UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 ( VI K'l' ( )K 
 
 & 
 
 Chss No. 
 
VINDICATION 
 
 OF 
 
 The True God 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 The God of Moses. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE E. KING. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1895- 
 
VINDICATION 
 
 OF 
 
 he rue God 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 The God of Moses. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE E. KING. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 1895. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress in tnc year 1894, by George E. King, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chap. I. The True God 3 
 
 II. The God of Moses and the 
 
 Christians 19 
 
 " III. The Scheme of Moses 32 
 
 ' ' IV. Moses at Mt. Sinai . 45 
 
 V. How the Scheme Resulted. ... 54 
 
 " VI. Jesus of Nazareth 63 
 
 " VII. Origin of the Devil, Hell, and 
 
 the Scheme of Redemption.. 91 
 
 " VIII. The Church in Operation Ill 
 
 " IX. Moses and His Traditions 124 
 
 " X. Origin of the God of Moses .... 143 
 
 " XL The Motive of Moses 1GO 
 
 ' ' XII. Religion and Worship 181 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " FORASMUCH as many have taken in hand to 
 set forth in order" a large number of miracles, 
 which are alleged to have occurred during the 
 last thirty-five or forty centuries, and which are 
 more or less believed, "it has seemed good to 
 me also/' being an old man, to examine carefully 
 the evidence on which those allegations are 
 founded, with no other possible desire but to get 
 at the TRUTH, and " to write unto thee, Most 
 Excellent" Public, the result of my investigation, 
 "in order that thou mightest know," to a cer- 
 tainty, whether to believe them or not. 
 
 G. E. K. 
 
VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 THE GOD OF MOSES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE TRUE GOD. 
 
 THERE is a God, and "that there is, all Nature 
 cries aloud through all her works." Everything 
 in the universe shows design as clearly as the watch, 
 the steam engine, or any other machine made 
 by man. The whole animal kingdom, including 
 man, is but diversified machinery, most cunningly 
 designed and most wonderfully constructed. It 
 matters not whether these machines were made at 
 once and complete by a single fiat of Almighty 
 Power, or whether they have been gradually 
 evolved from infinitesimal atoms or drops of pro- 
 toplasm through a long series of ages. Each and 
 every one of those original atoms must have been 
 created, and each must have followed the original 
 impulse of its creator until his original design was 
 
4 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 accomplished. The design is still there, quite 
 manifest. This clearly proves the existence of a 
 designer, a great first cause ; and it is of no con- 
 sequence what name we give it, whether Jehovah, 
 Theos, Jupiter, or God. It all amounts to the 
 same thing. The fact of his existence is estab- 
 lished. 
 
 As to the form, mode or manner of his exist- 
 ence, or of what or how composed, it is utterly 
 impossible for us to know anything whatever. In 
 this respect, notwithstanding all that has been 
 said and written on the subject, he always has and 
 still does keep himself most effectually and wholly 
 hidden and concealed. In that beautiful poem 
 of Job it is averred, a Touching the Almighty 
 we cannot find him out.'* And in another place 
 the question is asked in a way that furnishes its 
 own answer, " Canst thou by searching find out 
 God ? Canst thou find out the Almighty to per- 
 fection ? " The fact is as true now as when that 
 poem was written. We cannot find out the 
 Almighty to perfection. The most we can do is 
 only to reason on the subject, and this is what I 
 now propose to do. 
 
 It is generally assumed and conceded that God 
 is a spirit, something intangible and unseeable by 
 human senses; and this seems to be the most 
 rational and plausible conclusion we can think 
 of. It may be difficult for the human mind to 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 5 
 
 have any definite conception as to what a spirit 
 is; an entity wholly devoid of materiality. We 
 are somewhat familiar, however, with the great 
 powers of Nature, which, so far as we yet know, 
 have of themselves no materiality. Such are light , 
 heat and electricity. We know considerable about 
 them and of their power, but what we know may 
 be only as an alphabet or first rudiments as com- 
 pared with the great book that remains to be 
 written about them. But the mind may now use 
 them as a ladder to climb up to some faint idea or 
 conception of that all-creating and all-controlling 
 spirit that we call God. It may not be absurd 
 to suppose even that he, in fact, has a material 
 body, composed of the most highly refined essence 
 of matter, still more subtle than light, heat or 
 electricity ; or even that these very powers them- 
 selves are integral and component parts of himself. 
 
 And it is possible that myriads of other spirit- 
 ual beings, infinitely inferior and of different 
 grades, may exist. Nor is it impossible that the 
 souls of men, after they leave the body, may be- 
 come just such or similar beings. 
 
 As a necessary consequence and result of his 
 existence, this Great Being must have something 
 corresponding to the idea of dimension, at least, 
 as'to extent; for he must be everywhere present 
 at one and the same time. Let us consider this. 
 Take the most powerful telescope, turn it to the 
 
6 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 north, and view the most distant region of stars 
 within its scope, then turn it gradually through 
 all the points of the compass, and do the same until 
 you come to the point of beginning. You have 
 compassed a most inconceivably vast space ; a 
 space so vast that light, which travels 12,000,000 
 of miles a minute, would require many years to 
 cross it; and yet you have not discovered the lim- 
 its of creation, but on the contrary at every point 
 you have seen convincing proof that there is much 
 more beyond. And yet God must be at one and 
 the same time at each and every point in this vast 
 space, constantly and continually present as really 
 as he is here with us. He must pervade and 
 permeate every point and particle in this vast do- 
 minion. Who can comprehend, what mind can 
 conceive, any adequate idea of a being of sue him- 
 mensity ? Is this the God which Moses says he 
 saw from a cleft in a rock ? 
 
 But consider his power. He it is who upholds, 
 governs and controls the millions upon millions 
 of stars in the universe, whirling with inconceiva- 
 ble velocity through space, and yet so as not to 
 interfere with each other. He has implanted in 
 matter the property or quality of attraction by 
 which he counterbalances world with world, and 
 system with system, holding every one in its 
 proper place and all in harmonious action. And 
 what are those shining spots called stars? Are 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 7 
 
 they mere toys, childish playthings, glittering 
 jewels, as Moses supposed they were, set in a 
 solid firmament? What strange notions have 
 been entertained in regard to them. Even the 
 great and so-called inspired Evangelist evidently 
 regarded them as insignificant trifles as compared 
 with this world ; that a good wind might shake 
 them all down upon the earth as the untimely 
 fruit of a fig tree, (Rev. vi : 13) implying that 
 they might all be gathered in a few heaps in a 
 farmer's orchard. An idea infinitclessly less 
 worthy of the subject and by far less poetical 
 than that of some genius who described them 
 as "gimlet holes to let glory through." Until 
 quite recent times the earth has been considered. 
 ;is the only body of matter in the universe that 
 was of much consequence, and that all the stars 
 were made only to give light to it, and for man 
 to look at and admire as he would jewels or fire- 
 works. That aside from this they were useless 
 motes in the Ethereal Blue mere tawdry span- 
 gles on the curtain of night. What horror was 
 aroused in the religious world as late as the 17th 
 century, when astronomy suggested that the earth 
 moved- that it revolved around the sun. It 
 seemed to upset the empire of God, and all their 
 long-cherished doctrines and theories. But never- 
 theless, science established the fact. 
 
 And science has also established the fact that 
 
8 VINDICATION OF TH TRUE GOD 
 
 all these millions of stars that stud the heavens 
 are suns like our sun many of them immensely 
 larger, and all emitting original light and heat. 
 And it is not to be presumed that they or any of 
 them are useless bodies, mere ornaments, baubles 
 without design, and serving no purpose. On the 
 contrary, it is only reasonable to suppose that 
 each one, like our sun, lias a system of planets 
 revolving around it, to which it furnishes its ge- 
 nial light and heafc. Then what a mighty family 
 of planets : figures could hardly express the num- 
 ber. As compared with them, this little globule 
 we inhabit is less than the point of a cambric 
 needle, the merest atom. And can it be supposed 
 that this little atom is the only one in God's great 
 universe that is inhabited by intellectual beings? 
 On the contrary, the inference is incontestable, 
 that all these planets are inhabited by intellectual 
 beings, many more or less like man, some perhaps 
 inferior and some perhaps vastly superior. It is 
 not necessary to suppose that all are created just 
 like man either, with like or even similar physical 
 organizations ; or even that all require air and 
 food to sustain life ; or that any certain degree of 
 temperature is necessary. It is within the power 
 of God to create living beings with bodies and 
 natures adapted to the planets on which he places 
 them. Then what a . No language can ex- 
 press the immensity of this circle of intellectual 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OP MOSKS. 9 
 
 beings, or the number of worlds they inhabit. 
 What shall we say, then? Is this the only world, 
 and man the only being, that God cares for or 
 pays any particular attention to ? Well may we 
 exclaim with the sweet singer of Israel, who was 
 but an infant in knowledge of the works of God, 
 " When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy 
 fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast 
 ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of 
 him, or the son of man that thou visitest him ? " 
 What would David have thought and said, if he 
 had known all that modern science has since 
 revealed ? Is it possible that this God lived 
 over thirty years on this little speck of earth, in a 
 human body, under the name of Jesus, and never 
 intimated anything about the vast extent of his 
 dominion, or about the inhabitants of any of his 
 other worlds ? " 
 
 But let us contemplate the power of God more 
 minutely. What he has done in other worlds and 
 other systems can be affirmed only as deductions 
 of reason, of which we can have no absolute 
 knowledge. But let us see what he has done for 
 us 5 and we may presume that he has done the 
 same or something like in all other worlds. He 
 has generated light and heat. He has diversified 
 our little planet with oceans, lakes, rivers, moun- 
 tains, hills and plains ; has clothed it with verdure 
 and adorned it with flowers. He shapes every 
 
1O VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 tree and plant, tints the blossoms with beauty, 
 and gives them their pleasing perfumes. He 
 grows and ripens our fruits and our grains. He 
 takes up moisture from oceans, lakes and rivers 
 by invisible particles, and with them forms clouds, 
 and by his winds drives them out to refresh and 
 gladden the land. He has probably done and is 
 doing like wonderful things in millions of other 
 worlds. 
 
