(June, 1882.)
Atheists are often charged with blasphemy, but it is a crime they cannot
commit. God is to them merely a word, expressing all sorts of ideas, and
not a person. It is, properly speaking, a general term, which includes
all that there is in common among the various deities of the world. The
idea of the supernatural embodies itself in a thousand ways. Truth is
always simple and the same, but error is infinitely diverse. Jupiter,
Jehovah and Mumbo-Jumbo are alike creations of human fancy, the products
of ignorance and wonder. Which is _the_ God is not yet settled. When the
sects have decided this point, the question may take a fresh turn; but
until then _god_ must be considered as a generic term, like _tree or
horse or men_; with just this difference, however, that while the words
tree, horse and man express the general qualities of visible objects,
the word god expresses only the imagined qualities of something that
nobody has ever seen.
When the Atheist examines, denounces, or satirises the gods, he is not
dealing with persons but with ideas. He is incapable of insulting God,
for he does not admit the existence of any such being.
Ideas of god may be good or bad, beautiful or ugly; and according as he
finds them the Atheist treats them. If we lived in Turkey we should deal
with the god of the Koran, but as we live in England we deal with the
god of the Bible. We speak of that god as a being, just for convenience
sake, and not from conviction. At bottom, we admit nothing but the mass
of contradictory notions between Genesis and Revelation. We attack not a
person but a belief, not a being but an idea, not a fact but a fancy.
Lord Brougham long ago pointed out, in his "Life of Voltaire," that
the great French heretic was not guilty of blasphemy, as his enemies
alleged; since he had no belief in the actual existence of the god he
dissected, analysed and laughed at. Mr. Ruskin very eloquently defends
Byron from the same charge. In "Cain," and elsewhere, the great poet
does not impeach God; he merely impeaches the orthodox creed. We may sum
up the whole matter briefly. No man satirises the god he believes in,
and no man believes in the god he satirises.
We shall not, therefore, be deterred by the cry of "blasphemy," which is
exactly what the Jewish priests shouted against Jesus Christ. If
there is a God, he cannot be half so stupid and malignant as the Bible
declares. In destroying the counterfeit we do not harm the reality. And
as it is better, in the words of Plutarch, to have no notion of the gods
than to have notions which dishonor them, we are satisfied that the Lord
(if he exist) will never burn us in hell for denying a few lies told in
his name.
The real blasphemers are those who believe in God and blacken his
character; who credit him with less knowledge than a child, and less
intelligence than an idiot; who make him quibble, deceive, and lie; who
represent him as indecent, cruel, and revengeful; who give him the heart
of a savage and the brain of a fool. These are the blasphemers.
When the priest steps between husband and wife, with the name of God on
his lips, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he resists education
and science, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes freedom
of thought and liberty of conscience, he blasphemes. When, in the name
of God, he robs, tortures, and kills those who differ from him, he
blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he opposes the equal rights of
all, he blasphemes. When, in the name of God, he preaches content to the
poor and oppressed, flatters the rich and powerful, and makes religious
tyranny the handmaiden of political privilege, he blasphemes. And
when he takes the Bible in his hand, and says it was written by the
inspiration of God, he blasphemes almost beyond forgiveness.
Who are the blasphemers? Not we who preach freedom and progress for all
men; but those who try to bind the world with chains of dogma, and
to burden it, in God's name, with all the foul superstitions of its
ignorant past.