AN HONEST GOD IS THE NOBLEST WORK OF MAN.
EACH nation has created a god, and the god has always resembled his
creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was
invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely
patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded
praise, flattery, worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and
the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume.
All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and
the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and
the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their
god, and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put
together.
These gods have been manufactured after numberless models, and according
to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a
hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some
are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers,
and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show
themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were
jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into
swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy Ghosts, and
made love to the beautiful daughters of men. Some were married--all
ought to have been--and some were considered as old bachelors from all
eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and
worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful,
savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon
their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our
astonishment.
These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created,
but supposed them perfectly flat Some thought the day could be
lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw
down the walls of a city, and all knew so little of the real nature
of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love
them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just
as he might desire, or as they might command, and that to be governed
by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin.
None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this
little earth. All were wofully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a
rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were
far inferior to the average of American presidents.
These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience. In
order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course,
they have always been partial to the people who created them, and have
generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and
destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters.
Nothing is so pleasing to these gods as the butchery of unbelievers.
Nothing so enrages them, even now, as to have some one deny their
existence.
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god.
Gods were made
so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god
market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These
gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in
all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything.
They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their
immediate control. Nothing was too small--nothing too large; the
falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended
to by these industrious and observing deities. From their starry
thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting
information to man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings
and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a
kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women
that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest
how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper
manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.
When the people failed to worship one of these gods, or failed to feed
and clothe his priests, (which was much the same thing,) he generally
visited them with pestilence and famine. Sometimes he allowed some other
nation to drag them into slavery--to sell their wives and children; but
generally he glutted his vengeance by murdering their first-born.
The priests always did their whole duty, not only in predicting these
calamities, but in proving, when they did happen, that they were brought
upon the people because they had not given quite enough to them.
These gods differed just as the nations differed; the greatest and most
powerful had the most powerful gods, while the weaker ones were obliged
to content themselves with the very off-scourings of the heavens.
Each
of these gods promised happiness here and hereafter to all his slaves,
and threatened to eternally punish all who either disbelieved in his
existence or suspected that some other god might be his superior; but to
deny the existence of all gods was, and is, the crime of crimes. Redden
your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the
innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive,
ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and
your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may
be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court
established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the
existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and
tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden
gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your
ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless
wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell--an immortal vagrant--an eternal
outcast--a deathless convict.
One of these gods, and one who demands our love, our admiration and
our worship, and one who is worshiped, if mere heartless ceremony is
worship, gave to his chosen people for their guidance, the following
laws of war: "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
_then proclaim peace unto it_. And it shall be if it make thee answer,
of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that
is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve
thee. And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against
thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
"And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.
But the women and
the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all
the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself, and thou shalt eat
the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee. Thus
shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee,
which are not of the cities of these nations. But of the cities of these
people which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, _thou
shalt save alive nothing that breatheth?_"
Is it possible for man to conceive of anything more perfectly infamous?
Can you believe that such directions were given by any being except an
infinite fiend? Remember that the army receiving these instructions
was one of invasion. Peace was offered upon condition that the people
submitting should be the slaves of the invader; but if any should have
the courage to defend their homes, to fight for the love of wife and
child, then the sword was to spare none--not even the prattling, dimpled
babe.
And we are called upon to worship such a god; to get upon our knees and
tell him that he is good, that he is merciful, that he is just, that he
is love. We are asked to stifle every noble sentiment of the soul, and
to trample under foot all the sweet charities of the heart Because we
refuse to stultify ourselves--refuse to become liars--we are denounced,
hated, traduced and ostracized here, and this same god threatens to
torment us in eternal fire the moment death allows him to fiercely
clutch our naked helpless souls. Let the people hate, let the god
threaten--we will educate them, and we will despise and defy him.
The book, called the bible, is filled with passages equally horrible,
unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order
to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book to
be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and
justice!
Strange! that no one has ever been persecuted by the church for
believing God bad, while hundreds of millions have been destroyed
for thinking him good. The orthodox church never will forgive the
Universalist for saying "God is love." It has always been considered
as one of the very highest evidences of true and undefined religion to
insist that all men, women and children deserve eternal damnation. It
has always been heresy to say, "God will at last save all."
We are asked to justify these frightful passages, these infamous laws
of war, because the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there
never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove
the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive
evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at
the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air.
The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even
reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely absurd to suppose
that a god would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet
make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their
intelligence for the purpose of understanding his communication. If we
have the right to use our reason, we certainly have the right to act in
accordance with it, and no god can have the right to punish us for such
action.
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous.
It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to
be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason,
observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for
refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity
and ignorance, called "faith." What man, who ever thinks, can believe
that blood can appease God? And yet, our entire system of religion is
based upon that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of
animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus
softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation
of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how the human mind can give
assent to such terrible ideas, or how any sane man can read the bible
and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
Whether the bible is true or false, is of no consequence in comparison
with the mental freedom of the race.
Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is
inestimable.
As long as man believes the bible to be infallible, that book is his
master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but
of unbelief--the result of free thought.
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable
person that the bible is simply and purely of human invention--of
barbarian invention--is to read it. Read it as you would any other
book; think of it as you would of any other; get the bandage of
reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of
fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of
superstition--then read the holy bible, and you will be amazed that you
ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and
purity, to be the author of such ignorance and of such atrocity.
Our ancestors not only had their god-factories, but they made devils as
well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. Some had
headed unsuccessful revolts; some had been caught sweetly reclining in
the shadowy folds of some fleecy cloud, kissing the wife of the god of
gods. These devils generally sympathized with man. There is in regard
to them a most wonderful fact: In nearly all the theologies, mythologies
and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful
than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill
children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities
were always ordered by the good gods. The pestilences were sent by the
most merciful gods. The frightful famine, during which the dying child
with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by
the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world,
with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful
and the helpless were remorsely devoured by the shoreless sea. This,
the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever
conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom
men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would
leave upon the character of a devil! One of the prophets of one of these
gods, having in his power a captured king, hewed him in pieces in the
sight of all the people. Was ever any imp of any devil guilty of such
savagery?
One of these gods is reported to have given the following directions
concerning human slavery:
"If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years shall
he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he
came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then
his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and
she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be
her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall
plainly say, I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go
out free. Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also
bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall
bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever."
According to this, a man was given liberty upon condition that he would
desert forever his wife and children. Did any devil ever force upon a
husband, upon a father, so cruel and so heartless an alternative? Who
can worship such a god? Who can bend the knee to such a monster? Who can
pray to such a fiend?
All these gods threatened to torment forever the souls of their enemies.
Did any devil ever make so infamous a threat? The basest thing recorded
of the devil, is what he did concerning Job and his family, and that
was done by the express permission of one of these gods, and to decide
a little difference of opinion between their serene highnesses as to the
character of "my servant Job." The first account we have of the devil is
found in that purely scientific book called Genesis, and is as follows:
"Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the
Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden? And the woman
said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the
garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest
ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the
woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to
the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and
he did eat. * *
And the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one
of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and
take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever. Therefore the
Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from
which he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east
of the garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned every
way to keep the way of the tree of life."
According to this account the promise of the devil was fulfilled to
the very letter. Adam and Eve did not die, and they did become as gods,
knowing good and evil.
The account shows, however, that the gods dreaded education and
knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards
the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost
power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have
never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall
not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." From every
pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and
become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion
hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of
philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated
tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the
brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.
If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all,
to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate
of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human
ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of
modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of
civilization.
Give me the storm and tempest of thought and action, rather than the
dead calm of ignorance and faith! Banish me from Eden when you will; but
first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
part 2
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