 He has devised and constructed the frame-work 
 of various animals, including man and beasts, 
 birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects ; provided them 
 with pliable joints, bound them together with 
 cartilage and tendons, and clothed them with flesh 
 and muscles filled with fibers and nerves ; provided 
 within them a wonderful complication of ma- 
 chinery, well supplied -with self-made chemicals 
 for the reduction and assimilation of food, and 
 extracting from it proper nutrition, and clearing 
 it of all deleterious properties. Add to this the 
 respiratory laboratory for vivifying and giving it 
 the finishing touch to prepare it to become flesh, 
 to supply and renew every part of the ever-wast- 
 ing body. He has also endowed them with life 
 and the power of locomotion, and above all has 
 implanted within them grades of intelligence 
 mental capacity to enable them to look out for 
 and take care of themselves. He has placed in the 
 head of man a vastly superior mechanism, which 
 
AGAINST THP4 GOD OF MOSES. II 
 
 enables him to think and reason, and appreciate 
 and enjoy intellectual pleasures. A great deal 
 more than this is claimed for man. It is a favor- 
 ite belief with many, that God has given to man 
 an immortal soul that will survive the body, and 
 live independent of it, to all eternity. If this be 
 so, then let it be considered as among his mighti- 
 est works, and his crowning glory. 
 
 Let us also consider (as Dr. Watts says) " the 
 way he works, his wonders to perform." The 
 farmer goes to his field, plows it, scatters there a 
 quantity of dry seeds, and buries them in the 
 earth. After awhile he goes out again and reaps 
 a harvest, which is required for his sustenance, 
 without thinking of the wonderful process that 
 has been gone through with to accomplish such a 
 result. If we should visit some of those fields, we 
 might find growing there side by side in the same 
 soil different kinds of grain ; they may be wheat, 
 rye, and barley. To an unpractrced eye they are 
 not very dissimilar in appearance. The spires of 
 wheat select and draw up from the soil the mat- 
 ter necessary to produce wheat. The spires of 
 rye draw from the same soil appropriate matter 
 necessary for the production of rye ; and the spires 
 of barley draw from the same soil and select and 
 use what is necessary to produce barley. Each 
 forms and produces its own peculiar berry, and 
 neither can produce what either of the others 
 produces. They are all different kinds of grain, 
 
VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 And the fruit trees close by, each one draws 
 from the same soil the material with which it 
 manufactures its own peculiar fruit with its own 
 peculiar flavor ; and the rosebush draws from the 
 same soil the material with which it forms and 
 paints and perfumes its blossoms ; while the poppy 
 close by, in the same way, from the same soil, 
 produces its narcotic drug. Now all these seem- 
 ingly little things, considering that they are at the 
 same time being done not only all over this planet, 
 but in millions of other worlds, show as great 
 skill, ingenuity, and wisdom, as that which first 
 created the heavens. These little kernels of grain, 
 these delicious fruits, and these sweet flowers 
 which adorn our hills and plains, are really as 
 wonderful as the stars which adorn the heavens. 
 
 Take another example: Here is an egg. En- 
 closed within the shell is a yellow ball of matter, 
 surrounded by a pellucid, gelatinous substance 
 called albumen. -It might help to make a good 
 breakfast, but we will not use it for that purpose 
 now, but put it in an incubator, and in three weeks 
 a living being inside pecks open the shell, and 
 hops out a live, perfectly formed, though scantily 
 fledged chicken. It at once seems as familiar 
 witht he world as if it had long lived in it : walks 
 about looking for, selects, picks up and confidently 
 swallows such things and only such things as are 
 good for it to eat. It recognizes water, knows 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 13 
 
 at least some of its uses, puts its little bill into 
 it, and after drawing up a quantity holds its head 
 up high to make it run down its throat. It never 
 saw a hen or had any other earthly teacher. How 
 did it know what was good for it to cat? That 
 it needed water, and that water would run down 
 instead of up ? When it has enough it seeks a 
 warm shelter, and there nestles and sleeps until it 
 either wants something more to eat, or to see a 
 little more of the world. Whence all this wisdom 
 and power, but from God, whose creative, life- 
 giving power must be constantly present, and 
 working at every point in his vast universe. 
 
 It seems to be the almost universal plan and 
 method of the Supreme Being, that from the most 
 infinitesimal, small beginnings, and by gradual, 
 sometimes very slow, almost imperceptible but 
 sure progress, development and evolution, his 
 great designs are quietly accomplished and brought 
 to perfection. Hence all the great works that are 
 constantly going on within us, and before our 
 eyes and all around us, occasion no surprise, at- 
 tract but little attention, and, above all, do not 
 awaken within us any realizing sense of the mighty 
 power and wisdom required and being constantly 
 exercised to accomplish such results. 
 
 In this connection let us consider the origin of 
 man, and the different species of animate nature. 
 Until quite recently the theory has prevailed that 
 
14 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 man and all other animals were created in full 
 form, about as we now find them, at once, by a 
 single fiat of Almighty Power. This theory, how- 
 ever, seems now to be yielding to the far more 
 sensible and probable one elaborated by scientists, 
 that man and all other species of animals have 
 been evolved from infinitesimal by small begin- 
 nings ; described as primordial atoms of protoplasm. 
 Adopting this theory, it must be admitted that all 
 these primordial atoms were created by God, and 
 that if he made one such atom he made many, for 
 he never acts by piecemeal but by multitudes. It 
 must also be conceded that if he made any he 
 probably made many different kinds, and many of 
 each kind, in different parts of his dominions; 
 that each kind was designed and intended to pro- 
 duce a distinct and peculiar genus or species, and 
 that each one has followed the divine creative im- 
 pulse originally given to it by its creator, and has 
 carried out his original design. Hence it is not 
 necessary to believe that man has evolved through 
 oysters, tadpoles, fishes, reptiles and monkeys; 
 but on the contrary we may assume that he origi- 
 nated from that particular and peculiar atom 
 originally created and specially designed by God 
 for the creation of man. That from this small 
 beginning he has passed through many changes 
 of form and structure adapted to the peculiar de- 
 sign of development ; and that all these interme- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 15 
 
 diate forms and structures have been left so far 
 behind, and are so totally disintegrated and de- 
 stroyed, that not a fossil remnant can be found. 
 Hence all search for the fabulous connecting link 
 must fail. The fact that similar organs and struct- 
 ures exist in many animals, frame-works of bones 
 and bodies, composed of ilesh containing muscles 
 and nerves, having similar digestive and respira- 
 tory apparatus, and that similar appearances de- 
 velop in the process of formation, is no proof that 
 all proceeded from atoms of protoplasm that were 
 alike and the same in every particular; that all 
 contained the same ultimate design, and received 
 
 O " 
 
 identically the same divine impulse. If we go to 
 a machine shop, we will find many different ma- 
 chines containing parts that are common to all ; 
 and in the shop of a carpenter we will find pieces 
 of lumber ready formed, which may be used either 
 in building a steamboat, a cottage, a church or a 
 palace. The only fair conclusion, then, is that the 
 wise creator saw that similar formations and ap- 
 pearances would answer his purpose and design, 
 as well in the formation and development of man 
 as of other animals. There is nothing in all these 
 
 o 
 
 things that militates against the supposition that 
 man at first proceeded and was developed from a 
 distinct, peculiar and higher grade of atoms than 
 other animals. And it may be a question whether 
 man has yet entirely fulfilled his destiny. It may 
 
1 6 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 be that he is still in only an embryonic or inter- 
 mediate state, and that in the far distant future a 
 race of beings evolved from man may arise on 
 this planet as far superior to the present race as 
 it now is to the lowest type of monkeys. 
 
 This mode of creating animate nature, instead 
 of detracting from greatly enhances and magni- 
 fie,s our wonder and amazement at the God-like 
 cunning, ingenuity, inventive power, and skill, 
 and his wisdom and power to plan and devise 
 ways and means by small beginnings to accom- 
 plish such great results. 
 
 It cannot be denied that his wisdom is coex- 
 tensive and commensurate with his power ; and 
 it must also be admitted that he is a good Being. 
 Wherever he has created a want or feeling, he 
 has abundantly provided the means for supplying 
 and gratifying them. He has supplied delicious 
 flavors to gratify the taste, pleasant perfumes for 
 the sense of smell, the varied voices of Nature, 
 and the harmonies and melodies of music to 
 charm the ear, and millions of beauties to delight 
 the eye. And he has blessed the mind with the 
 power to think and reason, to explore the fields 
 of science, and revel among the mysteries of his 
 creation. 
 
 But this Great Being, great, powerful, wise, 
 and good as he is, must himself be subject to law, 
 to the laws of his own being, the laws of his 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. IJ 
 
 constitution, the laws of his nature. He cannot 
 change his nature, or act beyond or outside, and 
 in violation of, or in opposition to, or inconsist- 
 ent with, its laws. 
 
 It follows then that he must be immutable, 
 unchangeable. As he cannot change himself, no 
 outside power or influence can change him, or 
 turn or vary him from his purpose and objects, 
 or influence his actions. If it could, it might up- 
 set and overturn his government. Such a thing 
 is impossible. Therefore, " he is the same yes- 
 terday, today, and forever." 
 
 It also follows that God must be constantly and 
 continuously active, always at work. It is the 
 law of his nature, and necessary to keep his cre- 
 ation from falling into chaos. It is impossible 
 that he should ever tire or need rest, or that he 
 ever did rest on any seventh day, or any day, or 
 at any time. 
 
 It is also obvious that all created things, ani- 
 mate and inanimate, are subject to laws implanted 
 by God within them, inherent and interwoven 
 with their natures. 
 
