Part 13 (1/2)
Why should the innocent maiden and the loving mother wors.h.i.+p the heartless Jewish G.o.d? Why should they, with pure and stainless lips, read the vile record of inspired l.u.s.t?
The marriage of the one man to the one woman is the citadel and fortress of civilization. Without this, woman becomes the prey and slave of l.u.s.t and power, and man goes back to savagery and crime. From the bottom of my heart I hate, abhor and execrate all theories of life, of which the pure and sacred home is not the corner-stone. Take from the world the family, the fireside, the children born of wedded love, and there is nothing left. The home where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all the world.
XXVII. ”INSPIRED” WAR
If the bible be true, G.o.d commanded his chosen people to destroy men simply for the crime of defending their native land. They were not allowed to spare trembling and white-haired age, nor dimpled babes clasped in the mothers' arms. They were ordered to kill women, and to pierce, with the sword of war, the unborn child. ”Our heavenly Father”
commanded the Hebrews to kill the men and women, the fathers, sons and brothers, but to preserve the girls alive. Why were not the maidens also killed? Why were they spared? Read the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and you will find that the maidens were given to the soldiers and the priests. Is there, in all the history of war, a more infamous thing than this? Is it possible that G.o.d permitted the violets of modesty, that grow and shed their perfume in the maiden's heart, to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of l.u.s.t? If this was the order of G.o.d, what, under the same circ.u.mstances, would have been the command of a devil?
When, in this age of the world, a woman, a wife, a mother, reads this record, she should, with scorn and loathing, throw the book away. A general, who now should make such an order, giving over to ma.s.sacre and rapine a conquered people, would be held in execration by the whole civilized world. Yet, if the bible be true, the supreme and infinite G.o.d was once a savage.
A little while ago, out upon the western plains, in a little path leading to a cabin, were found the bodies of two children and their mother. Her breast was filled with wounds received in the defence of her darlings. They had been murdered by the savages. Suppose when looking at their lifeless forms, some one had said, ”This was done by the command of G.o.d!” In Canaan there were countless scenes like this. There was no pity in inspired war. G.o.d raised the black flag, and commanded his soldiers to kill even the smiling infant in its mother's arms. Who is the blasphemer; the man who denies the existence of G.o.d, or he who covers the robes of the Infinite with innocent blood?
We are told in the Pentateuch, that G.o.d, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal l.u.s.ts of savage men. If there be a G.o.d, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.
XXVIII. ”INSPIRED” RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
According to the bible, G.o.d selected the Jewish people through whom to make known the great fact, that he was the only true and living G.o.d. For this purpose, he appeared on several occasions to Moses--came down to Sinai's top clothed in cloud and fire, and wrought a thousand miracles for the preservation and education of the Jewish people. In their presence he opened the waters of the sea. For them he caused bread to rain from heaven. To quench their thirst, water leaped from the dry and barren rock. Their enemies were miraculously destroyed; and for forty years, at least, this G.o.d took upon himself the government of the Jews.
But, after all this, many of the people had less confidence in him than in G.o.ds of wood and stone. In moments of trouble, in periods of disaster, in the darkness of doubt, in the hunger and thirst of famine, instead of asking this G.o.d for aid, they turned and sought the help of senseless things. This G.o.d, with all his power and wisdom, could not even convince a few wandering and wretched savages that he was more potent than the idols of Egypt. This G.o.d was not willing that the Jews should think and investigate for themselves. For heresy, the penalty was death. Where this G.o.d reigned, intellectual liberty was unknown. He appealed only to brute force; he collected taxes by threatening plagues; he demanded wors.h.i.+p on pain of sword and fire; acting as spy, inquisitor, judge and executioner.
In the thirteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, we have the ideas of G.o.d as to mental freedom. ”If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other G.o.ds, which thou hast not known, thou nor thy fathers; _namely_ of the G.o.ds of the people which are around about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth, Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him, neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare him, neither shalt thou conceal him. But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.”
