Salvation from Christianity

This article consists of a compilation of excerpts from the writings of the 19th century Indian Theosophist Damodar K. Mavalankar. Damodar, born in 1857, was a gifted and deeply committed young man who was a chela (disciple) of the Master K.H. and a deeply devoted student and assistant of H. P. Blavatsky during the years she lived and laboured in India for the Theosophical Cause. In one of his letters to William Quan Judge, he wrote:

“About a month after I joined the Society I felt as it were a voice within myself whispering to me that Madam Blavatsky is not what she represents herself to be. It then assumed the form of a belief in me which grew so strong within a short time that four or five times I thought of throwing myself at her feet and beg her to reveal herself to me. But then I could not do so because I thought it would be useless, as I knew that I was quite impure and had led too bad a life to be trusted with that secret. I therefore remained silent with the consolation that she herself would confide the secret to me when she would find me worthy of it. I thought it must be some great Indian Adept that had assumed that illusionary form. But there a difficulty occurred to me. I knew that she received letters from her aunts and that she communicated with persons almost in every part of the globe. I could not therefore reconcile my belief, as I thought she would then have to practise the illusion all over the world. Various explanations suggested themselves to me except the right one. I was, however, right (as I have subsequently ascertained) in my original conception that she is some great Indian Adept.”

Of Damodar, HPB once wrote, “Damodar was ready from his last birth to enter the highest PATH and suspected it. He had long been waiting for the expected permission to go to Tibet [i.e. to live and study in person with the Masters of the Wisdom there] before the expiration of the seven years [i.e. of the probationary period of chelaship].”

Eventually, in 1885, his Adept Teacher called for him and, following the careful preparations and plans laid out for his journey by the Master K.H., Damodar made his way to the Himalayas. Although HPB and a few others heard from him after that time, he never returned to India but remained with the Masters. The full story is told – inasmuch as it can be told – in the book “Damodar and the Pioneers of the Theosophical Movement,” compiled and annotated by Sven Eek.

It is from that huge and fascinating book that the following passages are quoted, where they appear under the title of “The Failure and Narrow-Mindedness of Missions.” Sven Eek explains:

“Under the above general title, Damodar wrote a series of newspaper articles discussing the views of a Christian missionary, the Rev. Hume, who had come to India to save the heathens. Damodar accordingly signs himself “A Heathen.” The cultured classes in India resented the attempts of the missionaries to convert the adherents of the ancient religions of Aryavarta. Begun in The Bombay Gazette, the series was continued in The Philosophical Inquirer, published at Madras.”

This Rev. Hume should not be confused with Allan O. Hume, who was one of the original recipients of the letters from the Masters now known as “The Mahatma Letters.”

In his protracted dialogue with Hume, Damodar expertly and fearlessly raised many important points, not only in defence of the ancient philosophies of his beloved Mother India but also as a bold challenge to the theology, beliefs, and attitudes of the Christians.

Although many Christians like to imply that the dawning of the Christian era was the beginning of a “period of light” for humanity, the facts of the matter show otherwise. It was the enforcement of ignorance and often the massacre and murder of all who dared stand in the way of the progress and supremacy of the Church. Far from being the beginning of a period of light for humanity it was the beginning of centuries of darkness, particularly for those nations of the world which had the misfortune of becoming Christianised.

Here we have Damodar’s view and perspective on Christianity, which will be seen to tally exactly with that expressed by the Masters in their hundreds of letters and by H. P. Blavatsky in her voluminous writings. Contrary to the assertions of certain later “Theosophists,” the Masters are not in sympathy with Christianity or the Church, and the Theosophical Movement was not founded in order to further the purposes of Christianity, the Christian Church, or the supposed “Lord Christ.” Quite the opposite in fact. It was begun, amongst other things, to proclaim and explain the greatness and importance of Eastern spiritual philosophy and “to remedy the glaring evils of Christianity” (HPB, “The Theosophical Mahatmas”). As William Judge, HPB’s trusted colleague and co-founder with her of the Movement and also an accepted chela of the Master M., once wrote to an Indian enquirer, “No one is more opposed to Christianity than I am.”

