Flowers of Freethought (First Series) — Who are the Blasphemers?
Superstition is the Devil.
Treat him to a hearty wholesome laugh.
It is the surest exorcism, and you will find laughter medicinal for mind and body too.
Ridicule, and again ridicule, and ever ridicule!
WHO ARE THE BLASPHEMERS?
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 man_; 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 tne 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 such a fool and blackguard 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.