 " No man hath seen God at any time, "nor has 
 he ever by word, or any human language, re- 
 vealed or directly made himself, or his will, or 
 wishes and desires, known to man. In all these 
 respects he ever has and still does keep himself 
 most effectually concealed, and therefore it is im- 
 
1 8 VINDICATION OP A THE TRUK GOD 
 
 possible to find him out to perfection. But so far 
 as reason furnishes any light, such a Being as I 
 have attempted partially to describe is the Being 
 that must be recognized as God, the great Cre- 
 ator and Governor of the Universe. In contem- 
 plating such a Being, we may appreciate this lan- 
 guage : " If thou sinnest, what doest thoti against 
 him? Or, if thy transgressions be multiplied, 
 what doest thou unto him ? If thou be right- 
 eous, what givest thou him, or what receivest he 
 of thy hand ? " 
 
 u Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, 
 and thy righteousness may profit the Son of 
 Man." The necessary inference is, that neither 
 the sin or righteousness of man can in the least 
 affect God. He is high above us, and far out of 
 the reach of our influence. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE GOD OF MOSES AND THE CHRISTIANS. 
 
 Without pretending to have " found out the 
 Almighty to perfection, 7 ' I have thus far at- 
 tempted to suggest and draw to mind some of 
 the characteristics, which every reasonable being 
 must acknowledge and admit to be true, of the 
 One only living and True God, and cannot pos- 
 sibly be otherwise. Now, I propose to show 
 what kind of a being mankind, more particularly 
 Christians, are and long have been setting up and 
 worshipping as God ; contrast him with the true 
 God, and show that their mistaken ideas and 
 notions on the subject, instead of doing any good, 
 have caused more trouble, more crime and suffer- 
 ing in the world, than all other causes combined. 
 
 They start with the sound doctrine that there is 
 but One only living and True God, but from that 
 point immediately run off into a wilderness of 
 gross absurdities. For, at the next step, without 
 the slightest ground for it in reason, and with 
 nothing to support it but the declaration of one 
 Moses, they arrogantly assume that man is created 
 in the image and likeness of God ; and, as a nec- 
 essary corollary, adopt the absurdity, which this 
 
20 VINDICATION OF THK TRUK GOD 
 
 Moses taught, that God has and is in the image 
 and likeness of man. That he is of a spiritual 
 substance, has infinite power, and considerable 
 wisdom ; but has the same form and all the other 
 general characteristics of man. That he has a 
 private residence, called heaven, up in the sky, 
 where lie is attended by hosts of spiritual beings, 
 called angels, who perform such duties and serv- 
 ices as he requires of them. That long before 
 the time of Moses, but mucli oftener in his days, 
 and in the days of Joshua and the so-called 
 prophets, he, at times, has left his celestial man- 
 sion, and " come down " to visit the leaders of a 
 " chosen people/' and personally consult and ad- 
 vise with them, and assist them to carry on their 
 wars and their government. That the Israelites 
 were his favorite people his chosen people his 
 own peculiar people and he was their own God, 
 u an enemy of their enemies, and an adversar 
 of their adversaries," that he was not the God 
 of, and did not care for, any other people, but 
 would gladly assist them to " cut off and destroy 
 all other people " that might come in their way, 
 or that occupied any land they might covet. 
 
 That in the process of time he became a father, 
 by the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the only child 
 he ever had, and who was very dear to him. But 
 it so happened that many of his " chosen people " 
 had the temerity to doubt the paternity of this 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 21 
 
 child, and then he indignantly ceased to visit them, 
 and transferred his affections from them to and 
 fixed them upon those only, whether Jew or Gen- 
 tile, who would believe that this Jesus was in fact 
 his true, legitimate, and only begotten Son, the 
 true Christ, and would join heart and hand to help 
 him build up a kingdom on earth. 
 
 On searching the writings of Moses and the 
 prophets, the believers claimed to discover that it 
 was dear as light that this Jesus was the Son of 
 God and the true Christ; that he was alluded to 
 in those writings ; that everything about him was 
 clearly predicted, and that it was all contained in, 
 evolved from, and was the legitimate and neces- 
 sary outcome and fulfillment of the Mosaic dis- 
 pensation. 
 
 The followers of Jesus, believing that he rose 
 from the dead and ascended bodily into heaven, 
 soon adopted the belief which the Greeks had 
 taught for centuries, that the soul of man is im- 
 mortal, and that there is a "future estate'' of re- 
 wards and punishments. This is something, how- 
 ever, that Moses never thought of, and his God 
 did not think to mention it at the interview on 
 Mt. Sinai, or anywhere else. Consequently, there 
 was no provision made for it in the Mosaic dis- 
 pensation. But this new doctrine made it neces- 
 sary, in the opinion of the Christians, that there 
 should be a great personal Devil and a fearful 
 
22 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Hell, and they set to work to supply them. It was 
 indeed a great work to be performed, without any- 
 thing whatever either in reason, or fact, or plausi- 
 ble tradition to found them on or make them out 
 of. But the Christians were quite equal to the 
 task, as will hereafter fully appear. 
 
 All the Christians have adopted this same God 
 of Moses, with his dear Son, as their God, and be- 
 lieve that all the stories which Moses, Joshua, 
 and the so-called prophets have told about him, 
 as they are recorded in the Old Testament, are 
 true to the letter, perfectly inerrant and infallible ; 
 that it is rank heresy and a damnable sin to doubt 
 it ; and their system of religion is founded wholly 
 upon that belief and those assumptions, with such 
 additions of Hell and a Devil as they found it 
 necessary to make. 
 
 It is interesting to contemplate some of the 
 characteristics or attributes which are attributed 
 to this man-God of Moses and the Christians, and 
 we cannot fail to notice, in passing, that however 
 noble and praise worthy they may be in a God, 
 they were never considered as essential to the good 
 reputation or character of man. 
 
 1st. He is said to be a partial God, and the 
 fact seems to be most clearly proved, if the record 
 is true. For it represents that that God chose 
 and selected, out of all the people in the world, 
 the Israelites to be his chosen, peculiar people ; 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 23 
 
 announced himself as their God, to the exclusion 
 of everybody else ; declared that he would u be an 
 enemy of their enemies and an adversary of their 
 adversaries/' and promised to lead them through 
 the wilderness to the land of Canaan, and " cut off 
 and destroy " all the people that then lived there, 
 and give the whole country exclusively to them 
 for an everlasting possession. This was partiality 
 with a vengeance. Besides, it showed most mon- 
 strous cruelty, and an utter disregard of right and 
 justice, and all sound moral principle. A God that 
 could be guilty of it would deserve execration and 
 hatred, rather than praise and honor. The one 
 only living and True God could not have been 
 guilty of anything of the kind. 
 
 2nd. This man-God of Moses and the Chris- 
 tians is represented to be a jealous God, and the 
 fact is proved by what purports to be his own 
 declaration and confession. For in the second 
 commandment he uses these words, 4< For I the 
 Lord thy God am a jealous God." These words 
 are reported to be used in connection with a clause 
 forbidding the making of images, and are now held 
 to denounce idolatry as a most heinous sin. But 
 where is the great harm ? An ignorant people, to 
 whom no spiritual being ever revealed anything 
 about himself, but who have conceived the idea 
 that some unseen power exists outside of the 
 earth, that exerts more or less influence over hu- 
 
24 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 man affairs, not understanding the art of writing 
 and having no other way of recording or convey- 
 ing thoughts and ideas, resort to the making of 
 images that suggest to their minds some idea They 
 have formed about that unseen being. And this 
 is done with the sincere desire of honoring and 
 pleasing that being. 
 
 Now, we have a number of Jittle signs or char- 
 acters which to us represent sounds. Take three 
 of these, G, O and D, put them together, and they 
 form the word 'God, which is an image, that, to 
 our minds, represents the idea of a Supreme W 
 ing. We have books containing many of those 
 images, and in those books we often see beautiful 
 pictures, not only of angels, but of Jesus with 
 his disciples, or on the cross, or in the act of 
 ascending up to heaven. Then, how can we, how 
 could Moses, or any good, fair and just being, 
 complain or get angry, and threaten to punish sucli 
 an ignorant people, for making images to repre- 
 sent ideas concerning invisible beings? There is 
 no more moral turpitude in it than in making 
 bibles. The true God could not stoop to any such 
 meanness, nor could he possibly be jealous of any- 
 thing, animate or inanimate, in whatever shape it 
 might be formed. That commandment was for- 
 mulated and promulgated by Moses for fear that 
 f his people were allowed to make images, as 
 they undoubtedly had been accustomed to do, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OP MOSES. 25 
 
 that it might distract their minds from him as the 
 only mediator between them and the God he had 
 set up for them, and thus imperil his control over 
 them. All the jealousy was in the mind of Moses. 
 
 3rd. This man-God of Moses and the Chris- 
 tians was cruel. What he is reported to have 
 said and promised in regard to murdering, cut- 
 ting off, and destroying the inhabitants of Ca- 
 naan, which has been alluded to, and will hereafter 
 be considered more at large, is sufficient evidence 
 of the fact ; but there is much other evidence to 
 the same point. I will mention only one other 
 instance, and that, because it was often used in 
 my early days to scare children, and gave them 
 a horrible idea of God. It is the case where it 
 is said two she-bears were sent out of the woods 
 to tear in pieces forty-two children, for speaking 
 disrespectfully to one of the so-called prophets. 
 
