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ANS: F PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 14-15
OBJ: 1-3 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory|AACSB Communication: Interpersonal
9. Upward communication from lower organizational levels to management involves risk since it is
generally feedback to downward communication.
10. Open, honest communication is the single most important factor in successfully creating a Total
Quality Management (TQM) environment.
11. In spite of its poor reputation, the grapevine is in reality no more or less accurate than other channels.
12. Stakeholders are those affected by decisions and can include people inside and outside the
organization.
13. While all actions that are ethical are legal, some actions that are legal may not be ethical.
14. A limitation of language translation is that some words do not have an equivalent meaning in another
language.
15. Though people around the world speak different languages, nonverbal communication, such as
gestures and facial expressions, generally has the same meanings to all cultures.
17. Email is generally a more time efficient communication channel than the phone.
19. The passage of recent federal legislation has assured that privacy will not be threatened by technology
advancements.
20. Synergy occurs when the energy of a group is diverted to nonproductive tasks.
21. In successful teams, leadership is likely to be shared, which requires more direct and effective
communication within the organization.
23. When ABC Company makes a legal decision that complies with contractual agreements, one can
accurately assume that it is an ethical decision because it is legal.
24. Rather than using a single strategy, spokespersons at the Centers for Disease Control have found a
blend of strategies to be most effective in providing information to the public.
25. Employees should set aside their own personal value systems when making ethical decisions for their
companies.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Differences in education level, experience, and culture or distractions such as noise, uncomfortable
room temperature, and interruptions are examples of
a. feedback.
b. interference.
c. interception.
d. decoding.
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 7-8
OBJ: 1-2 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory|AACSB Diversity
3. Javon explains a new policy to his staff which prohibits the use of office computers for personal email.
Several of the employees frown at the news and one staff member makes a sarcastic remark. Steve’s
staff is
a. giving feedback.
b. interfering.
c. decoding.
d. encoding.
ANS: A PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 7
OBJ: 1-2 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
4. Jeff receives an email from his boss, Sharon, who is on an international trip. As Jeff interprets the
instructions from the email, he is in the act of
a. giving feedback.
b. interfering.
c. encoding.
d. decoding.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 7
OBJ: 1-2 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
5. A supervisor notices than an employee has been late to work for three days this week. What is the
BEST way for the supervisor do to foster open communication?
a. Call the employee to ask him or her about the lateness.
b. Write the employee a disciplinary memorandum about the lateness.
c. Meet with the employee face-to-face to discuss the lateness.
d. Send the employee an email message about his or her lateness.
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 6
OBJ: 1-2 NAT: AACSB Communication: Interpersonal
6. A manager is faced with having to lay off some of his staff due to financial losses that the company
has suffered. Which of the following channels of communication would be the LEAST effective
method for sharing the news with employees, given the sensitive nature of the message?
a. A face-to-face meeting with each employee
b. A well-written, empathetic letter to each affected employee
c. A telephone call to each affected employee
d. Electronic mail to all affected employees
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 6
OBJ: 1-2 NAT: AACSB Communication: Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal communication occurs when
a. two people are involved in the process.
b. teamwork dynamics contribute to the feedback.
c. individuals from two different organizations communicate effectively.
d. an individual processes information individually.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 14-15
OBJ: 1-3 NAT: AACSB Communication: Interpersonal
8. Chantell is the manager of the claims department for a large insurance company. She has a one-hour
meeting with her staff to explain the new claim form which the company will use next month. This is
an example of which type of organizational communication?
a. upward
b. downward
c. horizontal
d. grapevine
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 11-12
OBJ: 1-3 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
11. The ____ communication channel is created by management to control individual and group behavior
and to achieve the organization’s goals.
a. informal
b. formal
c. email
d. oral
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 9
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
12. In downward communication management attempts to ____ activities within an organization while
with horizontal communication management hopes to ____ them.
