God and my Neighbour Part 8

I cut the following from a London morning paper:

It was discovered some few years ago that a peculiar bacillus was present in all persons suffering from typhoid, and in all foods and drinks which spread the disease. Experiments were carried out, and it was a.s.sumed, not without good reason, that the bacillus was the primary cause of the malady, and it was accordingly labelled the typhoid bacillus.

But the bacteriologists further discovered that the typhoid bacillus was present in water which was not infectious, and in persons who were not ill, or had never been ill, with typhoid.

So now a theory is propounded that a healthy typhoid bacillus does not cause typhoid, but that it is only when the bacillus is itself sick of a fever, or, in other words, is itself the prey of some infinitely minuter organisms, which feed on it alone, that it works harm to mortal men.

The bacillus is so small that one requires a powerful microscope to see him, and his blood may be infested with bacilli as small to him as he is to us.

And there are millions, and more likely billions, of suns!

Talk about Aladdin's palace, Sinbad's valley of diamonds, Macbeth's witches, or the Irish fairies! How petty are their exploits, how tawdry are their splendours, how paltry are their riches, when we compare them to the romance of science.

When did a poet conceive an idea so vast and so astounding as the theory of evolution? What are a few paltry, lumps of crystallised carbon compared to a galaxy of a million million suns? Did any Eastern inventor of marvels ever suggest such a human feat as that accomplished by the men who have, during the last handful of centuries, spelt out the mystery of the universe? These scientists have worked miracles before which those of the ancient priests and magicians are mere tricks of hanky-panky.

Look at the romance of geology; at the romance of astronomy; at the romance of chemistry; at the romance of the telescope, and the microscope, and the prism. More wonderful than all, consider the story of how flying atoms in s.p.a.ce became suns, how suns made planets, how planets changed from spheres of flame and raging fiery storm to worlds of land and water. How in the water specks of jelly became fishes, fishes reptiles, reptiles mammals, mammals monkeys; monkeys men; until, from the fanged and taloned cannibal, roosting in a forest, have developed art and music, religion and science; and the children of the jellyfish can weigh the suns, measure the stellar s.p.a.ces, ride on the ocean or in the air, and speak to each other from continent to continent.

Talk about fairy tales! what is this? You may look through a telescope, and see the nebula that is to make a sun floating, like a luminous mist, three hundred million miles away. You may look again, and see another sun in process of formation. You may look again, and see others almost completed. You may look again and again, and see millions of suns and systems spread out across the heavens like rivers of living gems.

You will say that all this speaks of a Creator. I shall not contradict you. But what kind of Creator must He be who has created such a universe as this?

Do you think He is the kind of Creator to make blunders and commit crimes? Can you, after once thinking of the Milky Way, with its rivers of suns, and the drop of water teeming with spangled dragons, and the awful abysses of dark s.p.a.ce, through which comets shoot at a speed a thousand times as fast as an express train--can you, after seeing Saturn's rings, and Jupiter's moons, and the cl.u.s.tered gems of Hercules, consent for a moment to the allegation that the creator of all this power and glory got angry with men, and threatened them with scabs and sores, and plagues of lice and frogs? Can you suppose that such a creator would, after thousands of years of effort, have failed even now to make His repeated revelations comprehensible? Do you believe that He would be driven across the unimaginable gulfs of s.p.a.ce, but of the transcendent glory of His myriad resplendent suns, to die on a cross, in order to win back to Him the love of the puny creatures on one puny planet in the marvellous universe His power had made?

Do you believe that the G.o.d who imagined and created such a universe could be petty, base, cruel, revengeful, and capable of error? I do not believe it.

And now let us examine the character and conduct of this G.o.d as depicted for us in the Bible--the book which is alleged to have been directly revealed by G.o.d Himself.

JEHOVAH THE ADOPTED HEAVENLY FATHER OF CHRISTIANITY

In giving the above brief sketch of the known universe my object was to suggest that the Creator of a universe of such scope and grandeur must be a Being of vast power and the loftiest dignity.

Now, the Christians claim that their G.o.d created this universe--not the universe He is described, in His own inspired word, as creating, but the universe revealed by science; the universe of twenty millions of suns.

And the Christians claim that this G.o.d is a G.o.d of love, a G.o.d omnipotent, omnipresent, and eternal. And the Christians claim that this great G.o.d, the Creator of our wonderful universe, is the G.o.d revealed to us in the Bible.

Let us, then, go to the Bible, and find out for ourselves whether the G.o.d therein revealed is any more like the ideal Christian G.o.d than the universe therein revealed is like the universe since discovered by man without the aid of divine inspiration.

