, crimes, and greed, suffices to prove the sterility of theistic morality.

          Man must get back to himself before he can learn his relation to his fellows. Prometheus chained to the Rock of Ages is doomed to remain the prey of the vultures of darkness. Unbind Prometheus, and you dispel the night and its horrors.

          Atheism in its negation of gods is at the same time the strongest affirmation of man, and through man, the eternal yea to life, purpose, and beauty.

Source: Emma Goldman, "The Failure of Christianity." Mother Earth, Vol. 8.2, April 1913; "The Philosophy of Atheism." Mother Earth. Vol. 10.12, February 1916, adapted.

 

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CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN:

RELIGION AS SOCIAL MOTHERHOOD

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, into a once‑prominent New England family that had fallen into financial difficulty, her father leaving when she was still a child. Raised largely by her mother and a network of aunts that included the reformers Harriet Beecher Stowe and Isabella Beecher Hooker, she received only sporadic formal schooling but developed strong interests in reading, design, and social reform. In 1884 she married the artist Charles Walter Stetson, a union that quickly became strained as she struggled with severe postpartum depression—an experience she later transformed into her famous short story The Yellow Wall‑Paper (1892). After separating from Stetson and moving to California, she became increasingly active as a lecturer and writer on women's economic and social conditions, publishing Women and Economics (1898), the book that established her as a leading feminist theorist of her generation. Over the next three decades she wrote prolifically—essays, fiction, poetry, and social commentary—and edited her own magazine, The Forerunner. She spent her later years in New York and then Pasadena, continuing to write until her death in 1935 at the age of 75. The selections below are from His Religion and Hers (1923).

          In this opening section, Gilman argues that the human race continues to suffer under perverted social conditions because religion remains held down by its primitive preoccupation with death and the afterlife rather than applying itself to the improvement of actual life. In the second section, she argues that our obsessive desire for an individual afterlife makes us dangerously short-sighted and indifferent to the actual, long-term future of human generations on earth. She urges that shifting religious focus to our shared earthly future would establish a collective social responsibility, compelling both public opinion and governments to protect and improve the world for the children who inherit it. In the third section, Gilman argues that theology as we have it today is built upon the death-complex held prehistoric men, whose main occupations were hunting and warfare. Primitive women, by contrast, were inspired by the miracle of giving life through birth. Consequently, death-based religions encourage a posture of "posthumous egotism" that focused entirely on personal salvation in an unknown future world. Birth-based religions, though, cultivate an immediate altruism that demands love, labor, and practical care for the child in the present world. While a death-obsessed faith relies on speculative beliefs to secure individual survival, a birth-centered faith emphasizes the immortality of the continuous human race and treats each newborn as a fresh opportunity for social improvement.

          In the fourth section, Gilman argues that male property ownership and male enforcement of female chastity have distorted human sexuality. This has created long-lasting behavioral perversions and social inhibitions that religion historically failed to correct, and even legitimized. In the fifth section, Gilman argues that our primitive ideas of a distant and masculine deity leave humanity confused by real-world suffering. She contrasts this with the unique experience of women most evident in the domestic activities of primitive mothers. They tended crops, made pottery, educated children, which saw life as a continuously improving force. As such, a woman's mind naturally arrives at a concept of God defined as the ultimate creator, mother, and teacher behind an ever-improving universe. In the sixth section, Gilman argues that transitioning to a maternal, life-based faith shifts social economics away from a competitive mindset of "getting" toward an altruistic model of "giving." She argues that maternal labor is rooted in love and service, transforming work from a primitive curse or a violent struggle into a joyful, natural expression of human energy. Furthermore, Gilman holds that once women are freed from artificial subordination, they will help maintain global peace and end the competitive warfare inherent in a wholly male-dominated world. She calls on humanity to stop abandoning the earth for an imagined heaven and to instead use these nurturing tendencies to manage the entire world as our collective, well-kept home.