It is interesting to note that Rev. Hume often conveniently ignored many of Damodar’s most challenging and pertinent questions regarding the Bible, God, Jesus, and Christianity, and eventually the written debate came to an end as a result of Hume’s reluctance or failure to respond. We have included two footnotes at the end of the article by means of further elucidation on two of the points raised by Damodar. It is also important to emphasise that for Theosophists, opposition to Christianity does not mean opposition to Jesus. Please explore some of the related links at the bottom of this page in order to discover more.

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God is said to be both omniscient and omnipotent, and therefore he should not leave man, his own alleged creation, to grope in the dark for a spiritual doctor, having to select the genuine one out of a bundle of spurious ones, these again being his own creations. That such a state should exist, as admitted by Mr Hume, does not speak much in favour of the omniscience and omnipotence of a just and all merciful God, whoever that Being may be. It is just this argument and several others of this kind, pre-eminently the existence of evil in this world, that inclines me, along with other students of Eastern Philosophies, not to admit the existence of a Personal God.

If there is a Personal God, there must be a Personal Devil. And since we find that in this world evil predominates and since we are also told that Adam and Eve, created by God in his own image, were led into temptation by Satan, it can be logically inferred that this latter personage is mightier than God who may perhaps one day himself be led into temptation and fall just as his creature after his own image was.

My personal views are known to all my friends and acquaintances to be uncompromisingly Buddhistic. Of course I do not attach any weight to the exoteric rites of that religion. I merely find that the philosophy taught by Gautama Buddha which is identical with the Adwaitee teachings of Srimat Sankaracharya except in the external modes and forms of expression, is thoroughly sound and logical and can stand any scientific test. I therefore hold to that philosophy and have no faith in any religious formalities, whether they be Christian, Hindu, Mussulman, or what not.

I am therefore at a loss to understand how Mr Hume could have so grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted the position in attributing to me faith in a Personal God. The conception of a Personal God conveys to my mind the impression of a gigantic human being who must necessarily be finite. Mr Hume tells us that God is the eternal and infinite spirit. To attribute personality to an infinite spirit appears to be an absurdity. The qualities of goodness, a desire to punish or to reward, indicates the existence of a mind which can contain and evolve conceptions. A mind requires an organism which cannot but be material. [1] The ordinary notion of matter is that matter is entirely different from spirit. If it be so, the difficulty is how can an infinite spirit be associated with matter and have material organism.

Again, if the Personal God is infinite spirit, i.e., occupying all space (or else it would not be infinite), where do Satan and all the creation reside? An eternal infinite presence must crowd out every other existence or all evil and everything else is one of its own phases and there is no other Satan but that Infinite Spirit himself. And since evil is more powerful than good as we see all around, let us by all means become devil worshippers. Thus, the whole edifice of Christianity rests upon the foundation of a personal devil and a personal god, and as said before is a matter of blind faith – the Reverend Mr Hume and his confreres, notwithstanding. . . .

Since a book which is presented to us as a Divine Revelation contains contradiction and is full of obscenities unsuitable for reading in mixed company, and so notorious is the fact of its being immoral that one of the most pious and respectable of American publishers has just announced an expurgated edition of the Bible (!!) where, the expurgations notwithstanding, we still find the Deity sanctioning acts that no man of common sense and good moral principles would ever think of justifying and which are forced upon the public worship under the plea of “Mysteries” – all these point out that there is no such queer deity. . . .

Mr Hume tells us that “Christianity is Christ and what he taught is found in the Bible,” and that his “standard of a true Christian is one who truly trusts in Christ for Salvation.” This is a very elastic and ambiguous phrase. Supposing a man lives a strictly (what they call) Christ-like life, i.e., is good, pure, honest, holy and unselfish, etc., etc., but has never heard of that alleged Avatara. Will such a man be saved or not? Mine is not a hypothetical case. I am personally acquainted with a few people who live such a life but do not know what Christianity is, nor do they care to hear anything about Christ. Perhaps I may be told that some day or other they may be “brought into the fold”; but in that case I will plainly ask – “and if they are not, what then?”