As for the biblical G.o.d, Jahweh, or Jehovah, I shall try to show from the Bible itself that He was not all-wise, nor all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that He was not merciful nor just; but that, on the contrary, He was fickle, jealous, dishonourable, immoral, vindictive, barbarous, and cruel.

Neither was He, in any sense of the words, great nor good. But, in fact, He was a tribal G.o.d, an idol, made by man; and, as the idol of a savage and ignorant tribe, was Himself a savage and ignorant monster.

First then, as to my claim that Jahweh, or Jehovah, was a tribal G.o.d. I shall begin by quoting from _Shall We Understand the Bible?_ by the Rev.

T. Rhondda Williams:

The theology of the Jahwist is very childish and elementary, though it is not all on the same level. He thinks of G.o.d very much as in human form, holding intercourse with men almost as one of themselves. His doc.u.ment begins with Genesis ii. 4, and its first portion continues, without break, to the end of chapter iv. This portion contains the story of Eden. Here Jahweh _moulds_ dust into human form, and _breathes_ into it; _plants_ a garden, and puts the man in it. Jahweh comes to the man in his sleep, and takes part of his body to make a woman, and so skilfully, apparently, that the man never wakes under the operation. Jahweh _walks_ in the garden like a man in the cool of the day. He even _makes coats_ for Adam and Eve.

Further on the Jahwist has a flood story, in which Jahweh _repents_ that he had made man, and decides to drown him, saving only one family. When all is over, and Noah sacrifices on his new altar, Jahweh _smells_ a sweet savour, just as a hungry man smells welcome food. When men build the Tower of Babel, Jahweh _comes down_ to see it--he cannot see it from where he is. In Genesis xviii. the Jahwist tells a story of three men coming to Abraham's tent. Abraham gives them water to wash their feet, and bread to eat, and Sarah makes cakes for them, and "they did eat"; altogether, they seemed to have had a nice time. As the story goes on, he leaves you to infer that one of these was Jahweh himself. It is J. who describes the story of Jacob _wrestling_ with some mysterious person, who, by inference, is Jahweh. He tells a very strange story in Exodus iv. 24, that when Moses was returning into Egypt, at Jahweh's own request, Jahweh met him at a lodging-place, and sought to kill him. In Exodus xiv. 15 it is said Jahweh took the wheels off the chariots of the Egyptians. If we wanted to believe that such statements were true at all, we should resort to the device of saying they were figurative. But J. meant them literally. The Jahwist would have no difficulty in thinking of G.o.d in this way. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah belongs to this same doc.u.ment, in which, you remember, Jahweh says: "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know"

(Gen. xviii. 21). That G.o.d was omniscient and omnipresent had never occurred to the Jahwist. Jahweh, like a man, had to go and see if he wanted to know. There is, however, some compensation in the fact that he can move about without difficulty--he can come down and go up. One might say, perhaps, that in J., though Jahweh cannot _be_ everywhere, he can go to almost any place.

All this is just like a child's thought. The child, at Christmas, can believe that, though Santa Claus cannot be everywhere, he can move about with wonderful facility, and, though he is a man, he is rather mysterious. The Jahwist's thought of G.o.d represents the childhood stage of the national life.

Later, Mr. Williams writes:

All this shows that at one time Jahweh was one of many G.o.ds; other G.o.ds were real G.o.ds. The Israelites themselves believed, for example, that Chemosh was as truly the G.o.d of the Moabites as Jahweh was theirs, and they speak of Chemosh giving territory to his people to inherit, just as Jahweh had given them territory (Judges xi. 24).

Just as a King of Israel would speak of Jahweh, the King of Moab speaks of Chemosh. His G.o.d sends him to battle. If he is defeated, the G.o.d is angry; if he succeeds, the G.o.d is favourable. And we have seen that there was a time when the Israelite believed Chemosh to be as real for Moab as Jahweh for himself. You find the same thing everywhere. The old a.s.syrian kings said exactly the same thing of the G.o.d a.s.sur.

a.s.sur sent them to battle, gave defeat or victory, as he thought fit. The history, however, is very obscure up to the time of Samuel, and uncertain for some time after. Samuel organised a Jahweh party. David worshipped Jahweh only, though he regards it as possible to be driven out of Jahweh's inheritance into that of other G.o.ds (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). Solomon was not exclusively devoted to Jahweh, for he built places of worship for other deities as well.

In the chapter on "Different Conceptions of Providence in the Bible,"

Mr. Williams says:

I have asked you to read Judges iii. 15-30, iv. 17-24, v. 24-31.