 4th. This man-God of Moses and the Chris- 
 tians is represented to be a vain God. It is true, 
 they do not use just that word in connection with 
 his name, but they describe him in a way that 
 leaves no doubt of the fact. He likes to be no- 
 ticed, is fond of praise, adulation, and worship. 
 Like a u scurvy politician," he delights to have 
 liis creatures continually " talking him up," tell- 
 ing him how good and great he is, kneeling and 
 prostrating themselves in abject attitudes, and 
 smearing themselves with dust and ashes. For- 
 
2.6 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 merly he was highly pleased with the killing and 
 roasting of beef and mutton on piles of stones, so 
 that he might " smell the sweet savor "; but in 
 modern times he is appeased and satisfied with 
 humble prayers, singing of doleful psalms, wear- 
 ing long faces, maintaining an austere demeanor, 
 confessing sins, pleading for pardon, building 
 churches, helping him to extend his kingdom and 
 to increase his glory. 
 
 It is not possible that the true God can be any 
 such kind of a being as this. He cannot be doubt- 
 ful of his own position. He is perfectly con- 
 scious of his own greatness, power, wisdom and 
 goodness, and does not need to be told and re- 
 minded of them ; and it is beyond the power of 
 man to add to his glory or increase or diminish, 
 or at all affect, his happiness. His happiness is 
 an ever onward flowing, even current of perfect 
 bliss, broad and deep as eternity, and unaffected 
 by any outside influence. He has no transitory 
 ebullitions of delight at one time, and pain and 
 sorrow at another, but is always the u same, yes- 
 terday, today and forever." It follows that it is 
 not possible that he can be influenced by prayer 
 or worship, or anything man can do, to change or 
 vary any purpose or plan of action ; otherwise, 
 everything would be thrown into doubt and con- 
 fusion. Therefore, he neither requires or desires 
 anything of the kind. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 27 
 
 And it is a great mistake to suppose that he is 
 more pleased with psalm singing than with the 
 opera, or other good and lively music ; or with a 
 prayer-meeting, than with a jolly dance ; or with 
 a long face and austere demeanor, than he is with 
 a cheerful countenance, a merry laugh or a lively 
 frolic. For diversion and amusement are neces- 
 sary for a healthy development of both body and 
 mind, and are all included in the grand design of 
 the True God to promote the happiness of man. 
 Happiness ! happiness ! That is the great end and 
 object of life, arid of all God's designs. " What 
 he delights in must be happy." 
 
 5th. This man-God of Moses and the Chris- 
 tians was a double-dealing and deceitful person- 
 age. On the one hand, he urged Moses to peti- 
 tion Pharoah to let his people go; and on the other 
 hand, as soon as Pharoah consented, this God 
 would interfere, and secretly influence Pharoah to 
 change his mind and refuse to let them go. And 
 it is represented he then made this refusal a pre- 
 text for inflicting upon all th3 Egyptians cruel 
 plagues, such as frogs, lice, flies, murrain, boils, 
 locusts, and ending with killing the first-born in 
 all their families. This farce was repeated ten or 
 eleven times. After this God had thus glutted 
 his evil and wicked disposition, the Israelites 
 obtained permission to depart. 
 
 6th. But, before leaving, this God of Moses 
 
28 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 and the Christians had one more mean trick to 
 play upon the Egyptians, which was "to give 
 the Israelites favor in the eyes of the Egyptians,"' 
 to enable them " to borrow jewels of silver and 
 g >ld, and wearing apparel of the Egyptians," with 
 intent to steal and run away with them, and thus 
 u spoil the Egyptians," and thus start his chosen 
 people in the jewelry and "old clo '' business. 
 That made this God of Moses and the Christians 
 guilty of all those petty larcenies. 
 
 I present these six several indictments against 
 this God of Moses, that has been adopted by the 
 Christians, all of which are clearly proved by the 
 record, and either of which is sufficient to prove 
 that he is not the True God, and that Moses was 
 an impostor. I have not gone one step outside 
 of the record, but have taken it just as it stands. 
 It shows that this pretended God of Moses was, 
 either directly or indirectly, guilty of all the prin- 
 cipal crimes known to law, including robbery and 
 murder ; and that he even stooped to deceit, and 
 double dealing, and petty larceny. That he had 
 no regard for right and justice, and was destitute 
 of all moral principle. It is impossible that any 
 of these characteristics or attributes can belong 
 to the True God, and it is obvious that an imagi- 
 nary God can have only such attributes as its cre- 
 ator chooses to affix to it. The only solution is 
 that Moses, who, with his ancestors, created this 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 29 
 
 God, ascribed to him his own characteristics and 
 attributes. They are all the characteristics and 
 attributes, not of any God, but only of Moses him- 
 self. And they clearly show what kind of a man 
 Moses was. 
 
 It is a great marvel how such a God as this pre- 
 tended God of Moses evidently was could have 
 got such a start in the world, and maintained 
 such a sway and dominion as he has for over 
 three thousand years, over so many of the most 
 intelligent portion of mankind. Reason teaches 
 the existence of a great Creator, and knowledge 
 of his works has revealed to us what must be 
 some of his attributes. All beyond this is only 
 vain conjecture. Here knowledge and reason 
 meet an impassable barrier. All beyond is the 
 boundless field of fancy, in which superstition 
 has plowed and harrowed and toiled and revelled 
 from remotest time, but to no purpose. For every- 
 thing it has produced is but the offspring and 
 flummery of delusive imagination. As it is en- 
 tirely out of the dominion of knowledge and rea- 
 son, they are powerless either to affirm or refute 
 any of its theories. Mysterious infatuations, en- 
 gendered by childish ignorance, became impressed 
 upon the minds of our very remote ancestors, and, 
 with certain modifications made from time to 
 time, they have been handed down from genera- 
 tion to generation, and prevail at the present day. 
 
30 VINDICATION OF THK TUK GOD 
 
 Eeason seems to have no more control over them 
 now than it had thousands of years ago, or much 
 to do with them. A mysterious story gets started 
 by some perhaps unknown, but certainly irre- 
 sponsible, person ; superstition catches it up, en- 
 larges and shapes it, and evolves it into a religious 
 dogma. This is the grand source of all religious 
 doctrines, and no real authentic account can be 
 given of their origin. 
 
 Therefore, the world progresses, becomes more 
 and more enlightened in regard to all matters 
 that are within the scope and domain of reason 
 and knowledge. They work and develop the 
 rich surface soil ; while the antique delusions 
 which are out of the reach, and are not subject 
 to the control of reason and knowledge, and which 
 are the barren subsoil, still remain undisturbed 
 in superstitious minds. For this reason, supersti- 
 tion of all things is the most difficult to overcome, 
 and the last to disappear. 
 
 Some people may be surprised to be told that 
 Christians now believe in this God of Moses, but 
 such is the fact. All denominations of Christians 
 still hold to and worship the same God, in con- 
 nection with his reputed Son. The Jews also 
 stick to him, but do not believe that he was the 
 father of Jesus. The Mohammedans also hold 
 to the same God, believe that Jesus was a respect- 
 able prophet, but that Mahomet was far his 
 
AGAINST THE: GOD OF MOSKS. 31 
 
 superior. All believe in the same God, and all 
 the so-called orthodox Christians believe that all 
 that is said about him in the Old Testament is 
 literally true, inerrant, infallible, and that it is a 
 damnable sin to doubt it. To prove this, I need 
 only to refer to the case of Dr. Briggs,of Brook- 
 lyn, N. Y. He is a very learned man, and had 
 charge of a theological institution. lie dared to 
 doubt the accuracy of some parts of the Old 
 Testament, and for this he was accused of heresy. 
 He was tried before the ecclesiastical tribunals, 
 and convicted, and is now denounced as a here- 
 tic. Those learned prosecutors may think they 
 have done a great thing for their faith, and they 
 have. They have established a most decided and 
 emphatic contempt for it, wherever known. 
 About three hundred years ago the sentence of 
 Dr. Briggs would have been death by fire at the 
 stake, and it would have been so now if the pros- 
 ecution had the power. It shows that the same 
 old leaven is still there, and that the safety of 
 society depends upon never allowing religion to 
 <?et control. 
 
32 VINDICATION OF THE) TRUK GOD 
 
 CHAPTER TIL 
 
 THE SCHEME OF MOSES. 
 
 MOSES was undoubtedly a great man in his 
 time, an able leader and a shrewd politician. He 
 enjoyed the advantage of being educated in the 
 royal family of Egypt, and therefore, necessarily, 
 as a priest, he was well versed in all the mys- 
 teries of the Egyptian religion, which was pagan- 
 ism. Hence, he must have been simply a pagan. 
 He found his race in bondage, and lie formed the 
 great design of liberating them, leading them to 
 Canaan, conquering that country, and there build- 
 ing up an independent nation. Their forefathers, 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, lived there, and he 
 considered it the most desirable country' he knew 
 of for the experiment. At the time they lived 
 there they were but few in number. When Jacob, 
 on the invitation of Joseph, migrated to Egypt, 
 he, with his family, servants and all that accom- 
 panied him, numbered only seventy souls, lie 
 left a sacred burial place in Canaan, which was 
 bought and paid for by Abraham ; but aside from 
 this it is not likely that he had title to much 
 land. While he lived there, being a just man, 
 he was on terms of friendship with his neighbors, 
 as Abraham and Isaac also were. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSP^S. 33 
 
 The record says the Israelites had been in 
 Egypt four hundred and thirty years, and during 
 that time they had increased from seventy to about 
 two millions, and the land that Jacob left in 
 Canaan would hardly accommodate that number. 
 In those days, the moral right of people to the 
 country they lived in was very little regarded. 
 The doctrine that might makes right generally 
 prevailed, and in this respect, or on any other 
 moral question, Moses was not at all in advance 
 of the age. And, therefore, he conceived the 
 idea of conquering and taking possession of that 
 whole country, and giving his people most exclu- 
 sive possession of it. 
 
