use is religion.

Why is religious intolerance so much more fierce and bitter than
political intolerance? Just because it _is_ religious. It is the
supernatural element that breeds the fury. It is the feeling that their
religion is divine and all other religions wicked: it is the belief that
it is a holy thing to be "jealous for the Lord," that drives men into
blind rage and ruthless savagery.

We have to regard two things at once, then: the good influences of
Christ's ethics, and the evil deeds of those who profess to be His
followers.

As to what some Christians call "the Christianity of Christ," I suggest
that the teachings of Christ were imperfect and inadequate. That they
contain some moral lessons I admit. But some of the finest and most
generally admired of those lessons do not appear to have been spoken
by Christ, and for the rest there is nothing in His ethics that had
not been taught by men before, and little that has not been extended or
improved by men since His era.

The New Testament, considered as a moral and spiritual guide for
mankind, is unsatisfactory. For it is based upon an erroneous estimate
of human nature and of God.

I am sure that it would be easy to compile a book more suitable to
the needs of Man. I think it is a gross blunder to assume that all the
genius, all the experience, all the discovery and research; all the
poetry, morality, and science of the entire human race during the past
eighteen hundred years have failed to add to or improve the knowledge
and morality of the first century.

Mixed with much that is questionable or erroneous, the New Testament
contains some truth and beauty. Amid the perpetration of much bloodshed
and tyranny, Christianity has certainly achieved some good. I should not
like to say of any religion that all its works were evil. But Christ's
message, as we have it in the Gospels, is neither clear nor sufficing,
and has been obscured, and, at times almost obliterated, by the pomps
and casuistries of the schools and churches. And just as it is difficult
to discover the actual Jesus among the conflicting Gospel stories of
His works and words, so it is almost impossible to discover the genuine
authentic Christian religion amid the swarm of more or less antagonistic
sects who confound the general ear with their discordant testimonies.

CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION

It is a common mistake of apologists to set down all general
improvements and signs o