          In the final section, Gilman argues that a life-based religion does not contradict past spiritual truths. Instead, it demands that we see evolution as growth, not combat, and recognize that our chief duty is conscious social development. Real human progress, she argues, requires viewing God as an internal life-force that is expressed through human behavior. This is not an external deity to be passively worshipped. This will elevate woman from a domestic subordinate to man's equal partner, and shift the male role to a collaborative assistant in the maternal work of lifting life. Accordingly, we act to secure the welfare of children, and build a world that values collective growth over individual salvation.

THE DEATH-BASED VERSUS BIRTH-BASED ORIGINS OF RELIGION (from His Religion and Hers, 1923)

The Primitive Preoccupation with Death (Preface)

The human race has overcome most natural obstacles to its development. Insects and disease germs are our only extra-human enemies worth mentioning. Yet we still starve, suffer, and sin, and lead stunted, perverted lives—under no natural compulsion, merely owing to our own behavior.

          Religion is the strongest modifying influence in our conscious behavior. It expresses our highest instincts, and serves, or should serve, our best advancement. Yet the religions of mankind, so far, are responsible for much evil as well as good, and the best we know have only brought us to our present state.

          Women, as the race type, through the immeasurable power of social motherhood, should long since have developed a race far more intelligent, efficient, and well organized, living naturally at a much higher level of social progress.

          Yet women, even in countries where artificial obstacles have been removed, show few signs of appreciating the needs of the world, or their ability and responsibility for setting it right.

          And religion, though in some instances developed far beyond its earlier limitations, is still held down by its primitive preoccupation with death and after-death, still fails in its application to life. Our last great backsliding into warfare [i.e., World War I] has failed to stir us to wiser living, only rousing anew that ancient fever of misplaced anxiety—death, death; and where is the dead man?

          This book offers some light on certain artificial conditions that injure human life, and suggest a few changes that will improve it.

The Afterlife versus the Earthly Future (Chapter 2)

We were told that heaven was our home, to be sure, and in truth it was shown most desirably contrasted with the alternative, but little eloquence was spent in depicting its allurements compared with the fervid orations on the terrors of hell.

          Times change; habits change; even human nature, usually advanced as the type of immutability, changes, and with these have changed our precise ideas about the still-desired beyond. On what, as a matter of fact do these ideas depend? On three sources—revelation, imagination, and information, all of which vary. Every religion has its revelations, and even within a religion revelations do not always agree. . . .

          Imagination has had a greater share in our general beliefs about the beyond than we are commonly aware. Dante and Milton are responsible for most of our views on the subject. The fluent sermonizer and pious hymn-maker have added their contributions. Many of our popular beliefs find their only base in these imaginings.

          Then comes information, at present the most accepted source. During all the ages, under the heaviest pressure of revealed religion and in spite of the best efforts of imagination, we have always been intrigued by the idea of direct communication with some one who had been there. So many went,—all of us, in fact, as time passed,— it did seem as if they might get word to us. Never has this feeling been stronger than now. Revelation does not bind as it did, imagination is too easy; we want the facts from eye-witnesses. . . .

          Perhaps the other-life future is more attractive to us because it is more easily attained. One may be helped in. Methods vary according to different faiths, but most of them are elastic. A person may "sin" in some ways and make up for it in others; or, no matter how much a sinner, he may be forgiven at the last minute, and find his future unimpaired by his behavior. Not so here.

          The earthly future, bright though it shines as something within our power to make, has its gloomy side. There is no "forgiveness" in the transmission of sins from father to son. The erring father, spiritually forgiven, may live in heaven as happy as a grig, but the innocent child, inheriting the future his father made, lives on earth in misery. We are so long-sighted in our passionate desire for an eternal existence in the other life, so short-sighted in our indifference to the really respectable number of millions of years before us in this one!

          If only religion could be brought to take an interest in this earthly future, what a help it would be! Think of the hymns chanting tunefully of the beautiful life just before us, so easily ours to make. Think of the pulpit eloquence, painting in words of penetrating force our splendid, never-ending opportunity to make our future life on earth worthy of the God we believe in. Think of the appeal to the less spiritual of us, to those who never did get enthusiastic about eternity, or care so tenderly about their own souls, yet who could rise to the thought of improving this world for the children they love, and their children after them.

          Then too, if this view were taken up by religion, it might affect public opinion, and perhaps, in time, the law. Even governments held to such a standard would be kept more strictly to the path of far-sighted economy and steady provision for the public good.