a. control; coordinate
b. coordinate; contain
c. coordinate; control
d. conduct; control
ANS: A PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 11-14
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
13. A supervisor on the night shift at a manufacturing plant is told to dump chemicals used in the refining
process rather than dispose of them properly according to safety regulations. The owner of the
company insists that the chemicals are not harmful to the environment, but the supervisor knows that
the dumping is illegal. The supervisor believes that he will lose his job if he reports the problem to
authorities at the Environmental Protection Agency. This is an example of which potential cause of
unethical behavior?
a. obsession with personal advancement.
b. excessive emphasis on profits.
c. uncertainty about whether an act is wrong.
d. Unwilling to stand for what is right.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 19-20
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Ethics
14. Many leading figures in recent corporate scandals were never convicted of a crime. Which of the
following best describes their behavior:
a. Behavior that is illegal and unethical
b. Behavior that is illegal, yet ethical
c. Behavior that is legal, yet unethical
d. Behavior that is both legal and ethical
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 17-20
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Ethics
15. Which of the following is FALSE concerning instant messaging (IM) in official corporate
communication?
a. Many U.S. firms use IM as a tool for business communication.
b. In some organizations, IM is used to complement or replace email and voice mail.
c. A varying number of people can log on to a chatroom and exchange ideas that other
participants can see.
d. Instant messaging overcomes the time barrier for geographically dispersed groups.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 30-31
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Technology|AACSB Communication: Strategy
18. Two or three employees working on a report at the same time using an electronic whiteboard would be
an example of the use of ____ software.
a. graphics
b. presentation
c. collaborative
d. desktop publishing
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 29-30
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Technology|AACSB Teams
19. Which of the following guidelines about overcoming intercultural barriers is NOT appropriate?
a. One should study and learn about a person’s culture.
b. The person should seek help from a trusted friend who understands the other person’s
culture.
c. One should be patient and tolerant of ambiguity.
d. One should help the other person overcome his or her cultural barriers by conforming to
the new culture.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 28
OBJ: 1-4 | 1-Strategic Force: Viva la Difference NAT: AACSB Diversity
21. The United States is comprised largely of immigrants, some of whom work to retain their traditional
customs and language while still sharing in the common culture. Which of the following terms best fits
the above description?
a. Melting pot
b. Internationalization
c. Mosaic
d. Globalization
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 23-24
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Diversity
26. Which of the following best describes the common attitude that those from the U.S, Canada, and
northern Europe have about the concept of time?
a. Time is money.
b. The early bird gets the worm.
c. Time is like air.
d. Important things take more time than unimportant things.
ANS: A PTS: 1 DIF: Fact REF: p. 26
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Diversity
27. In confronting the international problems caused by lack of language training, the MOST useful advice
for North Americans is to
a. be glad that English is used so widely for business transactions and not be overly
concerned with the need for knowing other languages.
b. try to acquire second language skills if possible, or at least learn a few words in the
language of your audience.
c. expect business representatives of other countries to know English.
d. always travel with an interpreter.
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 26-27
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Diversity|AACSB Critical Thinking
28. You are faced with a work-related ethical dilemma. In deciding what action to take, you would:
a. Check the company code of ethics to see if the action is prohibited.
b. Check legal implications and the company code of ethics, and then decide if the action is
personally ethical.
c. Check with colleagues to see if they would take the action.
d. Check the legal implications and feel free to take the action if it is not illegal.
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 20-22
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Ethics
29. Ramona wants a colleague in another building to read the final revision of the report they wrote
collaboratively. She then wants it distributed throughout the plant to seven managers for their
comments prior to its presentation in two days. What is the most efficient media to accomplish these
two tasks?
a. Fax machine
b. Memorandums
c. email
d. Teleconferencing
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 30
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Technology|AACSB Communication: Strategy
34. In a distributed leadership team environment, the role of the leader is BEST described as
a. the leader remaining in the position until the team is dissolved.
b. any member of the team becoming the leader at various times.
c. a non-existent role.
d. the leader being dictatorial when needed.
