titute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child, is a
reproach to society and a witness against existing religion and
civilisation. In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no
business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine
worship. He has not time. All the strength and pluck and wit he
possesses are needed in the work of real religion, of real salvation.
The rest is all 'dreams out of the ivory gate and visions before
midnight.'"[999] "In a really humane and civilised nation there should
be and need be no such thing as poverty, ignorance, crime, idleness,
war, slavery, hate, envy, pride, greed, gluttony, vice. But this is
not a humane and civilised nation, and never will be while it accepts
Christianity as its religion."[1000]

Our belief in God also must be abandoned, but if we continue believing
in God it follows that man is not responsible for his actions, that he
cannot do wrong: "Man is what God made him; could only act as God
enabled him or constructed him to act. If God is responsible for man's
existence, God is responsible for man's act. Therefore man cannot sin
against God."[1001] "If God is all-knowing, He knew before He made man
what man would do. If God is all-powerful, He need not have made man
at all, or He could have made a man who would be strong enough to
resist temptation. Or He could have made a man who was incapable of
evil. If God had never made man, then man could never have succumbed
to temptation. God made man of His own divine choice and made him to
His own divine desire. How then could God blame man for anything man
did? Man might justly say to God: 'I did not ask to be created. You
knew when You made me how I should act. If You wish me to act
otherwise, why did You not make me different? I was fore-ordained by
You to be and to do what I am and have done. Is it my fault that You
fore-ordained me to be and to do thus?' The actions of a man's will
are as mathematically fixed at his birth as are the motions of a
planet in its orbit. God, who made the man and the planet, is
responsible for the actions of both."[1002]

"Divine law says that certain acts are good and that certain acts are
evil; and that God will reward those who do well and will punish those
who do ill. And we are told that God will so act because God is just.
But I claim that God cannot justly punish those who disobey, nor
reward those who obey His laws. If God created all things, He must
have creat