          Private', one's future in the other life is one's personal affair.

          Publicly, our common future in this life is our common affair, a social responsibility. Little care we for that, as yet. Our general attitude is that of the pessimistic Preacher before quoted:

          Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

Death-Based vs. Birth-Based Religions (Chapter 3)

The Christian religion has been taught for about twenty centuries, but it has not established connection with life. Its revivalists still make their passionate appeal on a basis of what is to happen to us after death.

          How are we to account for this peculiar trend of the human mind? What influence, during the slow ages when religious thought was dawning among us, turned it away from all the vivid actualities of this world, to the glittering or terrible possibilities of another?

          The death-basis for religion is so old, so deep, that we must look for its cause in our earliest beginnings, in that long, dark period of savagery which covers so extensive a proportion of human existence.

          It has been pointed out that thought was roused in the primitive mind by the crises in life, rather than by regularly recurring events. A sunset would be as awful as an eclipse if it occurred as rarely.

          "What was the principal crisis in the life of primitive men?

          Their occupation was in hunting and fighting. They lived mainly by killing other animals, either to eat or to avoid being eaten, and in addition to these indispensable activities they varied the excitement by killing one another. After the slow, patient hours of tracking, of lying in wait, - the strenuous pursuit, the fierce combat, came the climax—death. —

          Death was the event, the purpose of his efforts, the success, the glory. If he was the dead one, we cannot follow further; but if he triumphed and saw his "kill" before him, here was cause for thought. The death-crisis, coming as the crashing climax to the most intense activity, naturally focused his attention on the strange result. Here was something which had been alive and was dead; what had happened to it? The creature which had fled so swiftly or struggled so violently had now stopped. It didn't go any more. The body was there as before, but something had gone from it. What was it? Where had it gone? The mind of the killer pitched forward, as it were, along the road of the spirit which had fled.

          Here we have a simple, an obvious explanation of our early interest in death. Life meanwhile went on as unconsciously with us as with any other animal. Why should we think about that? But death was something to celebrate, to be followed by feasting and rejoicing, something which redounded to the glory of the killer, who draped himself with scalps and bears' claws, trophies of conquest. . . .

          However unpleasant a dead man may be, he is certainly harmless, save, indeed, for later results on the health of the living; and ghosts, as far as recorded, do not bite. It is hard to account for that peculiar sinking terror which the low-grade mentality feels of such phenomena, unless we recognize it as the well-known paralyzing fear felt in nightmares. To this day the nightmaredreams of childhood are often dominated by savage beasts—man's earliest dread and danger.

          Since we know that the savage period of our race life was by far the longest part of it, it is easy to see how deep and strong became the death-complex in the primitive mind. By the time that definite religious ideas could be formulated, their direction was irrevocably determined. No small effort will be required in the mind of to-day to change that direction.

          Dreams called for interpretation, and there arose interpreters. In the interpretation of dreams and in speculations about death, the active, empty mind of the early medicine-man was in no way hampered by facts. Along both these avenues the busy brain could course like a hare, could go as far as it liked in any direction. There was nothing to stop it. . . .

          If we are to trace our engrossing interest in death to the constant fighting and killing of early man, to the fact that death was the crisis in his activities, the significant event; rousing him to thought, what other interest are we to look for in the life of woman? What crisis set her mind at work, and what would have been its influence on religion?

          The business of primitive woman was to work and to bear children. Her work was regular and repetitive; save for the gradual budding of invention and blossoming of decoration, it had no climax. 'There was small excitement in this, no thrilling event.

          Yet her life held one crisis more impressive, more arousing, far, than man's; her glory was in giving life, not in taking it. To her the miracle, the stimulus to thought, was birth.

          Had the religions of the world developed through her mind, they would have shown one deep, essential difference, the difference between birth and death. The man was interested in one end of life, she in the other. He was moved to faith, fear, and hope for the future; she to love and labor in the present.

          To the death-based religion the main question is, "What is going to happen to me after I am dead ?"—a posthumous egotism.

          To the birth-based religion the main question is, "'What must be done for the child who is born ?"—an immediate altruism.