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 36
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Teams
35. As one of 11 federal agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC must
coordinate its efforts to protect citizens from epidemics with the CIA, the FBI, and the Department of
Homeland Security. Communication with these other agencies is an example of
a. upward communication.
b. downward communication.
c. vertical communication.
d. horizontal communication.
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 3|p. 36
OBJ: 1-Showcase NAT: AACSB Communication: Theory
36. Which of the following issues would likely NOT be communicated to the public by the Centers for
Disease Control?
a. threat of bioterrorism
b. information on deadly disease agents
c. public health threats
d. Homeland Security defense strategies
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 3|p. 36
OBJ: 1-Showcase NAT: AACSB Communication: Strategy
37. Organizations that have shifted towards team structure typically believe that the team process will
result in
a. rewards based on team performance alone.
b. rewards based on individual effort and team performance.
c. increased mediocrity.
d. reduction in personal effort.
ANS: B PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 41
OBJ: 1-Case Analysis NAT: AACSB Teams
38. Which of the following would NOT be a goal of a diversity initiative program?
a. Increase cultural awareness
b. Increase appreciation for cultural differences
c. Build rapport by finding areas of commonality
d. Improve communication by minimizing cultural factors
ANS: D PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 24|p. 28
OBJ: 1-Strategic Force: Viva la Difference
NAT: AACSB Diversity|AACSB Communication: Strategy
42. Managers at XYZ Manufacturing Company believe that "the ends justify the means" and defend
certain unethical acts because they are in the best financial interest of the company. This action BEST
typifies which potential cause of unethical behavior?
a. Expectation of not getting caught
b. Uncertainty about whether an act is wrong
c. Excessive emphasis on profits
d. Unwillingness to take a stand for what is right
ANS: C PTS: 1 DIF: Application REF: p. 19-20
OBJ: 1-4 NAT: AACSB Ethics
1. Explain the steps in the communication process and why challenges can occur.
ANS:
Five steps are involved in the process:
1. The sender encodes a message.
2. The sender selects an appropriate channel and transmits the message.
3. The receiver decodes the message.
4. The receiver encodes a message (feedback) to clarify any part of the message not
understood.
5. The sender and receiver remove or minimize interferences (barriers) that hinder the
communication process.
Breakdowns can occur at any stage of the process as limitations of the sender, receiver, or both cause
incomplete or faulty communication to occur. Barriers or interferences can also cause breakdowns.
2. Explain the challenges involved for both the sender and the receiver in the communication process.
ANS:
People communicate to inform, persuade, or to entertain using a common system of symbols, signs,
and behavior. The sender selects and organizes a message in such a way that the message received is
as close as possible to the message sent. Knowing the receiver’s educational level, culture, and
experiences come into play when transmitting a message. The receiver is then involved in listening
carefully, without distractions, to interpret the message so that it has meaning to him or her. Both the
sender and the receiver have equal responsibility to be effective in encoding and decoding the
message.
3. List six barriers to intercultural communication and provide an example of each barrier.
ANS:
Six barriers to intercultural communication are:
Stereotypes: North Americans are sometimes viewed as overly friendly, blunt, and
childlike.
Interpretation of time: Many Latin Americans believe that important things take more
time than unimportant things.
Personal space requirements: Arab business people stand very close to each other
compared to U.S. business people.
Body language: The symbol for "okay" in the U.S. means "zero" in France and a
vulgarity in Brazil.
Translation limitations: The Japanese concept of "indebtedness" has no direct English
equivalent.
Lack of language training: Many non-Hispanics do not speak Spanish in areas of the U.S.
with a high Hispanic population.
ANS:
Teams make workers happier by empowering them to shape their own jobs. Teams increase efficiency
by eliminating layers of management, opening lines of communication and increasing interaction
between employees and management. Teams enable a company to draw on the skills and imagination
of the whole work force. Teams provide a level of expertise that is unavailable on the individual level.