 His plans were deeply laid and most thoroughly 
 matured. Difficulties were foreseen, and the 
 means to obviate or overcome them had been well 
 considered. He had studied it during the forty 
 years he lived in the wilderness with Jethro, his 
 father-in law. It was no hastily devised scheme. 
 He had been over the ground, and understood the 
 topography of all important localities. He also 
 understood the people he had to deal with. They 
 had been oppressed and degraded as bondsmen for 
 ages. They were ignorant and very superstitious. 
 He clearly understood that religious superstition 
 was the strongest cord that could be used to bind 
 such a people to a purpose, and he determined to 
 use it to the full extent of his power, and he also 
 
34 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 determined upon the kind of God he would use 
 for that purpose. He knew just when, where and 
 how to begin. 
 
 He was eighty years old at the time of the 
 exodus, and his high intellectual powers, coupled 
 with his gray hairs and venerable appearance, 
 commanded attention and respect. And the dig- 
 nity and earnestness with which he unfolded the 
 design to take that down- trodden race from under 
 their cruel task-masters, and settle them in a land 
 of their own, " a land flowing with milk and hon- 
 ey," aroused their unbounded enthusiasm. This 
 was the great scheme of Moses which he studied 
 out and planned while tending the flocks of Jethro. 
 and it was the motive power and mainspring of 
 all his subsequent actions. 
 
 Before unfolding this scheme, Moses undoubt- 
 edly taught the people the ideas he had formed 
 in regard to the God that he would represent as 
 their God, and as the greatest of all Gods. They 
 must have a God of their own as other people had, 
 and a little different from other Gods. He re- 
 ferred to some old traditions, (probably manu- 
 factured or remodeled them himself to suit his 
 purpose, as we have no knowledge of them except 
 through him,) about how God made the world. 
 All pagans had about the same idea about their 
 gods. How he made Adam and Eve, how he 
 " came down," and visited and talked with them ; 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 35 
 
 how he "came down" and talked with Noah, 
 and employed him to build the ark, and afterwards 
 u came down" to Shinar to see about the tower 
 they were building. Then he represented him to 
 be the special and particular God of Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob, their forefathers, that he fre- 
 quently "came down" and visited them, and 
 covenanted to give to their seed all the land of 
 Canaan for an everlasting possession. How this 
 God told Abraham that his posterity would be 
 strangers and serve in a strange land for four 
 hundred years, (which described TV hat had hap- 
 pened to them,) but that they would eventually 
 come out " with great substance.'' As they had 
 been in Egypt a little longer than that, this pre- 
 tence tallied with their condition, and the infer- 
 ence was that the time had now come to be de- 
 livered. 
 
 After thus instilling into their minds the belief 
 that this God was in the habit, at times, of "com- 
 ing down" and visiting and talking with man, he 
 was ready to advance his great and leading pre- 
 tence, which governed and colored all others, and 
 guided and controlled all his subsequent actions. 
 It was the first and leading pretence ; and this, 
 with the pretended orders, directions and prom- 
 ises of this God, made in furtherance of the 
 scheme it unfolds, is the touchstone by which the 
 truth or falsity of all his pretences must be tried, 
 
36 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 judged of and determined. The pretence was, 
 that while tending the flocks of his father-in-law 
 in the wilderness, this God called to him from a 
 bush that appeared to be flaming with fire, inti- 
 mated that the Israelites were his own peculiar 
 people, and said to him, "I am the God of thy 
 father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." 
 "I have surely seen the affliction of my people 
 which are in Egypt, and I am come down to de- 
 liver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to 
 bring them up out of that land unto a good and 
 a large ; unto aland flowing with milk and honey; 
 unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, 
 and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the 
 Hivites, and the Jebusites"; and ordered him, 
 Moses, to attend to the business ; that he, Moses, 
 pretended much diffidence and doubt as to his 
 ability for such an undertaking but that God 
 urged it upon him, and to strengthen and encour 
 age him, said, " Certainly, I will 'be with thee." 
 So it seems, according to Moses, God was the 
 first to suggest and direct this scheme; and that 
 afterwards, and in furtherance of the same, Moses 
 told them that God said to him, " I will send my 
 angel before thee to keep thee in the way/' "I 
 will be an enemy of thy enemies, and an adver- 
 sary of thy adversaries, and bring thee unto the 
 land of the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the 
 Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hivites, and 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 37 
 
 the Jebusites, and I will cut them off" "And I 
 will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt 
 come." This is the first, the great and all-absorb- 
 ing pretense of Moses, and the most important of 
 all things in the Pentatuch. It was the first pre- 
 tended interview between God and Moses, and 
 the beginning of his career ; the first dominant 
 and the most important of all pretences as relates 
 to God, and upon which hangs the whole question 
 whether Moses is to be believed or not. If this 
 story is true, and truthfully represents the True 
 God, then we may believe anything else that 
 Moses says. That was the starting point, and if 
 true we may as well lay down our arms and sur- 
 render, for we are at the mercy of a most fearful 
 God. 
 
 To judge of the truth or falsity of such a 
 pretence involves an inquiry into the motives 
 which Moses had, to pretend that God ordered and 
 directed and promised to assist in carrying out 
 that scheme ; and also the right, justice and mo- 
 rality of the scheme itself ; and whether it is pos- 
 sible that the True God could have had anything 
 to do with it, as represented by Moses. These 
 questions will be fully considered after we have 
 shown how the scheme was carried out. For a 
 solution of just these questions must determine 
 whether or not the Hebraic religion or the Chris- 
 tian religion, which grew out of and is founded 
 upon it, had any Divine origin. 
 
38 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 Moses, of course, claimed that he was on the 
 most intimate terms of friendship \vitli God, had 
 constant personal interviews and consultations 
 with him, and was acting in all things under his 
 advice and personal directions. 
 
 By such pretences he won the hearts and se- 
 cured the reverence of the people. They were 
 ready to accept his God, and devote themselves 
 to his service. He further made them believe 
 that they must accept and rely upon himself as 
 the only mediator between them and God, and 
 that all communications must pass through him. 
 They must not have any idols, as idols might dis- 
 tract their minds from him, and weaken his con- 
 trol. This gave him power to say just what he 
 pleased about God, and represent him as saying 
 just what it would please him to have God say. 
 And Moses undoubtedly used this power in a way 
 that he thought would best answer his purpose, 
 and help him to achieve the great conquest he 
 had in view. It is evident that the Israelites had 
 no knowledge of his God, except what they re- 
 ceived from him, and that they believed all that 
 he said. 
 
 After contending a while with the sorcerers 
 and magicians of Pharoah, and beating them at 
 their own game, and claiming to inflict cruel 
 plagues upon the people of the land, and after 
 being favored by his God to steal jewels of sil- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 39 
 
 ver and gold, and wearing apparel, from and thus 
 ^ spoil the Egyptians/' they were ready to desert 
 their old task-masters, and direct their steps to- 
 ward the happy land of Canaan. They had im- 
 plicit faith in their great leader and his God, and 
 they started oft' with high hopes and brilliant ex- 
 pectations. The caravan numbered ;i six hundred 
 thousand men on foot, besides children " prob- 
 ably many on animals and in carriages. There 
 is no mention of women, but it afterwards appears 
 there were many. "And a mixed multitude went 
 up, also, with them; and flocks and herds even 
 very much cattle." In all, they must have num- 
 bered about two millions of people. They were 
 elated with the idea that in &few days they would 
 be in " the land flowing with milk and honey." 
 
 Moses knew better, and he foresaw that that 
 disappointment would be one of the troubles lie 
 would have to meet. They were an unorganized 
 rabble, and, even with all the promised help of 
 God, they were in no condition to meet and over- 
 come such opposition as they would have to face 
 in Canaan. It would be necessary to keep them 
 some time in the wilderness, to organize and train 
 them for the contest. And it would also be nec- 
 essary for Moses to furnish some satisfactory ex- 
 cuses. He anticipated all this, and he was pre- 
 pared to show that his God would either help him 
 out, or convince them that he was doing right, 
 
40 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 and acting for their best interest. He had got 
 them to the plains of Sina-i, and that was the 
 place above all others that would answer his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 It took a few days to reach Sinai, and that was 
 enough to show them that a march through the 
 wilderness was not a mere holiday excursion, and 
 the buoyancy of their feelings began to abate. 
 There was a scarcity of food, and they suffered 
 with hunger, and they missed many other com- 
 forts they had been accustomed to enjoy. Their 
 views changed. They began to doubt the divine 
 authority of Moses, and whether he was quite as 
 intimate with God and as sure of his support and 
 assistance as he pretended. They had never seen 
 any meetings or heard any conversations between 
 them. They were not being led the shortest 
 way to Canaan, and would not reach there as 
 soon as they expected. Their ardor was cooled. 
 They were disappointed. They longed for the 
 flesh-pots of Egypt, and wanted to return there. 
 Their faith in Moses was shaken. They began 
 to murmur, and accuse Moses and Aaron with the 
 design of leading "them out into the wilderness 
 to kill them with hunger." 
 
 Moses was prepared for the emergency. He 
 foresaw it, and Sinai was just the place he had 
 fixed upon for making a most convincing demon- 
 stration. And to this end he cunningly arranged 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 41 
 
 to have a pretended meeting witli God, in such a 
 way that it would seem to be in their presence, 
 and yet so that in fact they could not tell whether 
 there was any actual meeting or not. lie ap- 
 pointed the meeting to be held upon the moun- 
 tain, lie had plenty of confederates interested 
 in his scheme, and he and they had been up in 
 the mountain beforehand, and had prepared a 
 place where he might spend a few days comforta- 
 bly ; and they had undoubtedly gathered near 
 the top a large pile of brush and combusti- 
 bles ready for the occasion. To prevent eaves- 
 droppers and curiosity seekers from skulking 
 around to see or hear and exposing the deception, 
 Moses set a strong guard of his confederates 
 around the foot of the mountain, and proclaimed 
 the solemn commandment as coming from God : 
 <; Take heed that you go not up into the moun- 
 tain , or touch the border of it : whosoever touches 
 the Mount shall be surely put to death.'' This 
 prevented any one from hearing or seeing what 
 took place up there, and left Moses to tell just 
 such a story as he pleased, without fear of con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 There is a fact which should have its proper 
 weight and bearing in considering the account of 
 this pretended meeting, and that is, that the Is- 
 raelites had never heard or seen any such things 
 as thunder and lightning, as such things were 
 
42 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 never known in Egypt. About Mt. Sinai they 
 were common, and Moses designed to make use 
 of them to play an important part in his farce, to 
 terrify his ignorant and superstitious people, and 
 make them believe all his pretensions. It was 
 what he calculated upon long beforehand. 
 