          Woman was not given to bootless speculation as to where the new soul came from, because of the instant exigencies of its presence. It had come, indeed, but in a small and feeble state, utterly dependent on her love and service. With birth as the major crisis of life, awakening thought leads inevitably to that love and service, to defense and care and teaching, to all the labors that maintain and improve life.

          The death-based religions have led to a limitless individualism, a demand for the eternal extension of personality. Such good conduct as they required was to placate the deity or to benefit one's self—to "acquire merit," as the Buddhist frankly puts it. The birth-based religion is necessarily and essentially altruistic, a forgetting of oneself for the good of the child, and tends to develop naturally into love and labor for the widening range of family, state, and world. The first leads our thoughts away from this world about which we know something, into another world about which we know nothing. The first is something to be believed. The second is something to be done. . . .

          How different when birth is the great event! Instead of grief and mourning, there are joy and triumph. Instead of a precarious "memory,"' there is an assured hope. Instead of boundless discussion, swift, well-founded action for the good of the growing thing, for the good of the world.

          The primitive woman would have felt only "the maternal instincts,' like any other animal. Even now—so thoroughly has woman's development been arrested—to most women motherhood is only a personal affair. But had she been free to broaden and deepen in humanity, she would have grasped the broader implications of her great work. As a conscious human being of today she may see her distinctive process in its true nature, the constant evidence of race immortality.

          Whatever may happen to us individually, after death, the race does not die. It goes on, well, strong, wise, happy, rich, and progressive; or sick, weak, foolish, miserable, poor, and reactionary, according to what previous individuals have done while alive.

          Birth is the most important event we know. It is the ceaseless, visible re-creation of an undying race. Through it we see humanity as a growing, continuous thing, coming into our hands fresh and plastic, open to unmeasured improvement or to degradation and decay, according to the circumstances with which we surround it.

          Birth-based religion would steadily hold before our eyes the vision of a splendid race, the duty of upbuilding it. It would tell no story of old sins, of anguish and despair, of passionate pleading for forgiveness for the mischief we have made, but would offer always the sunrise of a fresh hope: 'Here isanewbaby. Begin again!"

          To the mother comes the apprehension of God as something coming; she sees his work, the newborn child, as visibly unfinished and calling for continuous service. The first festival of her religion would be the Birth Day, with gifts and rejoicings, with glad thanksgiving for life. In the man's religion, the demand for ever-watching love and care, is that of the child, always turning to its mother—

          An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.

THE CULTURAL DISTORTION OF GENDER AND GOD

Patriarchal Double Standards and Social Inhibitions (Chapter 4)

. . . Following man's early assumption that he alone was the life-giver, and his holding of name and property in the male line, there arose his demand for chastity, first in the wife, later in the girl before marriage. The demand was enforced by most violent penalties, and religion, always on his side, added its supreme commands. So strong and continuous was the pressure that chastity soon became the main virtue required of women, and we have the amazing spectacle of a race of animals in which a tendency was strenuously cultivated in one sex and its indulgence forbidden to the other. It is such paradoxical treatment which has complicated this department of our behavior with perversities and inhibitions. Since the morbid developments of sex in the human race cry to heaven, and since the minds of men do not yet recognize that their attitude is the wrong one, we see now advanced the theory that it is repression which ails us, and that all that is needed to restore us to normality is for women to go as far wrong as men.

The Maternal Path to the Concept of God (Chapter 13)

Only recently, and as yet only in the minds of a very few, have we learned to think of human life as a continuous, moving thing. Most of us still see humanity merely as a great many people, and history as a collection of reigns and battles.

          When we speak of religion as modified by women, the reader promptly visualizes the women he sees today, and feels small confidence in any benefit resultant from their influence. Any general knowledge of the world's literature shows how low an opinion men have had of women, and some men are still Si sega in maintaining the ancient view.

          Even those modern protagonists of women whom we call "feminists" find some difficulty in proving equality; much more, superiority, in women, as we know them. These poor little slouchy creatures, painting their cheeks and powdering their noses, fluttering before our eyes as willing exponents of every passing fashion, adopting male vices, and so unutterably traitorous to the essential glory of their own sex as willingly to forego motherhood in order to share the barren pleasures of the other—are these the women from whose influence we are to expect a higher religion?