Teams help companies deliver higher-quality products or services at faster speeds and lower costs.
5. Email and instant messaging are common ways to communicate informally in an organization. How
could cultural differences influence the effectiveness of electronic channels? In what ways could
management help employees avoid potential communication problems?
ANS:
Email and instant messaging frequently uses an informal language and "tone" that would be similar to
a conversation. Although the message is verbal, the nonverbal message is missing. The encoder may
intend the message to be humorous, but the decoder may interpret it as sarcastic. This problem of
interpretation is a possibility regardless of cultural differences. When factors of cultural are added to
the communication picture, possibilities of misunderstandings increase with these electronic channels.
Idioms, regional references, slang, and soon may be misinterpreted by those who are not from the
same culture. An organization can help employees reduce cultural misunderstandings by training
employees in the appropriate use of language for business email and instant messaging.
6. Illustrate and explain four ethical dimensions of business behavior; give two examples of behaviors
that fit each dimension.
ANS:
Dimension 1 Behavior that is illegal and unethical
Dimension 2 Behavior that is illegal, yet ethical
Dimension 3 Behavior that is legal, yet unethical
Dimension 4 Behavior that is both legal and ethical
Student views as to what is ethical will vary. Examples can include situations similar to the following:
CASE
Laurence heads the advertising department for a chain of local weekly newspapers. His friend, who
writes news, shared an upcoming news story to be printed in the next edition. The story discloses that a
local quick oil change firm has been cited for illegally dumping used oil and that customers have
alleged that they paid for oil changes that were not made. As a major advertising client, the oil change
firm is placing a full-page ad that mentions its environmentally safe handling methods and trustworthy
service. Answering the six questions in the Pagano Model, help Laurence decide what action, if any,
he should take.
ANS:
The Pagano Model includes the following questions for determining legal/ethical response:
1. Is the proposed action legal? Laurence knows there is a conflict in what the reporter has
written and what the client claims. Laurence should encourage his reporter friend to
check that sources were reliable and make the publisher aware of the conflict.
2. What are the benefits and costs to the people involved? The client’s reputations would
be harmed if the illegal actions are reported. The public deserves to know the truth. The
paper would lose the revenue from the client if the ad is not accepted.
3. Would you want the action to be a universal standard? If other parties accepted gain
from enterprises they knew operated unethically, there would be no purpose in behaving
ethically. Businesses would be encouraged to do what is wrong.
4. Does the action pass the light-of-day test? Readers would view the contradiction in
reporting and published ads as a mixed message about the importance of ethical
behavior.
5. Does the action pass the Golden Rule test? Most people would not want to be
misguided about the social responsibility of an unethical firm.
6. Does the action pass the ventilation test? A friend would likely say that the desire to
earn money from the sale of the ad should not overrule the need to report fairly.
HE best thing Mark Twain ever said was, "I should like
to see the ballot in the hands of every woman."
Freethinkers should also remember him with gratitude;
he said enough from our point of view to warrant that.
"Give me my glasses," were his last words. It will be
but a short time before some pious evangelical hypocrite will add, "I
want to read my Bible!" They are already writing about his "highest
sphere of thought," namely, his religious thought.
I remember when a Presbyterian deacon said of him, "I would rather
bury a daughter of mine than have her marry such a fellow." The
church people are all anxious to avoid their own history concerning
Mark Twain and many other people.
The Reverend Doctor Twitchell said at Mark's funeral that a simple
soul had gone trustingly to the beyond. He didn't mention where the
beyond was, and he prayed to the Christian God that courage in the
faith of immortality be given to those who mourn.
Through all these Christian notices runs an undercurrent that Mark
Twain was only secondarily a humorist. I knew him somewhat in the
old days and have heard him lecture. He certainly laughed
superstition from the minds of thousands, and the most of his books
bear witness to his broad and liberal views.