Is there any hope of salvation for such people or not, according to Mr Hume’s belief? If there is none for those who could not trust to Christ for Salvation since they were unaware of his existence, I ask whether this is not an additional proof in favour of my statement that not only does Christianity rest upon blind faith but that it is the most cruel and heartless of all the religions.

On the other hand, if they can be saved simply upon their own merits, and provided they live a holy and pure life, what need is there then for Christianity? The noble sentiments attributed to Jesus were uttered by philosophers ages before his alleged birth. The moral teachings of Christ pervade every religious philosophy and there have been saints in every religion. Why should then Christians come to heathen lands? If it be said that the Heathens do not abide by the moral teachings in their respective religions, then the reply is that it is for the pure and holy people of that religion to see that the wicked are rescued from their reckless course of evil.

If it be urged that these other systems contain various wrong notions, then I reply that if Christianity centres round Christ alone, why may not the other Religions centre in the same way around their respective founders? Why should we not say that Buddhism is Buddha?

It is an historically admitted fact that Buddhism is older than Christianity. And no one will dispute the fact that Buddha’s teachings are as high and noble (and far more so) as those of the “Son of God.” Nowhere do we find the “Light of Asia” cursing and damning the unbelievers in him as we find the “second person of the Holy Trinity” doing when he cursed the fig tree for not bearing fruits out of season and promised all the pleasures of damnation and hell to his opponents. [2] The noble self-sacrificing life and incomparable suavity and mercy of the Indian Prince-Ascetic is unparalleled in history, according to all European Orientalists, without exception.

Buddha never said that those who shall don the yellow robe shall be saved, while those who will not, shall be damned. Gautama appealed always to man’s reason and discountenanced blind faith. He even asked his followers not to believe in Himself because, he, Buddha, said this or any other thing, but to accept that, and that alone, which would accord with their reason. Is there a single sentence of Jesus’ which can be compared to this? In more than one point he is no better than a dreamy enthusiast. For he who advises his fellowmen to turn, when smitten on one cheek, the other also and wants them not to take thought of the morrow, neither seems to know human nature, nor is he rendering service to society by encouraging laziness and mendicancy. All this is impracticable and therefore honoured more in its breach than in its observance.

Certainly if his followers obeyed literally these commands of his, the world would have been spared the ignominious spectacle of thousands of honest men being burnt, tortured to death, and otherwise persecuted by the Holy Inquisition and Church. They, however, seemed and do still seem to give preference, in this case, to the commands of “GOD THE FATHER” who, – according to the Old Testament, which Mr Hume acknowledges, contains Divine Revelation, – not only permits but sanctions the acts of his chosen ones and orders them to commit all sorts of crimes, from murder and slaughter of the innocent down to rape, adultery, desertion, treachery, theft, and what not. Even the more practicable commands of Jesus’ are ignored by those who profess to be devout Christians, such as loving one’s neighbour, etc., etc. They sound like a farce in the face of the effects of Ilbert’s Bill and the ever increasing race prejudice and hatred.

I am, however, told that those Christians, who do not follow the commands of Christ, ought not to be taken into account though their number is admittedly very large. Whom have we then to regard as exemplars of Christianity? Padris? In one of his earlier letters to The Bombay Gazette Mr Hume had contended that the Missionaries are but the humble servants of Christ. And when I pointed out that they certainly were not, I am immediately told that it is an immaterial point. I also suggested that since there were so many persons in Christian lands who are not true Christians, the missionaries ought to work there instead of coming out, unasked, here where good people of our own religions can surely take care of themselves and of the bad ones. I am quite ready to admit that there is good and bad everywhere, and that therefore there are bad people among the Heathens also. But this does not prove at all that they are worse than the Christians at home. Quite the contrary! Why then come out to Heathen lands for the sake of making conversions that no one needs and that do more harm than good?