          Most certainly they are not. But these are not Women. 'These are really more worthy of that absurd title with which men have tried to discredit the progressive women of our times—"the third sex." If we look again at the original relation, follow again its normal development, we shall see but too clearly how abnormal, how pathetic, how ridiculous is such sad degradation of womanhood. . . .

          Our primitive ideas of God, which we insist on maintaining as immovably as possible, have left us in strange difficulties as to human trouble. To a personalized and masculized deity we attributed all knowledge and all power; to ourselves we attributed nothing but "poor human nature"; and then, having to face the obvious miseries of life, the explanation was sought in some "inscrutable" purpose of God or in some malicious anti-god of awful power. Of late years the somewhat clearer and less reverent mind of man has postulated a god good enough as far as he went but incomplete; a young half-grown deity, doing his best with his world, and likely to improve.

          But thought of God aroused by birth leads along a different road, to a different conclusion. The primitive woman had no more knowledge than the primitive man, but she had impulses and feelings quite other than his, and utterly different experiences. Early religion was not built on knowledge but on impulses, feelings, and experiences.

          From hers would naturally arise such thoughts as these:

          "Here is Life. It comes in installments, not all at once. The old ones die, the new ones come. 'They do not come ready-made; they are not finished, they have to be taken care of. It is a pleasure to take care of them, to make new people. Everywhere we see the same process, motherhood carrying on life. The mother tree has seeds which make new trees, the mother birds lay eggs which make new birds, the mother beast brings forth her little one to take her place in time and carry on the line. . . .

          "What a wonderful thing is Life! Life everlasting, going on continuously, in steps, the ever-coming new ones taking the place of the old worn-out ones—how beautiful! And we cannot stop it if we would; nothing stops it; after the flood has fallen, after the ice is melted, after the forest fire has burnt out, year after year when winter is over, rises Life, always young, re-born —how glorious! . . .

          "This grain is large and fine, it grows best in this kind of soil, I will pull out the other things around so that it will grow better. I will get some more and plant it here where it grows best. . . . This seed which I planted and took care of is better than what grew without help. I can make things better by taking care of them. . .

          "I have taught my child all I knew. He is wiser than that other whose mother died; who grew up, indeed, but is not so wise. Teaching is a help in living. Care and teaching makes things better. . . .

          "I can make things! I can make pots of clay. I can make baskets of reeds. I can make clothes of skins. I can build a shelter for my little ones. I can soften food with fire—it keeps longer if it is cooked. . .

          "Not only can I make things but I can make them beautiful! With colors, with stitches, with lines on the soft clay, with patterns in the woven reeds, I can make beauty! Beauty! What a pleasure it is to be skillful and make things, and to make them beautiful! I will teach my daughter. . . .

          "She has thought of a new pattern, more beautiful than mine. Ah! Life is not only in the animals: it is in the things we make; they grow too! Life, always coming, through motherhood, always growing, always improving through care and teaching! And this new product of life—not babies but things, useful things, made beautiful—what a joy life is! . . .

          "What does it all? What is behind it all? Who is the first Mother, Teacher, Server, Maker? What Power under all this pouring flood of Life? What Love behind this ceaseless mother-love? What Goodness to make Life so good, so full of growing joy?" . . .

          Thus would the woman's mind have reached the thought of God.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL MANIFESTATION OF A LIFE-BASED FAITH

Restructuring Economics from Getting to Giving

I have indicated something of the kind of faith which is aroused through conscious motherhood, a faith resting firmly on the laws of nature, seeing God work through them. What lines of action would naturally follow? In what way would they differ from the action encouraged 'by previous beliefs? _ Primarily and essentially they differ in agreeing with natural impulse instead of undertaking a permanent struggle with it. The natural impulses of motherhood are altruistic in origin, and so tend to develop. 'The services of motherhood are immediately useful, and tend to become increasingly so. Therefore the growth of conduct would lead on into wider social coordination, without having to struggle with inner impulses That group of impulses which, originally normal and useful, have become so injurious to social growth through long over-development, do not so operate through the mother. Free from the agony of fear, the weight of a looming sense of evil, the constant difficulty of struggling against one's own desires, motherhood's beneficent activities tend to widen into rich and peaceful social relationships. The effect of such a maternal faith, and such natural lines of conduct, upon social economics is clear.  . . .