The Reverend Doctor Van Dyke mixed much religious sophistry with
his remarks at the funeral of Twain, but the reverend doctor is a
theological acrobat.
He preached once on the Atonement, and said there are a thousand
true doctrines of the Atonement, which is saying substantially that
no doctrine specifically is true—for instance, the doctrine of the
Westminster Confession, to which Van Dyke pledged loyalty when he
was ordained a Presbyterian minister. He at that time ripped up the
Westminster settlement, and reopened the whole question for
discussion.
Any preacher who believes in the geology of Moses, the astronomy
of Joshua, and the mathematics of the Trinity, must do an immense
amount of "side-stepping."
But we are yet victims of ecclesiastical villainy. The priest is still the
worst enemy of mankind. His church is like that monster of fiction
which lived on little children. In the name of the children I protest
against the action of the Church in stealing their tender brains, in
making them slaves of superstition before they are old enough to
know to what they are doomed.
The age of consent to a religious faith should be determined by law,
if necessary. Today any boy or girl may be the victim of a designing
priest or clergyman, or of a designing religious system.
No person under eighteen years of age should be allowed to join a
church or consent to a statement of faith. Mental purity should be
guarded and protected as well as physical purity.
While the Church is powerful in numbers and while its religion is
supported by wealth and fashion, the world is becoming more and
more emancipated from its pernicious influence. The light that truth
gives is still ahead of us, but it is there, and some day the world will
grow warmer under its rays and men become better and kinder to
one another.
A hundred years ago the God worshiped in orthodox churches went
about drowning little boys and girls who went skating on Sundays.
Those were the "good old days" when men and women had religion
for breakfast, dinner and supper, and took it to bed with them. It
takes a long time to get such a horrible religion out of the system.
Men and women still have a mean faith, a faith which can see others
damned with satisfaction if they can only be saved. Nothing but a
mean religion could make men and women as mean as that. I would
rather starve than preach the doctrine of endless pain for a human
being—or even for a dog. I believe that this world is hard and dark
and cruel enough without borrowing suffering from another world to
make darker and harder the road of life and add torture to the
nights of pain and misery.
A church must be sunk pretty low when it lives on the fears and
tears of mankind; but what lower depths of degradation does it
sound when it can deliberately create fears and tears that it may live
and thrive in its vile and cruel business! A human being without pity
should be shunned and despised; but a human being who can fill the
heart with terror should not be allowed in a civilized community.
The mind today wants to get out into the open, into the free
daylight, wants to walk the earth, look at the stars and sky, feel the
warmth of the sun and smell the odor of the ground; it has become
tired of being shut up in a faith, in a creed, in a church; tired of
being kept in the darkness of the past, in the tomb of dead
thoughts, in the moldy caskets of unreal things, and in the dungeon
of fear.
The mind is striving to break the chains of the priest and be free
from the bonds of the Church.
You can not have men free where the priest demands and claims
their obedience. The greatest menace to our national institutions is
the power that controls men; that controls their thoughts, their
actions and their destinies. Liberty can survive only where men are
free: free to think, free to read, free to speak and free to act. The
mind must not be bound by any vow of obedience. One man, no
matter what his office, what his position, what his rank, has no right
to compel another's obedience. This is the worst oppression on
earth.
What is needed in this country is more men who dare think and
speak for themselves; who dare belong to no church; who dare work
for the right as they see it, and speak the truth as they understand
it; who dare live their own lives independent of fashion's demands or
society's usages; who dare put liberty above conformity, and who
dare defy customs, law and religion in their zeal to help their fellow-
beings.
There is more than one liberty—more than the liberty to do right—
that is partly won for every civilized being. There is another liberty
that is dangerous and that persists even where civilization exists—
the liberty to take another's liberty from him. This liberty is usually
taken from another in the name of God and what is called holy; but
there is nothing on earth so holy as liberty, and he who takes it from
another robs him of the dearest right possessed by man. Binding a
human being with the chains of faith before that being is old enough
to judge whether the faith is reasonable or true is the assassination
of freedom.
