An honest Atheist (Der Lutheraner 1852)

      A short blurb appeared in Der Lutheraner that caught my eye – it was about Atheists, certainly a topic for our day and in our world.  But what would they say about Atheists?  As I read into the narrative, I found that they quoted a certain French doctor de la Mettrie. I am not sure the editor was Walther in this case, as he had been on a trip to Germany recently. But he would have certainly approved of this blurb. From Der Lutheraner, vol. 8 (May 25, 1852, p. 158-159:

The religion of the atheists.

An atheist, or in German a denier of God, is necessarily at the same time an immoral man; if one can call him otherwise a man, since he who strives to extinguish the God-consciousness implanted in him by nature and therefore denies all human dignity, has sunk to the level of an animal. Not all atheists, however, are courageous enough to reveal their actual principles. Most of them, while they deny and blaspheme their creator with a happy mouth, are so cowardly and so hypocritical that they nevertheless try to give themselves the appearance before the people that they are nevertheless thoroughly moral people, on whose words one can certainly rely; even their actions are guided by noble principles. Such hypocritical, cowardly atheists also exist here in St. Louis, unfortunately! in great numbers, and just many of our poor Germans, given over by God to a wrong mind, are often dull-witted enough that they believe the hypocritical talk of such atheists about “morality, nobility, pure motives, good principles etc.”. 

However, there have been atheists who have said straightforwardly what actually their religion is. Most honestly goes out with it among other things the bosom friend of the old critic [Fritzen], the atheistic doctor [Julien Offrayd] de la Mettrie. The same writes e.g. the following:  

“Happiness is the right of every man; he must find it where it is; it belongs to the vicious as well as to the best. The enjoyment of love in its natural (and to the animals distinct) sense, the finest tickling of the senses is our only good, it alone, even without the honor and the applause of the world, makes us happy. To preserve this, the pedant virtue (which pricks every little thing) must not hinder him. It is a figment of the imagination, a brood of art and a foreign plant that does not germinate naturally in our bosom. Remorse, which is so persistent in persecuting us, must be banished from our thoughts, and the uncomfortable conscience, a fruit of the blows and prejudices received in our childhood, must be anesthetized, kept silent, and its mouth shut until it can no longer speak. God is not to be thought of, and that there is no other life is proven; therefore one has nothing to fear but the only being that is in the way of our happiness: the executioner – of course the philosopher must beware of this judge, since he fears nothing else either above or below the earth.” (Traite de la vie heureuse.) 

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      I would be surprised if any of our readers were shocked by de La Mettrie's philosophy, since our world is quite steeped in the "finest tickling of the senses"... in our public portrayal of popular music, art, in broadcast or streamed television, music and flat-screens playing in our public restaurants, even in medical offices, etc.

      As I read the quote from de La Mettrie, and then saw the image of him, I saw a distinct resemblance between him and another Frenchman Fontenelle who dreamed of other worlds besides our world. — These short blurbs from the old Der Lutheraner are encouraging for me, because they were from "the good old days", and yet they faced the same situation as we do today, a world that hates Christianity (John 15:18).  And they relied solely on God's Word as their shield and their fortress.  May we do the same!  Amen!