This is the religious liberty of G.o.d; the toleration of Jehovah. If I had lived in Palestine at that time, and my wife, the mother of my children, had said to me, ”I am tired of Jehovah, he is always asking for blood; he is never weary of killing; he is always telling of his might and strength; always telling what he has done for the Jews, always asking for sacrifices; for doves and lambs--blood, nothing but blood.--Let us wors.h.i.+p the sun. Jehovah is too revengeful, too malignant, too exacting. Let us wors.h.i.+p the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with flowers; by its divine light I first saw your face, and my beautiful babe.”--If I had obeyed the command of G.o.d, I would have killed her. My hand would have been first upon her, and after that the hands of all the people, and she would have been stoned with stones until she died. For my part, I would never kill my wife, even if commanded so to do by the real G.o.d of this universe. Think of taking up some ragged rock and hurling it against the white bosom filled with love for you; and when you saw oozing from the bruised lips of the death wound, the red current of her sweet life--think of looking up to heaven and receiving the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandment you had obeyed!
Can we believe that any such command was ever given by a merciful and intelligent G.o.d? Suppose, however, that G.o.d did give this law to the Jews, and did tell them that whenever a man preached a heresy, or proposed to wors.h.i.+p any other G.o.d that they should kill him; and suppose that afterward this same G.o.d took upon himself flesh, and came to this very chosen people and taught a different religion, and that thereupon the Jews crucified him; I ask you, did he not reap exactly what he had sown? What right would this G.o.d have to complain of a crucifixion suffered in accordance with his own command?
Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain.
No G.o.d is ent.i.tled to the wors.h.i.+p or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself.
If the Pentateuch be true, religious persecution is a duty. The dungeons of the Inquisition were temples, and the clank of every chain upon the limbs of heresy was music in the ear of G.o.d. If the Pentateuch was inspired, every heretic should be destroyed; and every man who advocates a fact inconsistent with the sacred book, should be consumed by sword and flame.
In the Old Testament no one is told to reason with a heretic, and not one word is said about relying upon argument, upon education, nor upon intellectual development--nothing except simple brute force. Is there to-day a christian who will say that four thousand years ago, it was the duty of a husband to kill his wife if she differed with him upon the subject of religion? Is there one who will now say that, under such circ.u.mstances, the wife ought to have been killed? Why should G.o.d be so jealous of the wooden idols of the heathen? Could he not compete with Baal? Was he envious of the success of the Egyptian magicians? Was it not possible for him to make such a convincing display of his power as to silence forever the voice of unbelief? Did this G.o.d have to resort to force to make converts? Was he so ignorant of the structure of the human mind as to believe all honest doubt a crime? If he wished to do away with the idolatry of the Canaanites, why did he not appear to them? Why did he not give them the tables of the law? Why did he only make known his will to a few wandering savages in the desert of Sinai? Will some theologian have the kindness to answer these questions? Will some minister, who now believes in religious liberty, and eloquently denounces the intolerance of Catholicism, explain these things; will he tell us why he wors.h.i.+ps an intolerant G.o.d? Is a G.o.d who will burn a soul forever in another world, better than a christian who burns the body for a few hours in this? Is there no intellectual liberty in heaven? Do the angels all discuss questions on the same side? Are all the investigators in perdition? Will the penitent thief, winged and crowned, laugh at the honest folks in h.e.l.l? Will the agony of the d.a.m.ned increase or decrease the happiness of G.o.d? Will there be, in the universe, an eternal _auto da fe?_
XXIX. CONCLUSION
If the Pentateuch is not inspired in its astronomy, geology, geography, history or philosophy, if it is not inspired concerning slavery, polygamy, war, law, religious or political liberty, or the rights of men, women and children, what is it inspired in, or about? The unity of G.o.d?--that was believed long before Moses was born. Special providence?--that has been the doctrine of ignorance in all ages.
The rights of property?--theft was always a crime. The sacrifice of animals?--that was a custom thousands of years before a Jew existed.
The sacredness of life?--there have always been laws against murder.
The wickedness of perjury?--truthfulness has always been a virtue.
The beauty of chast.i.ty?--the Pentateuch does not teach it. Thou shalt wors.h.i.+p no other G.o.d?--that has been the burden of all religions.
Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the a.s.sistance of G.o.d was necessary to produce these books? Is it possible that Galileo ascertained the mechanical principles of ”Virtual Velocity,” the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that Copernicus ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that Kepler discovered his three laws--discoveries of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birth-day of modern science; that Newton gave to the world the Method of Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the Decomposition of Light; that Euclid, Cavalieri, Des Cartes, and Leibnitz, almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of Galvani, Volta, Franklin and Morse, of Trevethick, Watt and Fulton and of all the pioneers of progress--that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite G.o.d?