The greatest danger which confronts our nation today is not political
but religious, and the preservation of our free institutions does not
depend upon our army and navy, but upon the emancipation of the
human mind from ecclesiastical slavery. As Thomas Paine well said,
"Spiritual freedom is the root of political liberty." You can not have
free schools, free speech and a free press where the mind is not
free.
There is too much faith in this country and too little sense. Men have
given up about everything they possess to be saved; but it is more
necessary, and more commendable in the workingmen of this nation,
to save their dollars than to save their souls.
A subject that needs to be investigated quite as much as, if not
more than, the high cost of living is the high cost of worship. There
may be some justice in the criticism of the price of meats. We must
remember, however, that we do get something for our money when
we buy meat, but let us not forget that we get absolutely nothing for
the money spent for worship. Money given to the Church is lost to
the world. It is not used to improve homes; to help the poor and
needy; to alleviate suffering; to bring hope to the sick or to give a
few comforts to old age. It goes into the pocket of ecclesiastical
greed.
This country just at present is suffering from those twin curses of
humanity—religion and Bull-Mooseism. The priest and Bull-Mooseism
are the two worst trouble-makers in this country. To get rid of this
precious pair of knaves would be to bring peace on earth and hasten
the dawn.
I don't know which is the bigger knave, the priest or the Bull-Mooser,
but I do know that the priest is engaged in the meaner business of
the two.
When a man tries to sell me a mouse-trap to catch elephants, I am
suspicious of his mental sanity; and when a man tells me that
eternal happiness can be won by enlisting in his salvation army, I
question his moral sanity. I know that religion is offered at cut rates,
but there is no discount on morality. You can not have the reward of
good behavior unless you behave. You may save your soul by
saying, "I believe," but you have to do something to save your body.
There is too much of this "believe-in-me" business. You don't want
to believe in any one you know nothing about. The faith of a little
child in its parents is beautiful, but the faith of a grown-up man in a
priest is idiotic. Faith has ruined more than it has saved. With faith
goes obedience, and he or she who obeys is lost.
There is no honest call today to believe, because there is opportunity
to know. Faith is hatched in the nest of imposition. He who yields
obedience is a fool, and he who demands it is a scoundrel.
In this age, as in the past, a lie made "holy" is allowed to
assassinate the truth. Nothing is cursing this nation; nothing is
cursing human life; nothing is cursing honest effort and brave
striving so much as what is called holiness. It is holy to believe all
you are told; holy to wear the robes of hypocrisy; holy to rob the
poor in the name of God, and holy to put the poison of faith to the
lips of a child. It is holy to repudiate Nature and make a lie of your
body, your mind, your life. To purify the dwelling-place of man, it is
necessary to drive from the earth everything that religion has made
holy.
The only really sacred things were holy before a church was ever
built, before there was a priest on the globe.
Human love and the home which human love built for its offspring
were the first holy things which men and women knew, and it is this
human love of ours which is holier than mosque, temple or church;
holier than priestly robe or ecclesiastical rite; holier by far than all
the holy things of faith.
The Church has always lived by robbing the home; the priest has
always lived on the wages of the toiler. The gods of religion have
never done aught to lighten the heavy load on the shoulders of
labor. The priest has said to mankind that his Lord left this
consolation to the world: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy-laden and I will give you rest."
What the priest really means is this: Come unto me and I will do the
rest; and by the time he has done it, there is nothing of manhood
left.
The priest also teaches that his Lord and Master said, "Ask and ye
shall receive," and adds, "The Lord will provide." How many poor
wretches have believed those words; but their outstretched hands
withered away day by day, and at last dropped empty by their sides.
There they lay white and cold, holding not the bread they fondly
expected, but holding the hand of death.