          Absolutely opposite to it is the real source of human work, the love and service of the mother. She works, not to get but to give. She gives, not as a reward but in order to promote growth. From her natural tendencies the applied labor of the world would have been seen, first as a natural expression of energy, secondly as a pleasure in the doing, and thirdly as an increasing benefit to the human race.  . . .

So the women of the world, once they realize that their nature is more human than man's, that all this fighting is the result not of human nature but of sex nature, will be able to exercise an unmeasured influence to maintain peace. No peace can ever be maintained in a wholly male world. No war could ever endure for long in a world of equal men and women. But this means real women, normal women, with brother, husband, and son who are normal men.  . . .

          The new premises for our religious thought will as inevitably lead to right conduct as the old premises have led to wrong. Where the older religions left life on earth neglected, the new will find its place of action here. Where the old saw human labor as a curse, the new will find in it joyful and natural expression of power. Where the old demanded belief in the unprovable and supernatural, the new will develop understanding of clear natural law. Where the old issued commands, the new will show cause and effect. Where the old drove the unwilling by threats of punishment, or lured them by promise of reward, the new will cultivate the natural powers which lead and push us on. Where the old saw life as evil and humanity as a broken, feeble thing, the new will see life as a glory, and humanity as its highest crown, rich with untested powers.

          Our old position, based on a misplaced relationship and buttressed by religions so derived, makes of this world a place where a pitifully limited motherhood, itself debased and warped by long misuse, still does its best in love and serv-° ice for the child, at home. This child, when grown, must go out into a world which is not a home but a race-course, a fighting-ring with neither ropes nor rules save the always belated struggles of the law, and what we proudly call "the stern arbitrament of the sword.' This world is virtually deserted by religion, and shows it. We have been taught how to "'renounce the world,'"' and, in various forms of charitable effort, how to assuage its pains somewhat, but not told how to manage it so that it shall be a credit to us and a lovely place to live in.

          To the mother's mind this is a self-evident duty—at home. She teaches and practises, as far as she is able, the pleasant virtues and mingled services which make us find "'home'' the sweetest word we know, and feelingly add, "What is home without a mother?" Precisely the tendencies so working at home will work in the world when this wide, sweeping flood of new conviction shows women at last their long-neglected duty in our common home, the world. . . .

Social Evolution and the True Expression of God (Chapter 15)

. . . The "newness" of religion here discussed does not involve any contradiction of the previous truths taught in past ages. It does involve the discarding of various beliefs, and the apprehension of some new ones. The new ones offered are not strange to any well-informed modern mind: that evolution means growth, not mere combat; that the human race is young and growing and open to measureless improvement; that the female is the race type and her natural impulses are more in accordance with the laws of growth than those of the male; that the race lives immortally on earth, re-created through birth, and so, through love and service, may rise continually; that social development as a conscious process is our chief duty; that God is the Life within us, the Life of the world, to be worshiped in fruition; that religion is the strongest help in modifying our conscious behavior, but that it cannot so help in social evolution without teaching these truths. . . .

          It has been possible for the minds of men to "believe" in Jesus and keep on fighting just the same. Women, so believing, became submissive and obedient. Christianity has been an invaluable religion for women and slaves, as Nietzsche has so violently shown, but this does not carry the reproach he intended. The women and the slaves were higher human types by far than that apotheosis of the male, the "great blond beast" he so extolled. . . .

          Before those who wish to preach the life-based religion three wide fields are open. There are the "doctrines," large, reliable, provable truths, bringing boundless hope as well as peace and comfort. There are the explanations, applying these truths to show us what has made our troubles in the past and will make our joy in the future. And there is the great new province of social research, now beginning to be studied, that we may learn how most safely, surely, and rapidly to help the world.  . . .

          If we can assume any large group of people as affected strongly by this new attitude in religion, or scattered small groups here and there, what conduct should be urged upon them? In what respects would it differ from that now practised by progressive thinkers in any religion?