I have already asserted that there is not one moral sentiment of Christ which cannot be found in Buddhism, a far earlier religion. The same I can say of all Hindu sects, however wide their differences of opinion on Godhead may be. The existence of such disgusting sects as the one widely known throughout India for its immorality does not deteriorate the value and the importance of other sects whose moral standard is very high, and whose followers are unselfish, philanthropic, and noble in their aspirations.

Just as Rev. Mr Hume says that Christianity is not to be judged by the conduct of those who frequent the taverns and the bad houses, so also other religions must not be judged by the distortions wrought in them by the selfishly wicked and ignorant people.

If we are to believe in the Bible as a Divine Revelation, simply on account of the moral tone which characterizes a few of the alleged teachings of Jesus, then I say that a far higher tone pervades many of the religious books of the East which moreover contain neither the contradictions nor the obscenities so profusely found in the Bible.

From all this results the following: that since the same (if not a higher) moral tone pervades the religions of the Heathens; since the creeds of the Hindu, the Buddhist, and the Zoroastrian are historically proved to be far older than the religion offered to us by the missionaries; since all contained good as also bad; since, to crown all, the missionaries have a far wider field to work upon in Christendom than in Heathendom, if they are really so unselfish and philanthropic as they claim to be; the Heathens, moreover never going out of their way to insult the religious feelings of the Christians by saying that all other religions except their own are spurious and the work of the devil; and since also the living of a good life is sufficient to ensure happiness, here and hereafter, morality being preached in all religious systems – all this, I affirm, proves “the failure and narrow-mindedness of Missions.” . . .

We are told that “the scientific correctness of the Biblical cosmogony is enough to establish that it is a Divine Revelation.” We must, therefore, see what the scientific theory of cosmogony is. To this the reply is, in Mr Hume’s words: – “no prudent scientist even now professes to know just how it was done, yet astronomy and geology and chemistry, etc., seem to bear testimony in favour of what is called the nebular hypothesis.” Now, a reader of the Genesis need not be long in finding out that the creation story is diametrically opposed to the nebular hypothesis.

I am not taking objection to the word “day,” since it may be taken to mean “a period of time.” But this “Divine Revelation” tells us that God made first the light and called it day – “the first day”; then the firmament – Heaven (light shining meanwhile from somewhere else, since it was made before Heaven); then “the dry land” – earth – and it was “the third day”; and finally, God made “two great lights” – Sun and Moon – “the morning and the evening (of which) were the fourth day”; – which statement brings is to the inevitable conclusion that the three previous “days” were lighted by either gas light or Edison’s electric lamps?

The scientific theory, on the contrary, teaches us that the Sun was first an incandescent mass, and, during its process of cooling, it threw out various nebulae, out of a portion of which our earth was formed. This world of ours was not inhabitable for a long time until it was cooled sufficiently enough to evolve and to support life. The Biblical cosmogony says no such thing.

We cannot perceive how creation can admit of gradual growth or development. Creation is the very antithesis of evolution. The heliocentric system and physical science (astronomy included) are daily killing the Bible; and if our assertion is objected to on the ground that there are such astronomers as Piazzi Smythe for instance, who still believes in Revelation, we answer that an exception only confirms the rule. To one Professor Piazzi Smythe there are hundreds of astronomers who laugh at the very idea. If there was no difficulty in reconciling the two, why should the Church have begun such a row, in self-defence, with Copernicus and then with Galileo, together with fact and truth, offering them all as holocausts to the Bible?

The earth is said to be flat, in the Bible; while it is shown round and the heliocentric system taught in the Rig Veda – and since then scientifically proved correct. No heliocentric system, recognized by science, is to be found in the Bible, on the other hand, we have fruits, trees, plants, grass, etc., growing and prospering before the Sun was ever created – an absurdity now laughed at by small boys, who go to school and know anything of the absolute necessity of sun-light for fruits and plants, etc.

Many were the unfortunates sentenced by the Church to die a felon’s death because they dare to put forth what are now acknowledged facts. From the creation of matter – declared by science indestructible and infinite – down to Lot’s wife changed into a pillar of salt, there is not one statement in the Genesis cosmogony in accordance with the established canons of science, for it will not do to try and get out of the difficulty by inventing an allegorical sense where a plain statement is meant.

