Quotes by David Marshall Brooks

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are crutches hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity. There are no problems related to human progress and happiness in this age which any theology can solve, and which the teachings of freethought cannot do better and without the aid of encumbrances.

“The mind of man is just beginning to emerge from its swaddling clothes and we cannot assume to judge what its broadest capabilities may be.”

“It has often been said that atheism, in that negative aspect, places a question mark upon our problems.... If atheism places a question mark upon the problem of the universe, it does so in a constructive manner; for that mark points to the direction in which a logical solution may be possible. Such is the mental attitude of the scientist. He places an interrogation point upon his problems and that mark is the impetus, the mental stimulus, that leads him on to take infinite pains in his labors and, as time passes, each question mark is replaced by knowledge; it is knowledge and knowledge alone, reason not faith, that furnishes the period.”

“Religion arose as a means of explanation of natural phenomena at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural phenomena had been ascertained. God is always what Spinoza called it, the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown, God is brought forward; when causes are known, God retires into the background. In an age of ignorance, God is active; in an age of science, he is impotent.”

“It is clear that had primitive man known what we know today about nature, the gods would never have been born.”

“Science has as yet not fully explained the origin of life on earth, but there is reason to believe that it will do so in the future. The laws governing the production of life itself are under investigation in the laboratories and it is highly probable that this law will be unraveled at some future date. It will be interesting for our posterity to witness the confusion of the ecclesiastics and their attempted confirmation of this fact in the Bible; their finding of some obscure phrase that will be interpreted by them as a prediction of the fact in the Bible.”