          In many respects it would not differ. Every legitimate step toward race-improvement already started could be pushed forward with new hope and new vigor. The world about us is sprouting like a garden in the spring, with all manner of undertakings which tend to help us on. But these, at present, are jumbled without proportion or relation, earnest persons pushing their favored benefit or reform beside or against others, with small knowledge of what it is they are trying to improve. . . .

          While those who are strongest in study, or in teaching, set themselves to learn the next steps forward, those who prefer action need be at no loss. Whatever lingering ideas of the advantages of difficulty and pain still confuse our minds as to grown men, there is no confusion as to the needs of children. Every step known to improve the health, beauty, intelligence, and right growth of children may be undertaken at once with full assurance of right doing; and every condition which harms them should be at once removed. . . .

          Missionaries the world over find it easier to teach the A, B, C's of their religion to people of some other religion, or without any, than they do to carry out their own religion in their own country.

          The life-based kind works differently. Religion is not a private affair. "Believing" it is of no consequence whatever, unless it is applied, and its application requires the continuous behavior of all people for as long as the race endures. . . .

          It is to social relationship that the life-based religion brings a vital change. By the new alignment, the new attitude of humanity toward God, of men toward women, of women toward men, of both toward the child, of the child toward them, and of every one of us toward society, we attain a position which allows free transmission of power.

          Seeing God as within us, to be expressed, instead of above us, to be worshipped, is enough to change heaven and earth in our minds, and gradually to bring heaven on earth by our actions. Seeing human life as one unbroken line, visibly immortal, readily improvable, takes off the weight of discouraged ages, sets us on the broad, bright upward road. No strait and narrow path, like a turnstile into a park, to squeeze — into heaven by,—each for himself and the devil take the hindmost,—but an open way, always broadening as we grow, up which we can help one another. _ Men will hold all that they have gained, be praised for all the great, good things that they have done, stand foremost as world-servants for generations yet, but they will learn another view of sex: "As a human I stand highest of all life on earth, a member of society; as a male I am to assist the female in her great work of lifting life." The new view of God brings a sense of boundless hope and power; so the new view of woman will change life utterly. Man will see her not as "his" but as a fellow-creature, strong, noble, free, competent in social service. The domestic subordinate, the too-concentrated and servile wife and mother will rise and rise in his mind, to her true place, a wife far more a friend, a mother not measured by devotion to one's self but as the chief channel of social improvement. Women will change still more. They have farther to go, and the widening life before them is as an open garden after a closed room. In their hearts will rise the new sense of God, the new measurement of men, the new duty to the world. . . .

          Each of us, once grasping the full sense of a God that works, of our natural relationship to that power being simply fulfilment, the carrying out of our natural race-development, may draw a long breath and take hold in earnest. Such 'power is not "angry." One does not have to apologize to God for every foolishness, any more than a tree apologizes to the sun for worm-eaten apples. . . .

          Happiness is fulfilment of function. It is conscious transmission of power. It is the expression of God. It belongs to humanity in a higher degree than to any soaring lark, because we are able to express more God more fully than any other creature.

          After a little, a few centuries or so, when we have cleared off all the rubbish from our minds; when the practical lifting of the world is well under way; when health is universal and all of us at the work we love best; when general education has given to every mind its background of common knowledge, its foreground of common hope, then the child's instinct for happiness will be fulfilled.

          A glorious ritual of such triumphant religion would be in the glad welcome of each new day. Unwearied people, rising from full sleep, plunging into clean water, clothed in fair apparel, greeting the sun with song. As the advancing wave of sunrise rolled round the earth, so would the advancing wave of music, giving to every soul fresh joy, fresh hope, fresh power.

Source: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers. New York and London, The Century Co. 1923, adapted.

 

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions.

1. According to Stanton in "Religion for Women and Children," how does traditional religion function as a "police institution" that harms women, children, and the working classes?

2. According to Stanton in "Religion for Women and Children," why are fear-based doctrines like hell and eternal damnation particularly damaging to the psychological well-being of women and children?

3. According to Stanton in "The Worship of God in Man," how does her proposed "religion of humanity" locate the divine within human achievements and moral capacity?