And yet the Christians have the audacity to assert that they were the pioneers of civilization! Indirectly they are, in one sense, if we take the law of action and reaction into consideration. If the Catholics and the early Fathers of the Church had not resorted to the Inquisition, if they had not burnt honest and intellectual men for their sins of enquiry into forbidden subjects; if they had not by every possible means tried to crush down all spirit of research; then probably the effort of Luther would not have proved so successful, as it did. If again the Protestants had not, in their turn, done what their Catholic predecessors did, the spirit of curiosity, opposition, and honest research would never have been aroused.

If the “forlorn hope” which the Christians are carrying on to save the Church from an immediate, though unavoidable, crumbling down, were not so persistently persevered in, probably the feelings of the present opposition would not have been kept up at white heat as they are now; and they would not have succeeded in throwing off so easily as they have, the yoke of centuries.

I speak, of course, of the educated and the honest portion of Western Society, leaving shams, hypocrites, and deluded enthusiasts out of account. One has but to read Professor Draper’s History of the Conflict between Religion and Science to have before one’s mind’s eye the picture of all the horrors of martyrdom the pioneers of science had to pass through, owing to their persecution by those who now vainly try to pose as the forerunners of civilization, progress and enlightenment!

If Christianity could but retain her sway, she would trample down all advance towards progress. Fortunately for Humanity, the Dark Ages which characterized the supremacy of Christianity have gone, never to return again, we hope.

Let Mr Hume explain, if he can, how the nebular hypothesis is in consonance with the first chapter of Genesis. His very admission that the Revelations in the Bible are of a more and more developing character is against his position.

God, if he is omniscient and omnipotent, is responsible for the doings of every one of his creatures. They surely did not ask to be created; and, if they were, without their knowledge and consent, then the “creator” is alone responsible for their doubts and denial of a “Father” who hides himself so well. It may be urged that to save men from sin, God has given them a “Divine Revelation.” But that does not alter the main point now being discussed. If they have no faith or cannot believe in that Revelation owing to its innumerable flaws and defects, or again, blindly believing it to be true, if they have not the strength to pursue the path of “righteousness and goodness,” whose fault is it? Why should they have been created, devoid of that sense which would enable them to believe and to do what ought to be right? If God is omniscient and omnipotent, he ought to know beforehand what the faith of an imperfect creature would be and ought to have armed it with the necessary weapons.

And yet Rev. Mr Hume says: – “….. Whereas materialism, consistently held, makes everything the result of blind and necessary force, and so makes choice and merit or demerit impossible …..” I, however, make bold to assert that the materialistic teaching impresses far more firmly the merit or demerit doctrine than does Christianity. The materialist knows that every cause must produce its corresponding result. He knows that if he puts his hand in fire, it must burn, all his prayers notwithstanding. He therefore feels morally certain that if he misbehaves, if he wastes his energy and spends his own constitution, destroys the social happiness of innocent families and thus puts himself on a par with the beasts.

His self-dignity and self-respect stimulate his nobler nature and keep him back from vice. His object in life is to make himself and others happy and to leave a good name behind, since he believes in no future life. But what about the Religionist, and especially a Christian? What is there to keep him back from vice? Fear of God? Like a moral coward, he has to lean on a prop in order to try – only try, to be virtuous. And yet, in nine cases out of ten, his lower nature gets the better of him. He attributes to his creator the possession of senses which urge him on to vice and by such a sophistry nerves himself on to taste of the “forbidden fruit.” The doctrine of Atonement only helps him in his base designs.

Is it, I say, scientific to believe that the sins of millions of vile wretches who are a disgrace to humanity can be washed away by the blood of any man, however great he may be? Where is the Doctrine of Merit and Demerit then? The tendency of Christianity, as pointed out by me, is not hypothetical. The following extract will prove my statement.

In an Official Parliamentary report in 1873, of the criminalism in England and Wales, we find of the different religions of the people of those countries:

Church of England . . . 6,932,935.
Dissenters . . . 7,235,159.
Catholics . . . 1,500,000.
Infidels . . . 7,000,000.