 When the appointed time came, Moses started up 
 into the mountain in sight of all the people. They 
 could see the venerable old man, slowly and sol- 
 emnly climbing up the steep grades. His form 
 gradually diminishes in appearance, till at length 
 a natural turn in his path takes him out of sight, 
 and he arrives at his ready-prepared retreat. He 
 stays there until a thunder storm occurs. The 
 black cloud moves over, and seems to rest upon 
 the mountain. He sets the brush heap on fire, 
 the flame and smoke ascend, and the whole moun- 
 tain top seems to be in a blaze. The lightnings 
 flash, and the more terrible thunders roar and 
 shake the ground. The people arc amazed, con- 
 founded, awe-struck. They could have no doubt 
 that Moses was having a meeting with God ; 
 that they were on the most intimate terms of 
 friendship with each other, and that whatever 
 Moses might say would surely represent Divine 
 Will. When he came down, he brought two 
 hewn tables of stone, which he said God had 
 made for him, and had written upon both sides 
 of them with his own finger, what afterwards ap- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES.. 43 
 
 peared to be the Ten Commandments. On an- 
 other occasion, when he went up into the moun- 
 tain, Moses reported that God arranged it so that 
 he, in fact, saw the " back parts " of the very 
 jerson of God. That God would not allow his 
 face to be seen by man, as man could not possibly 
 endure the glory of it. So God put him into the 
 cleft of a rock, and covered him with his hand, 
 while. the glory of his front parts passed over, 
 and then took away his hand, so that he saw his 
 " back parts." The lightning and thunder, fire 
 and smoke, to the ignorant minds of his people, 
 confirmed as truth all his statements and preten- 
 sions. 
 
 But when Moses came down from the mountain, 
 he discovered that some of the people had become 
 discontented, and clamored for a God, and that to 
 pacify them Aaron had made for them a golden 
 calf, in imitation, probably, of Apis, an Egyptian 
 god. Moses pretended to be very angry. It 
 seemed to threaten his supreme power and con- 
 trol over the people. Such things would have a 
 tendency to distract their minds from him, and 
 so weaken his authority. It was necessary that 
 such things should be nipped in the bud. So like 
 a child with his playthings, he dashed the two 
 tables down to the ground, and broke them to 
 pieces. It is hardly likely, if his pretensions were 
 true, that they were actually hewed out by God 
 
44 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 and contained his personal autograph, that lie 
 would have treated them with so much irrever- 
 ence and disrespect. This act can be accounted 
 for only on the ground that Moses knew that 
 there were enough more where they came from, 
 and he used the incident to impress the people 
 that if they persisted in clamoring for idols, and 
 did not obey, and do just as he (Moses) com- 
 manded, God would abandon them to utter de- 
 struction. It had the desired effect, and Moses 
 easily obtained more tables. 
 
 The question now arises, Is this story of Moses 
 about meeting God on Mt. Sinai, true ? l)id any 
 such meeting in fact occur, or was it only a farce 
 and false pretence? 
 
 The story is the only foundation of the Jewish 
 and Christian belief in divine revelation, and of 
 their systems of religion; and, if true, it would 
 prove that this partial, jealous, vain, and cruel 
 God is after all the real True God. But is it true? 
 Can it possibly be true ? 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSSS. 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MOSES AT SINAI. 
 
 IN criticising the story of the pretended meet- 
 ing on Mount Siriai, it must be remarked: 
 
 1st. That such a meeting would be miraculous, 
 something contrary to human experience ; and, to 
 entitle it to belief, it requires strong proof proof 
 commensurate with its improbability. We have 
 nothing but the word of Moses for it, if indeed 
 we have as much as that, for it is by no means 
 certain who wrote the account of it. To believe 
 it requires not faith in God, as Christian teach- 
 ings would seem to imply, but faith in Moses. 
 llere is the great point. Faith, not in God, but 
 in Moses, is required as the groundwork and foun- 
 dation of both the Jewish and Christian religions. 
 
 2nd. Moses was an interested witness. He had 
 a strong motive to pretend that he was on intimate 
 terms of friendship with God, in order to secure 
 the confidence and control of the people, and to 
 represent God as saying to him privately such 
 things as would inspire them with courage and 
 resolution to persevere to accomplish his design 
 of settling them in Canaan. And it was all in 
 his power to represent God as saying and prom- 
 
46 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 ising just such things as he knew would please 
 the people. 
 
 3rd. The pretences were not designed or cal- 
 culated to injure his people, but, on the contrary, 
 only to inspire them with confidence in him as 
 their leader, and courage to prosecute the work. 
 Hence they were quite innocent so far as his peo- 
 ple were concerned, and Moses cared for nothing 
 else. 
 
 4th. The scene is laid in an early, ignorant 
 age, when Moses, (as appears from Genesis, the 
 authorship of which is ascribed to him,) as well as 
 everybody else, believed that this world was all 
 there was of creation that God was limited to 
 it that lie existed in a human form and traveled 
 about from place lo place. All such ideas were 
 simply heathenish ; and with such ideas Moses, 
 undoubtedly, thought it would be safe to make 
 such representations as would help him to accom- 
 plish his designs. But they are all inconsistent 
 with reason, and cannot be true. 
 
 5th. In such an ignorant and superstitious age, 
 and with such beliefs prevailing, a belief in such 
 marvelous pretences was easily induced, and the 
 strong motive Moses had for making them is suf- 
 ficient to destroy their credibility. 
 
 6th. The great care and pains that were taken 
 to secure secrecy, exclude all eyes and ears from 
 the identical spot of the pretended meeting, the 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 47 
 
 guard around the mountain, and the penalty of 
 death to anyone that touched it, proved that it 
 was a deception and a farce. 
 
 7th. The manner in which Moses treated the 
 two tables of stone which he pretended were hewn 
 out by God, and contained the very autograph of 
 God himself, shows that he had no such rever- 
 ence and respect for them as he certainly would 
 have had if his pretences had been true. 
 
 8th. There were many people on the earth for 
 at least two or three thousand years, and prob- 
 ably a great deal more, before the time of this 
 pretended meeting, far advanced in civilization, 
 the Egyptians, Syrians, Assyrians, Persians, etc., 
 all inquiring and anxious to get some reasonable 
 and true idea and conception of God ; and if God 
 ever intended to make a particular revelation of 
 himself in person to man, it is unreasonable and 
 absurd to suppose that he would have perfectly 
 ignored, overlooked, and passed by all those oth- 
 er peoples, and waited to the time of Moses, and 
 revealed himself for the first time in that wilder- 
 ness, and to such a rabble of Egyptian slaves. I 
 say the first time, for all the stories about his 
 visits to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were fabrica- 
 tions of Moses. There is no other proof of any 
 visits to them but his word. Beside, his visits to 
 them as described were for frivolous purposes; 
 there was no revelation made to them of interest 
 
48 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 to mankind, nothing but that their seed was to 
 have the land of Canaan. As we can easily see 
 his motive and design, we must discredit the rep- 
 resentations. 
 
 9th If God ever intended to make a personal 
 revelation of himself to man, and it was impor- 
 tant, and he required and intended to have it be- 
 lieved, he would not have made it so secretly to 
 one man, and made the belief of it to depend 
 wholly upon the credibility of that one man : all 
 to depend as it does exclusively upon faith in 
 MoseS) who had a strong personal motive and in- 
 terest to deceive and make false pretences. It 
 was just as easy for God to proclaim himself pub- 
 licly and directly to the whole assembly on the 
 plain, or to every inhabitant on earth at once, to 
 the Egyptians, Assyrians, etc., who were anxious 
 to learn, and then there could have been no doubt. 
 Then we could have faith in God. As it now 
 stands, all there is to depend upon is faith in 
 Moses. All depends upon faith in Moses. 
 
 10th. The pretence of Moses, that he actually 
 saw the " back parts" of the person of God, as 
 related in the thirty-third chapter of Exodus, and 
 representing him to have a human form, with 
 face, feet, hands and back parts, is an obvious 
 falsehood, and characterizes all his other pre- 
 tences. This alone proves that he was an impos 
 tor, and unworthy of belief. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 49 
 
 llth. But there is another and very important 
 test, which shows that the pretence of Moses in 
 regard to having a personal interview with God 
 on Mount Sinai, and there receiving revelations 
 from him, was false ; and that is the fact that the 
 revelation he pretended to receive contained noth- 
 ing of importance to mankind that was then new 
 to the world. All the sound moral precepts con- 
 tained in the decalogue had been established law, 
 wherever mankind was formed into society, for 
 thousands of years before Moses ever saw Mount 
 Sinai. These things required no special revela- 
 tion, for they were originally implanted or incor- 
 porated in the nature of man, and had long been 
 developed by the reason with which God also 
 originally endowed man. Moses put them into a 
 concise, tangible and useful shape, as he was fully 
 competent to do ; for they were a necessary part of 
 his education as an Egyptian priest, and he per- 
 fectly understood them. When he murdered the 
 Egyptian, he knew what the penalty would be, if 
 discovered. Hence, he fled to the wilderness, 
 where he lived with Jethro forty years before he 
 pretended that God noticed him. There was 
 nothing in this decalogue, or any revelation Moses 
 pretended to receive, which was important for man 
 to know, that had not been well known for ages. 
 There was no revelation in regard to any future 
 state, what would become of man after this life. 
 
