There is a grave objection which troubled Saint Augustine, and that is as to the transmission of original sin. It is the soul that sins, and if the soul is not transmitted, but created afresh, how can it inherit the sin of Adam? This is not discussed by Saint Thomas [Aquinas].
Mankind are a mistake. The Universe would be sweeter and fresher without them. I cannot understand how God can have tolerated so long the baseness of those who boast blasphemously that they have made in his image. It may yet fall to my lot to be the more thoroughgoing instrument of the Divine Purpose which was carried out half heartedly in the days of Noah.
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown, and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind elder borther who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear of defeat, fear of death. Science can help to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us to no longer look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here and below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all the centuries have made it.
Christ said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and when asked "who is thy neighbour? went on to the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you wish to understand this parable as it was understood by his hearers, you should substitute "Germans and Japanese" for Samaritan. I fear my modern day Christians would resent such a substitution, because it would compel them to realize how far they have departed from the teachings of the founder of their religion.
Suppose atomic bombs reduced the world population to one brother and one sister. Should they let the human race die out? I do not know the answer, but I do not think it can be in the affirmative merely on the ground that incest is wicked.
If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.
Since reason consists in a just adaptation of means to ends, it can only be opposed by those who think it a good thing that people should choose means which cannot realize their professed ends. This implies they should be deceived as to how to realize their professed ends, or that their real ends should not be those that they may profess. The first is the case of a populace misled by an eloquent fuehrer. The second is that of the schoolmaster who enjoys torturing boys, but wishes to go on thinking himself a benevolent humanitarian. I cannot feel that either of these grounds for opposing reason is morally respectable.
All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing other also be happy.