It may be pious and it may be beautiful to say, "The Lord will
provide," but it is a lie just the same. When, the other day, the
bodies of a mother and her two children were being carried to the
grave with the words, "starved to death," written on their faces, but
not written on their caskets, it was a sufficient refutation of the
religious teaching that "The Lord will provide." It is the plain,
unvarnished truth that the Lord will not even provide the coffin for
the poor victim of such a false, deceptive, religious faith.
In olden times it was customary for the Church to say, God's light
lights the world. Not so today. God's light has gone out. It is man's
light that lights the world and the Church too. Our enlightenment is
human, not divine. No altar of religion burns with the fire of truth.
Science carries the torch of knowledge: liberty is the way and truth
is the goal.
On our earth gods no longer make their homes. It was not safe for
them to live any more. Their sons may once have married the
daughters of men, but they can not get a license to do so today.
Parents will not stand for it.
So the gods have gone, bag and baggage. Where they have gone,
no one knows. The skies give no sign that they are hiding up there.
The telescope has found seventy million stars, but not one god.
It is time for the pulpit to stop repeating the old superstitions about
God and about what he has done for man. He has never done any
more for man than he is doing today; never spoken to man any
more than he is speaking today; never revealed himself to anybody
any more than he stands revealed to you and me and to every
human being everywhere.
Every word that ever came from the mouth of God man put in his
mouth, and every book revealed by God was written by man.
Half the work of man for the next one hundred years will be to kill
the lies told about what God has done.
Whether there is in all the vast universe a higher and nobler being
than man, I don't know. Whether there is in all the vast universe a
better place for man to live than on this earth, I don't know. And no
one knows any more about these matters than I do.
We have found out much that is not so; now we want to find out all
we can that is so. And it is of no use to go to the Church to learn
anything. The Church is only a place where falsehoods are kept in
cold storage. The man who thinks and studies is the man who is
helping the world most, not the man who preaches and prays. To
find the truth one needs to get as far from the Church as possible.
Christians of all denominations have lots of pity for the man without
a church. Let me assure these persons that the man without a
church doesn't want one. As a rule, he is satisfied with what he has.
He has a home, which is better than a church. If those persons who
are pitying men and women for not having a church would, instead,
pity the man without a home, and pity him enough to help him get
one, they would show much better sense and manifest a truer
sympathy with their fellow-beings.
I can not see any good in painting a thing white that is black, or
calling a thing beautiful that is ugly. There are persons who talk as
though they believed that a Northeast storm was sunshine. I am not
made that way. I am as ready and as willing as anybody to
acknowledge the good in Nature, or the good in life, but I do not
believe in lying, in saying that wrong is right, or that suffering is to
be enjoyed. There are lots of hard things in our life, and it does not
alter facts to call them by some other name. A man dying with a
cancer can not be made to believe that he is having a good time.
The most that any man can do who goes through this earthly
existence is to use his fellow-mortals right and square; to give them
an honest day's work when he works for them and an honest day's
pay when he hires them; to say nothing to hurt them and everything
he can to assist them; to help them out of trouble and not get them
into trouble. If one does this, and does no more than this, he has
done what beats every religion on earth.
We have got to deal with men and women as they are and where
they are. The man who is natural; the man who has not been made
a fool of by a priest or parson; the man who has not swapped his
commonsense for a foolish belief; the man who has not had his
mind stuffed with religious dope, knows that this life on earth is the
important life, and that it is a higher work to determine his fate here
than anywhere else.
There is not a person living who would not be well and strong and
happy here rather than hereafter. I would rather have the power to
make every cripple straight and whole; every poor, unfortunate man
and woman prosperous and contented; every sick person well, every
bad person good, and every slave to vice master of his appetite and
passions, in this life on earth, than to save the human wrecks, the
human unfortunates, the human victims of vice and crime, for
another life somewhere else.
What men and women want is happiness, not Heaven. They want a
good home on this globe, not a loafing-place in Abraham's bosom.
They want the opportunity to enjoy the good things of this life, not
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