Crimes to the 100,000 of population: –
Catholics . . . 2,500.
Church of England . . . 1,400.
Dissenters . . . 150.
Infidels . . . 5.

Or, in other words, for every 4,050 Christian Criminals of the three above denominations, there are only five infidels, or 810:1. This speaks for itself and needs no comment. Notwithstanding all this, we are asked to become converts and Christians! The Doctrine of Karma or Merit and Demerit, which Mr Hume says is not admissible in Materialism, is the fundamental basis of Buddhism which is well-known to reject belief in God or Gods, and called atheistical – a word pronounced with such holy horror by the pious missionaries and from which they say “immorality and crime” flow. . . .

We have now come to the question of “prophecy” which is said to be “another strong proof” of the Bible being a Divine Revelation. An instance of one of the “remarkable” prophecies is given to us, viz., about Egypt being “wasted and made subject to others.” Any man, who has studied History and the problem of the Law of Evolution, need not be told that “Cycles must run their rounds.” As each man has his period of rest and activity, his day and night, so must have a nation, a kingdom, a planet, a solar system, and finally the Universe. As night is the precursor of dawn and the day, so is day the precursor of evening and the night.

Constant change and alternation are observable in every department of Nature, and being aware that Egypt having once reached the apex of civilization and the zenith of its power, the writer or writers of the passages referred to by Mr Hume, hinted (and really very ambiguously) that Egypt would one day fall. I might just as well prophesy that some day Egypt, under her present or another name, will regain that position from which it has now sunk so low. It is an observed fact, a natural course of events; and no prophecy.

We all know what the Biblical prophecies are worth, especially those of Isaiah. While all the Rabbis maintain that the verse in the 53rd chapter (if I remember correctly) concerning the prophecy about a virgin (a “young woman,” say the Jews) bringing forth a son – Emmanuel – referred positively to Isaiah’s own wife and son, the Christians – who after robbing the unfortunate Jews of their national records, are now denying to them even the right of their own interpretation – forthwith jumped at and attributed the prophecy to Christ whose name was never Emmanuel, the adoption of the latter being proved a subterfuge.

Our Hindu sacred books have been far more accurate in the prophecies than is the miserable instance under reference. The Old Hindus had mathematically studied the Law of Cycles. They had calculated the general events to a day, thousands of years ago. Moreover some of us have books no less than a thousand years old which contain events happening during our times. But our ancestors were modest and were not bumptious enough to attribute to Divine Revelation what they found out by their own mathematical experimentation.

If the Bible had said the exact day on which Egypt would fall and mention all the different phases it would pass through before her final collapse, then only could that prophecy be entitled to some respect and consideration. As it now stands, it reminds one of the modern medium’s “prophecies.” It may be a grand prophecy in the eyes of those who had no ancient Scientific Literature or Philosophies of their own to learn from; but it is a trifling matter for those whose books are all filled with the most wondrous mathematical calculations and scientific facts.

The Bible, by the bye, for which it is claimed that it goes hand in hand with Science, credits the earth with being only between six and seven thousand years old. Is this also a scientific fact, supported by geology and anthropology, which, on the contrary have proved our globe to be many hundreds of thousands of years old? But our ancient books penetrate far behind that period coming up, as they do, to the present moment and going far forward.

Unlike the Bible busying itself but with the “chosen nations” (?), they concern themselves with the state of each Nation and Humanity in general. Here it is that the Aryan cosmogony enters into full sway. Its mathematical calculations embrace the formation of our Solar System; our Planetary Chain; the Earth; then the different phases of activity and life until the appearance of the Human Life Wave. Those are the grand problems taught in our books, ages before the Bible was written. There is not yet one discovery of modern Science, which conflicts with the theories propounded and taught by our ancestors. If Mr Hume depended upon the Kabala for his nebular hypothesis of science, then he would have seen that the En-soph of the Jews is not the creator. The Beni-Elohim of the Kabala, the Dhyan Chohans of the Buddhists, the Prajapatis of the Hindus are but different names, indicating the different phases of identical and the same energies.

