ALL Christians know that all the gods, except Jehovah, were created by
man; that they were, and are, false, foolish and monstrous; that all the
heathen temples were built and all their altars erected in vain; that
the sacrifices were wasted, that the priests were hypocrites, that their
prayers were unanswered and that the poor people were deceived, robbed
and enslaved. But after all, is our God superior to the gods of the
heathen?
We can ask this question now because we are prosperous, and prosperity
gives courage. If we should have a few earthquakes or a pestilence we
might fall on our knees, shut our eyes and ask the forgiveness of God
for ever having had a thought. We know that famine is the friend of
faith and that calamity is the sunshine of superstition. But as we have
no pestilence or famine, and as the crust of the earth is reasonably
quiet, we can afford to examine into the real character of our God.
It must be admitted that the use of power is an excellent test of
character.
Would a good God appeal to prejudice, the armor, fortress, sword and
shield of ignorance? to credulity, the ring in the priest-led nose
of stupidity? to fear, the capital stock of imposture, the lever of
hypocrisy? Would a good God frighten or enlighten his children? Would
a good God appeal to reason or ignorance, to justice or selfishness, to
liberty or the lash?
To our first parents in the Garden of Eden, our God said nothing about
the sacredness of love, nothing about children, nothing about education,
about justice or liberty.
After they had violated his command he became ferocious as a wild beast.
He cursed the earth and to Eve he said:--"I will greatly multiply thy
sorrow. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. Thy husband shall
rule over thee."
Our God made love the slave of pain, made wives serfs, and brutalized
the firesides of the world.
Our God drowned the whole world, with the exception of eight people;
made the earth one vast and shoreless sea covered with corpses.
Why did he cover the world with men, women and children knowing that he
would destroy them?
Why did he not try to reform them? Why would he create people, knowing
that they could not be reformed?
Is it possible that our God was intelligent and good?
After the flood our God selected the Jews and abandoned the rest of his
children. He paid no attention to the Hindoos, neglected the Egyptians,
ignored the Persians, forgot the Assyrians and failed to remember the
Greeks. And yet he was the father of them all. For many centuries he was
only a tribal God, protecting the few and despising the many. Our God
was ignorant, knew nothing of astronomy or geology. He did not even know
the shape of the earth, and thought the stars were only specks.
He knew nothing of disease. He thought that the blood of a bird that had
been killed over running water was good medicine. He was revengeful and
cruel, and assisted some of his children to butcher and destroy others.
He commanded them to murder men, wives and children, and to keep alive
the maidens and distribute them among his soldiers.
Our God established slavery--commanded men to buy their fellow-men, to
make merchandise of wives and babes. Our God sanctioned polygamy and
made wives the property of their husbands. Our God murdered the people
for the crimes of kings.
No man of intelligence, no one whose brain has not been poisoned by
superstition, paralyzed by fear, can read the Old Testament without
being forced to the conclusion that our God was, a wild beast.
If we must have a god, let him be merciful. Let us remember that "the
quality of mercy is not strained." Let us remember that when the sword
of Justice becomes a staff to support the weak, it bursts into blossom,
and that the perfume of that flower is the only incense, the only
offering, the only sacrifice that mercy will accept.