The first is the story of Ehud getting at Eglon, Israel's enemy, by deceit, and killing him--an act followed by a great slaughter of Moabites. The second is the story of Jael pretending to play the friend to Sisera, and then murdering him. The third is the eulogy of Jael for doing so, as "blessed above women," in the so-called Song of Deborah. Here, you see, Providence is only concerned with the fortunes of Israel; any deceit and any cruelty is right which brings success to this people. Providence is not concerned with morality; nor is it concerned with individuals, except as the individual serves or opposes Israel.

In these two chapters Mr. Williams shows that the early conception of G.o.d was a very low one, and that it underwent considerable change. In fact, he says, with great candour and courage, that the early Bible conception of G.o.d is one which we cannot now accept.

With this I entirely agree. We cannot accept as the G.o.d of Creation this savage idol of an obscure tribe, and we have renounced Him, and are ashamed of Him, not because of any later divine revelation, but because mankind have become too enlightened, too humane, and too honourable to tolerate Jehovah.

And yet the Christian religion adopted Jehovah, and called upon its followers to worship and believe Him, on pain of torture, or death, or excommunication in this world, and of h.e.l.l-fire in the world to come. It is astounding.

But lest the evidence offered by Mr. Williams should not be considered sufficient, I shall quote from another very useful book, _The Evolution of the Idea of G.o.d_, by the late Grant Allen. In this book Mr. Allen clearly traces the origins of the various ideas of G.o.d, and we hear of Jehovah again, as a kind of tribal stone idol, carried about in a box or ark. I will quote as fully as s.p.a.ce permits:

But Jahweh was an object of portable size, for, omitting for the present the descriptions in the Pentateuch--which seem likely to be of later date, and not too trustworthy, through their strenuous Jehovistic editing--he was carried from Shiloh in his ark to the front during the great battle with the Philistines at Ebenezer; and the Philistines were afraid, for they said, "A G.o.d is come into the camp." But when the Philistines captured the ark, the rival G.o.d, Dagon, fell down and broke in pieces--so Hebrew legend declared--before the face of Jahweh.

After the Philistines restored the sacred object, it rested for a time at Kirjath-jearim till David, on the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites, went down to that place to bring up from thence the ark of the G.o.d; and as it went, on a new cart, they "played before Jahweh on all manner of instruments," and David himself "danced before Jahweh."... The children of Israel in early times carried about with them a tribal G.o.d, Jahweh, whose presence in their midst was intimately connected with a certain ark or chest containing a stone object or objects. This chest was readily portable, and could be carried to the front in case of warfare. They did not know the origin of the object in the ark with certainty; but they regarded it emphatically as "Jahweh their G.o.d, which led them out of the land of Egypt."...

I do not see, therefore, how we can easily avoid the obvious inference that Jahweh the G.o.d of the Hebrews, who later became sublimated and etherealised into the G.o.d of Christianity, was, in his origin, nothing more nor less than the ancestral sacred stone of the people of Israel, however sculptured, and, perhaps, in the very last resort of all, the unhewn monumental pillar of some early Semitic sheikh or chieftain.

It was, indeed, as the Rev. C. E. Beeby says, in his book _Creed and Life_, a sad mistake of St. Augustine to tack this tribal fetish in his box on to the Christian religion as the All-Father, and Creator of the Universe. For Jehovah was a savage war-G.o.d, and, as such, was impotent to save the tribe who worshipped him.

But let us look further into the accounts of this original G.o.d of the Christians, and see how he comported himself, and let us put our examples under separate heads; thus:

Jehovah's Anger

Jahweh's bad temper is constantly displayed in the Bible. Jahweh made a man, whom he supposed to be perfect. When the man turned bad on his hands, Jahweh was angry, and cursed him and his seed for thousands of years. This vindictive act is accepted by the Apostle Paul as a natural thing for a G.o.d of Love to do.

Jahweh who had already cursed all the seed of Adam, was so angry about man's sin, in the time of Noah, that he decided to drown all the people on the earth except Noah's family, and not only that, but to drown nearly all the innocent animals as well.

When the children of Israel, who had eaten nothing but manna for forty years, asked Jahweh for a change of diet, Jahweh lost his temper again, and sent amongst them "fiery serpents," so that "much people of Israel died." But still the desire for other food remained, and the Jews wept for meat. Then the Lord ordered Moses to speak to the people as follows:

... The Lord will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days nor twenty days: but even a whole month, until it come out of your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you; because that ye have despised the Lord, which is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?

Then Jahweh sent immense numbers of quails, and the people ate them, and the anger of their angry G.o.d came upon them in the act, and smote them with "a very great plague."

One more instance out of many. In the First Book of Samuel we are told that on the return of Jahweh in his ark from the custody of the Philistines some men of Bethshemesh looked into the ark. This made Jahweh so angry that he smote the people, and slew more than fifty thousand of them.