If the coming of Jesus was prophesied in the Jewish books, how is it that the Jews themselves deny him? If the fulfilment of that prophecy were consistent with the wording in their books, they would, it must be naturally supposed, be the first to accept Jesus as their Messiah. But, as the world knows, the Jews are yet expecting the advent of their promised Messiah, and they know the time is not yet come. Whoever understands the secret doctrine of the Kabala and the esoteric meaning of the Eastern religious philosophies, need not be told the time when the Regenerator of the World will come. But surely he is neither the son of God nor God himself, as understood by the millenarians and Salavationists.

The belief in the immaculate conception of a Virgin, as taught by orthodox Christians, is an insult to common sense. It is absurd and unscientific; and no student of Eastern Philosophies would believe in it, even though uneducated Hindus do believe in Avataras nearly in the same sense. It is desirable to see on what scientific principles Mr Hume can explain this miracle. Faith and Revelation – is the vicious circle he moves in. As regards the contradictions in the Bible, I have already dwelt at length upon the subject. I have only to observe that if the “fundamental mistake lies in taking detached sentences from one place and trying to show that they are in conflict with detached sentences in other places, disregarding the context, and in neglecting to bear in mind the many-sidedness of truth” – why should not the same test be applied to the Puranas? They contain far more striking prophecies which have been far more accurately fulfilled than those of the Bible, and they, containing, moreover, not more than, if as many self-contradictions, as the Bible, why should they not be respected at least as much as that other Book, especially Puranas, when some of these are proved to be older than the Bible? . . .

The less, I believe, Mr Hume talks of the “moral influence” of the Bible, the better it will be. The statistics of crimes in Christian countries, already quoted by me, the Doctrine of Atonement, the number of crimes, from the highest to the lowest, from murder and adultery down to drunkenness, theft and lying, permitted, sanctioned and commanded by God in the Old Testament which admittedly contains a Divine Revelation – ought to stop the mouth of any true follower of Christ from talking of the moral influence of the Bible.

If David, Jacob, Lot and others are the models placed before us for imitation, as being the favourites and “the friends of God,” the “men according to God’s own heart” then cry out “Save us from Christianity at once.”

History shows that wherever this creed has prevailed, there has been cold-blooded selfishness, division among friends and neighbours, wars of desolation and what not. If England has now risen so high, it is because of the Reformation that has loosened the shackles of the Roman Catholic Yoke. If America is prospering it is because God has no room, nor is he permitted to have any voice in its constitution and that daily Christianity loses its power over it.

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[1] To follow on from Damodar’s line of thought on this point: if God is a “big Man” with his own body and own mind – as the vast majority of Christians believe and insist – then he must also have his own brain inside his head. Seeing as He is the “Creator of all,” did He create his own brain himself? And if so, how, seeing as He would have been entirely brainless up to that point? And if He has the need for organs – such as a brain, eyes (“the eyes of the Lord roam to and fro over the Earth”), nose (“their worship is as a sweet-smelling savour in His nostrils”), etc. – then how can He be a purely spiritual Being, let alone omnipresent or infinite? Or if it be said by the believers in an anthropomorphic God that He does not actually have any organs inside His body, because He has no need for organs, then what need does He have for a body – or indeed any type of form or conditioned, differentiated nature – in the first place? Not only is the idea of a personal, anthropomorphic God childish, illogical, unreasonable, self-contradictory, and unphilosophical, but it also degrades and desecrates the very notion of Deity and Divinity.

[2] Damodar knew as well as any Theosophist that Jesus never really condemned anyone to hell or presented himself as the one and only Saviour of humanity. He knew, as H. P. Blavatsky had shown in her first work “Isis Unveiled” with supporting references and evidence from hundreds upon hundreds of legitimate sources, that such statements and ideas attributed to Jesus had been interpolated into the Gospels by Church Fathers and theologians in order to serve their own purposes. Yet since almost every Christian unquestioningly and ignorantly believes that Jesus actually said such things, Damodar is here dealing with the Christians on their own grounds and beliefs.