50 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 All rewards and punishments spoken of in the 
 decalogue are confined to this life. There is not 
 the slightest intimation about any future existence, 
 or about a hell, or a devil, or any scheme of sal- 
 vation which Christians now claim to believe 
 nothing at all, except what was then within the 
 knowledge of man and well understood. Motes 
 was cunning enough to confine the revelations to 
 what was within his own knowledge, which in ef- 
 fect makes it no revelation at all. And in the 
 interviews which Moses fabricated, and pretended 
 that God had with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
 there is no allusion to any of these things. The 
 only revelation made to them was that their seed 
 should have the land of Canaan. And this was 
 taught by Moses to make his people believe that 
 they had a divine right to it, and to induce them 
 to fight for it. 
 
 I said there was nothing of importance in the 
 decalogue that was new to the world. However, 
 there were two or three new things in it. The 
 first commandment explained by its context was 
 decidedly new. It reads as follows: "And God 
 spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy 
 God, which have brought thee out of the land of 
 Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou 
 shalt have no other gods before me." This pur- 
 ports to be a solemn declaration of God himself, 
 that he was their God the God of the Israelites. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OK MOSES. 51 
 
 He is represented as addressing the people he 
 had brought out of the land of Egypt, and out of 
 the house of bondage. He had brought no other 
 people out of Egypt and the house of bondage ; 
 hence, it is evident that this declaration was in- 
 tended for the Israelites exclusively. And, as it 
 is represented that he afterwards told them that 
 he would be an u enemy of their enemies, and an 
 adversary of their adversaries," and would lead 
 them to the land of Canaan, and " cut off and de- 
 stroy" all other people for their benefit, we must 
 conclude that it was intended to be understood 
 that he was most particularly, emphatically, and 
 exclusively their own God, and that he did not 
 care for, was not the God of any other people. 
 This was, indeed, a new revelation. But it is 
 manifestly false and absurd as to the True God, 
 and proves that Moses was imposing a falsehood 
 upon his people. For the True God is the God 
 of all mankind, without distinction or partiality. 
 The second commandment, in spirit and real 
 meaning, is unworthy of God or man, as I have 
 previously attempted to show. It was instigated 
 by the jealousy of Moses, to remove everything 
 that might have a tendency to distract and divert 
 the minds of the people from him, and thus en- 
 danorer his entire control over them. 
 
 o 
 
 As to the fourth commandment, the Assyrians 
 and other Eastern people kept the seventh day 
 
52 VINDICATION OF THK TKUK GOD 
 
 from time immemorial. The reason they as- 
 signed was, that it was supposed to be presided 
 over by Saturn, whom they considered to be a 
 gloomy god, and therefore they regarded it as an 
 unlucky day. For that reason they would not 
 perform any labor on that day, or engage in any 
 enterprise. The kings would not ride out on that 
 day, for fear something might happen to them. 
 So all staid at home, and kept it as a feast day. 
 But a day of rest from labor, as often as one in 
 seven, and strictly guarded by law, to be kept as 
 a day "made for man/' and not as a day for 
 which man was made, would be a wise provision. 
 To be of any use to man, however, it should be 
 devoted to whatever may best tend to rest and 
 relax the mind, as well as the body, from the 
 drudgery of labor. And this would include in- 
 tellectual entertainments mingled with healthy 
 diversions, amusements, social gatherings, and 
 whatever may tend to promote happiness the 
 great end and object of life. So far as the Sabbath 
 mentioned in the fourth commandment would de- 
 viate from this, it could never be approved by the 
 True God. 
 
 12th. The fact that Moses pretended that God 
 on Mt. Sinai gave him the plan and all the minute 
 specifications for making the Tabernacle and the 
 Ark of the Covenant, is further evidence of the 
 falsity of his pretences about meeting and talking 
 
SIVERSIT 
 AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 53 
 
 with God on Mt. Sinai. For it is proved that 
 the Tabernacle was patterned exactly after the 
 plan of the Egyptian temples, and the Ark also 
 was patterned after certain chests or boxes that 
 were used in the temples for keeping their sacred 
 archives, with all which Moses, as an Egyptian 
 priest, was perfectly familiar. 
 
 Considering, then, the age in which this pre- 
 tended meeting on Mt. Sinai is said to have oc- 
 curred ; the miraculousness and improbability of 
 it ; that there is no evidence of it but the word 
 of Moses ; the belief Moses then had in regard to 
 creation and of God, which will be enlarged 
 upon hereafter, that God existed in a human 
 form ; his declaration about seeing the person of 
 God ; J;he general nature of the pretences ; the 
 strong motive he had for making them ; the 
 power he had to make them falsely, without the 
 fear of detection ; that they were calculated to 
 please his people ; the readiness with which such an 
 ignorant people would believe marvelous and su- 
 pernatural stories ; the parade and ostentation 
 with which he went up into the carefully and 
 securely guarded mountain, quite out of sight, 
 and using the natural action of the elements to 
 contribute wonder and to support the deception ; 
 the fact that the pretended revelation contained 
 nothing but gross absurdities, that were then 
 new to the world ; the irreverent manner with 
 
54 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 which he treated what he claimed to be the very 
 autograph of God himself, and his pretence of 
 having received the plans and specifications for 
 making the Tabernacle and the Ark directly from 
 God ; taking all these things together, we must 
 conclude that the pretences about meeting God 
 in person on Mt. Sinai are false ; that it was all 
 deception, a stupendous farce. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 * 
 
 HOW THE SCHEME RESULTED. 
 
 AFTER Moses, by his farcical demonstrations, 
 had convinced his people, to their satisfaction, 
 that he was on terms of intimate personal friend- 
 ship and daily companionship with God, and all 
 doubts as to the truth of what he told them about 
 God were silenced, he turned his attention to the 
 two great and principal pieces of work that were 
 necessary to carry out his design. One was to 
 establish a system of religious worship, which 
 would solidify his power and secure his control, 
 and at the same time furnish a National religion, 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 55 
 
 and have them well drilled in it before they were 
 scattered over Canaan ; and the other was to or- 
 ganize an army capable of performing the bloody 
 work he had marked out for them. And both 
 were carried on simultaneously. 
 
 His system of worship was organized upon the 
 plan of having a large and influential body of peo- 
 ple, each and all personally interested, to advo- 
 cate, promote, and build up the system. To this 
 end he established a priesthood, to attend to the 
 strictly devotional part of the business, and ap- 
 pointed his brother Aaron and all his male de- 
 scendants a permanent priesthood ; and as polyg- 
 amy was not forbidden, that class after a while 
 became quite numerous. Next, he detailed all 
 the descendants of Levi as a permanent order of 
 levites, to assist the priests in various more or 
 less menial devotional labors, and this class alone, 
 when the census was taken about a year after 
 they left Egypt, numbered over twenty-two thou- 
 sand. 
 
 To provide for the support of this large body 
 of priests and levites, Moses devised a system of 
 sacrifices, as heathen nations had done before 
 him ; and the people, partly by legal require- 
 ments, and partly by superstitious devotion, were 
 induced to contribute beef, mutton, corn, oil, and 
 wine (all must be of the very best quality,) and 
 those that had none of these things could com- 
 
56 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 pound with money. All were theoretically free 
 offerings, to be destroyed to please and appease 
 God, but practically to feed and support the 
 priests and levites. While the beef and mutton 
 were being cooked, the " Lord might smell the 
 sweet savor," but the priests and levites ate the 
 meat. So that large body were employed to 
 support themselves by supporting the system. 
 Of course, it at once became their pleasing duty, 
 as it so exactly coincided with their personal in- 
 terest to advocate all the pretences of Moses, 
 and guard the system against innovation, see 
 that the superstitions of the people were kept up 
 to fever heat, so that they would not flag in their 
 offerings ; and pay particular attention to seeing 
 that all the children were fully educated in the 
 same faith. It was all a cunningly devised 
 scheme to support the supporters of the system. 
 But what are we to think of the main feature 
 of that system of worship the sacrifices ? What 
 are we to think of that mode and manner of wor- 
 shipping an intelligent God ? How can any ra- 
 tional beings, unless steeped in ignorance and 
 superstition, and destitute of any reasonable idea 
 of God, suppose or believe that he could be honored 
 or pleased by having dumb brutes butchered and 
 burned or roasted on piles of stones ? As an act 
 of worship of God, it is supremely ridiculous. 
 l)oes it not show at once that the worship of God 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 57 
 
 had nothing to do with it, but that it was only 
 a cunning scheme to support the priests and le- 
 mteSy that that was the true and only reason for 
 it, and that they were thus supported to secure 
 and bind them to advocate and support the sys- 
 tem and pretences of Moses ? Is it riot clear 
 that it was all a deception, and a fraud upon the 
 people ? 
 
