Produced by The Freethought Archives, www.ftarchives.net
PRODUCTION NOTES:
An Apology for Atheism by Charles Southwell (1814-1860)
First published anonymously in 1846
Transcribed by the Freethought Archives, www.freethought.vze.com
AN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM:
ADDRESSED TORELIGIOUS INVESTIGATORS OF EVERY DENOMINATIONBY ONE OF ITS APOSTLES.
"Not one of you reflects, that you oughtknow your Gods before you worship them."
LONDON:J. WATSON, 5, PAUL'S ALLEY, PATERNOSTER ROW.AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1846
AN APOLOGY FOR ATHEISM
It would be absurd to doubt that religion has an important bearing onall the relations and conditions of life. The connexion betweenreligions faith and political practice is, in truth, far closer than isgenerally thought. Public opinion has not ripened into a knowledge thatreligious error is the intangible but real substratum of all politicalinjustice. Though the 'schoolmaster' has done much, there still remainand hold some away among us, many honest and energetic assertors of 'therights of man,' who have to learn that a people in the fetters ofsuperstition, can never achieve political freedom. Many of thesereformers admit the vast, the incalculable influence of Mahommedanism onthe politics of Constantinople, and yet persist in acting as ifChristianity had little or nothing to do with the politics of England.
At a recent meeting of the Anti-State Church Association it wasremarked, that 'throw what we would into the political cauldron, out itcame in an ecclesiastical shape'. If the newspaper report may be reliedon, there was much laughing among the hearers of those words, the deepmeaning of which it may safely be affirmed, only a select few of themcould fathom.
Hostility to state churches by no means implies a knowledge of the closeand important connection between ecclesiastical and political questions.Men may appreciate the justice of voluntaryism in religion, and yet haverather cloudy conceptions with respect to the influence of opinions andthings ecclesiastical on the condition of nations. They may clearly seethat he who needs the priest, should disdain to saddle others with thecost of him, while blind to the fact that no people having faith in thesupernatural ever failed to mix up such faith with political affairs.Even leading members of the 'Third Estate' are constantly declaringtheir disinclination for religious controversy, and express particularanxiety to keep their journals free of everything 'strictlytheological.' Their notion is, that newspaper writers should endeavourto keep clear of so 'awful' a topic. And yet seldom does a day pass inwhich this self-imposed editorial rule is not violated—a factsignificant as fact can be, of that connection between religion andpolitics the author thinks has been far too little regarded.
It is quite possible the editors of newspapers have weighty reasons fortheir repugnance to agitate the much vexed question of religion, but itseems they cannot help doing so. In a leading article of this day'sPost, [Endnote 4:1] we are told—'The stain and reproach of Romanismin Ireland is, that it is a political system, and a wicked politicalsystem, for it regards only the exercise of power, and neglects utterlythe duty of improvement.' In journals supported by Romanists, and ofcourse devoted to the interests of their church, the very same charge ismade against English Protestantism. To denounce each other's 'holyapostolic