4. According to Stanton in The Woman's Bible, why is it necessary for women to critically reinterpret Scripture rather than relying on male clerical authority?

5. According to Goldman in "The Failure of Christianity," why does she view Christian morality as a "slave morality" that promotes passive submission and impedes social liberation?

6. According to Goldman in "The Failure of Christianity," how do the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount glorify poverty and weakness to the benefit of political and economic rulers?

7. According to Goldman in "The Philosophy of Atheism," how did the "God-idea" originate from primitive fear and ignorance, and why does modern science render it obsolete?

8. According to Goldman in "The Philosophy of Atheism," why is atheism a positive affirmation of human freedom, dignity, and earthly responsibility?

9. According to Gilman in His Religion and Hers, how did primitive men’s focus on hunting and warfare give rise to a "death-based" religion centered on posthumous egotism?

10. According to Gilman in His Religion and Hers, how does a "birth-based" religion derived from women’s experiences shift the focus of faith toward immediate altruism and race improvement?

11. According to Gilman in His Religion and Hers, how have male property ownership and the enforcement of female chastity distorted human sexuality and social behavior?

12. According to Gilman in His Religion and Hers, how does a maternal, life-based faith transform the economic concept of labor from "getting" to "giving"?

13. According to Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman, how do their respective critiques of traditional Christian theology agree on its role in perpetuating female subordination?

14. According to Stanton and Gilman, how do their proposals for reconstructing religion around human welfare and social motherhood differ from Goldman's complete rejection of religion?

15. According to Goldman and Gilman, how do their views on the origin of the "God-idea" compare regarding primitive human psychology?

16. According to Stanton and Goldman, how do their critiques of the Christian doctrine of reward and punishment in the afterlife align?

17. According to Gilman and Stanton, how do their visions of social progress redefine the role of women from domestic subordinates to leaders in race development?

18. According to Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman, how do their methods of evaluating religion differ from the abstract metaphysical approaches of male philosophers of religion in their era?

19. According to Goldman and Gilman, how do their perspectives on human nature and moral responsibility contrast regarding the necessity of a religious framework?

20. According to Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman, how do their writings collectively establish a foundational baseline for modern feminist critiques of religious authority?

21. Short Essay Options: Please select one of the following and answer it in a minimum of 100 words.

(a) Critics argue that Stanton’s revisionist approach in The Woman's Bible selectively ignores the historical and cultural context of biblical writings, reducing complex ancient literature to a simple tool of patriarchal oppression. How might Stanton respond?

(b) Critics argue that Stanton’s "religion of humanity" replaces divine authority with an overly optimistic view of human nature that ignores systemic human depravity and moral failure. How might Stanton respond?

(c) Critics argue that Goldman’s total rejection of Christianity dismisses the historical role of religious movements in championing social justice and abolition. How might Goldman respond?

(d) Critics argue that Goldman’s insistence on atheism as a prerequisite for freedom is dogmatic, failing to recognize that spiritual beliefs can inspire revolutionary action against tyranny. How might Goldman respond?

(e) Critics argue that Gilman’s essentialist distinction between "male death-based" and "female birth-based" religions relies on crude gender stereotypes that ignore the diverse experiences of both men and women. How might Gilman respond?

(f) Critics argue that Gilman’s focus on social motherhood reduces religion to a biological function, stripping faith of its transcendent meaning and spiritual depth. How might Gilman respond?

(g) Critics argue that late modern women critics like Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman replace established religious moral constraints with subjective secular ideals that lead to social disorder. How might any one of these thinkers respond?

(h) Critics argue that Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman evaluate religion solely through political and utilitarian metrics, failing to engage with traditional theological and philosophical arguments for God's existence. How might any one of these thinkers respond?

(i) Critics argue that Gilman’s vision of a maternal, life-based economy assumes an idealistic cooperation that is unfeasible in complex, competitive modern industrial societies. How might Gilman respond?

(j) Critics argue that the radical critiques of Stanton, Goldman, and Gilman ultimately failed to dismantle traditional religious institutions, showing that human societies inherently require supernatural faith. How might any one of these thinkers respond?