 The other business that Moses had on hand at 
 Sinai was to organize an army. And this was the 
 most important and necessary of all things that he 
 had to do. For notwithstanding all the promises 
 of assistance from God, which he pretended to 
 have, and which would have been amply sufficient 
 if true, he was too cunning to attempt to rely upon 
 them, and so he set about organizing an effective 
 force. In number he had a plenty of men, but 
 they were fresh from the fields of bondage, 
 quite raw. They were not soldiers. The work 
 he had laid out to be done required soldiers. 
 Therefore all able-bodied men were enrolled, and 
 captains appointed over thousands and hundreds 
 and fifties and tens; and, of course, they were all 
 carefully drilled, trained and exercised for a long 
 time with that terrible object in view. They 
 stayed in the wilderness many years roving about, 
 an immense horde of marauders, and until all but 
 a very few that left Egypt died off, and a new 
 generation that had not been subjected to the 
 
58 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 enervating influence of slavery had taken their 
 place. By this time a strong and powerful army 
 was formed, that was fully capable and able to 
 carry out the designs of Moses without any special 
 help from God. Moses, by this time, was nearly 
 a hundred and twenty years old, and of course 
 was unable to lead the army in person into the 
 field. He appointed Joshua as the general for 
 that purpose, and also at his death to be his suc- 
 cessor to the government and to finish the work. 
 Joshua had been the chief man under Moses and 
 next to him from the start. He was a man of 
 ability, and richly endowed with all the cruel and 
 bloodthirsty qualities requisite for the terrible 
 business that was before him. The army was a 
 desperate and powerful band of robbers and mur- 
 derers. Neither Moses, Joshua, or their army 
 had any regard for justice or human rights. They 
 were all alike, destitute of human feelings and 
 all moral principles. When ready to move, they 
 came down upon the innocent and unoffending 
 people that were in their way like an army of 
 hungry, ravenous wolves upon defenseless sheep, 
 and moved on a remorseless, heartless, overwhelm- 
 ing flood of destruction, sweeping away, cutting 
 off, butchering and destroying every human being, 
 man, woman and child, that came in their 
 way. There was, however, one remarkable ex- 
 ception to this, which deserves to be mentioned. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 59 
 
 After the army had cut off and slain all the men 
 of Midian, and was exhausted by its work of 
 slaughter, it appeared that there was a large 
 number of women and children that had been 
 overlooked and were left still alive, and the tired 
 soldiers took them prisoners and brought them, 
 with the prey and spoils, to Moses. " And Moses 
 was wroth.'' He was angry because they had 
 not been slain, and said : " Now, therefore, kill 
 every male among the little ones, and kill every 
 woman that hath known man by lying with him." 
 But all the women, "children that hath not 
 known a man by lying with him, keep alive for 
 yourselves" What a man to claim companion- 
 ship and direct intercourse with God! 
 
 This army utterly depopulated all the land 
 through which they passed, took all property that 
 could be moved, and left nothing behind them 
 but ruin and desolation. Having murdered, cut 
 off, and destroyed the inhabitants of Bashan and 
 Moab, they seized all those rich lands, together 
 with their flocks and herds and other property, 
 and there they rested a while from their infamous 
 labors. There Moses died, and the government 
 passed into the hands of Joshua. 
 
 In a few days, Joshua, with his army, passed 
 over Jordan, and began the work of devastation 
 in Canaan itself. He murdered thirty-one kings, 
 destroyed their kingdoms, cut off and destroyed 
 
60 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 the people with an indiscriminate slaughter, seized 
 all their lands and property, and thus completed 
 the bloody work marked out by Moses. There 
 never was a more unjust, cruel, inhuman and in- 
 famous act of savage barbarity perpetrated by 
 any people on the face of the globe. The whole 
 scheme was projected by Moses, with utter disre- 
 gard of justice and of all human rights; and was 
 prosecuted, carried on, and accomplished by crime 
 and bloodshed, and with a refinement of cruelty 
 that shocks the moral sense. Joshua was the gen- 
 eral and direct leader through it all, and the pages 
 of history are not stained with the name of a more 
 atrocious robber and murderer. And yet people 
 are deluded by nothing but rank superstition into 
 the belief that all this horrible work was insti- 
 gated, ordered and directed by God at the burn- 
 ing bush, for the sole benefit of that depraved 
 horde of cut-throats. It is interesting to skim 
 over the pages of the history of a few succeeding 
 years, and see how this all turned out. 
 
 The hopes of the children of Israel were at 
 length realized. They were in possession of the 
 land of Canaan, which Moses taught them to be- 
 lieve that "God sware " unto them for " an ever- 
 lasting possession." Many of them soon found 
 the service of Baal and Ashteroth more agreeable 
 than that of the God of Moses, and they probably 
 were quite as real and quite as good gods as the 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 6 1 
 
 one represented or created by Moses. The Israel- 
 ites lived there for many years ; fought a good 
 deal among themselves, and with neighboring 
 peoples ; but they came to be pretty well united 
 many years after under David, who made himself 
 popular among them. David reigned over them 
 forty years, when he died and left the kingdom to 
 his son, Solomon, who, at the time was but a 
 young boy. , However, he was a very clever 
 youth ; he made friends with all the heathen and 
 idolatrous nations, far and near, by marrying the 
 daughters of all their kings, and building temples 
 to their gods, as well as to Jehovah. He engaged 
 in foreign commerce, was very successful, and 
 brought precious metals to Jerusalem in great 
 abundance. His tables were loaded with vessels 
 of gold, and he made silver " plenty as stones in 
 the street"; but his fast life brought him to an 
 early grave. He died at the age of about fifty- 
 five, leaving seven hundred widows to mourn his 
 loss, and three hundred other women to look for 
 other lovers. It is easy to understand how such 
 a man, as he saw his end approaching, might cry 
 out, with full appreciation of the fact, " Vanity of 
 vanities, all is vanity/' 
 
 Then the kingdom was rent asunder. Reobo- 
 hem, the son of Solomon, retained Jerusalem with 
 the tribe of Judah, and perhaps a remnant of 
 Benjamin, afterwards known as "the Jews"; 
 
62 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 and the other ten tribes (afterwards known as 
 Israel) chose Jerobohan for their king, and made 
 Schechem their capital. Then followed war and 
 fighting among this chosen seed of Abraham and 
 between themselves, Israel against Judah and 
 Judah against Israel, almost continually for cen- 
 turies. The Israelites became quite idolatrous. 
 Then probably many that were opposed to idol- 
 atry migrated into Asia Minor, Greece, Rome 
 and Egypt, and there built synagogues. Those 
 that remained were finally conquered, taken into 
 captivity, and their lands confiscated by the con- 
 querors. Judah held out a little longer, but soon 
 after the death of the good Josiah, who was a 
 good man, Jerusalem was also taken by Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, and many of the people carried away into 
 captivity; and then all the land of Canaan, which 
 Moses said that God sware unto the seed of 
 Abraham for "an everlasting possession," was 
 wholly taken away from them, became absorbed 
 in the great Persian Empire, and the seed of 
 Abraham has never since had a country they 
 could call their own. The avenging hand of 
 Justice was plainly visible. The land that was 
 so unjustly acquired by them by crime and blood- 
 shed was all taken away, and the great dynasty 
 that was founded upon the false and blasphemous 
 pretences of Moses was shattered, disintegrated, 
 ground to powder, and the people scattered to the 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 63 
 
 four winds of heaven. This most just doom was 
 a long time in coming ; but it was sure to come, 
 and it did come. Thus (to paraphrase an old 
 sentiment) : 
 
 " The true God's mills grind slow, 
 
 But grind exceeding small ; 
 With patience long he waits, 
 But surely grind they a//." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JESUS OP NAZARETH. 
 
 ABOUT 1450 years after the death of Moses 
 another great and better man appeared in the 
 person of Jesus of Nazareth, who, after his death, 
 became the innocent cause of great changes, much 
 controversy, violent conflicts of opinion, and con- 
 siderable trouble. But the legitimate force and 
 power of his teachings and example have hitherto 
 been greatly hampered and restrained by super- 
 stition, but have by no means been exhausted or 
 diminished. The great object of his life was not 
 to save souls from a terrible hell, which had no 
 existence, but to purify the morals of society, 
 
64 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 elucidate and inculcate sound principles, and in- 
 duce and promote the cultivation of true charity 
 among men; and to the end of time, and long after 
 all false notions shall have been entirely dissipated 
 and passed away, he will be admired and vene- 
 rated as the guiding star to all workers in that 
 field. 
 
 As when a meteor flashes across the sky, we 
 involuntarily turn to look at it, let us now pause 
 a while to contemplate the life and character of 
 this great and good man. Jesus was a Jew of 
 humble parentage, but possessed of a high order 
 of intellect, and a clear and exalted conception of 
 moral principles and duties. He was brought up 
 and educated in the Jewish faith, and, like other 
 children, naturally adopted the faith of his pa- 
 rents. He sincerely believed in Moses and the 
 prophets, never thought of doubting what was 
 claimed for them by his ancestors, or that their 
 writings contained the true revealed will and 
 commandments of the one only living and True 
 God. He supposed that, rightly understood and 
 practiced, they contained everything that was 
 essential and necessary to promote the well being 
 and happiness of man. As he grew to manhood 
 he discovered great errors. He did not mistrust 
 that the system was false, and that that was what 
 occasioned the wrong; but thought they were 
 errors of practice that had crept into the system, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 65 
 
 and that they had a bad effect and a demoralizing 
 tendency. He saw that the leaders were paying 
 far more attention to outside show to forms and 
 ceremonies and the letter of the law than to the 
 true spirit and meaning of sound moral precepts, 
 and he conceived it to be his duty to try to cor- 
 rect them. He began modestly to impart his 
 views to his companions in the humbler walks of 
 life, but his teachings were so pointed and forcible 
 that they attracted great attention. He spake as 
 they had never before heard man speak. The 
 people became deeply interested, and multitudes 
 followed to listen to his discourses. His severe 
 censures and reproofs reached the ears of the 
 leaders of society, and they felt the sting. The 
 proud Pharisees were indignant that a Nazarene 
 a person of such low origin should presume 
 to criticise and reprove them; and they were so 
 wrought up by the fact that the people were fol- 
 lowing, listening, believing and adopting his views 
 that they determined, if possible, to put him out 
 of the way. They accused him of heresy, and an 
 attempt to subvert and destroy their system of 
 worship and religion, and besought Pilate to order 
 his crucifixion. Pilate, after examining the case, 
 declared that he could find no fault in the man. 
 But they clamored so strongly that he finally, 
 with reluctance, consented, washed his hands, 
 and gave him over to them to be crucified ; which 
 they forthwith did. 
 
66 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 After the crucifixion, his friends who had heard 
 his preaching knew that he was as pure and good 
 a man as ever lived, that he had been most cruelly 
 and unjustly put to deatli ; and when they saw 
 with what a sublime composure he met the terri- 
 ble ordeal, they began to think that he was some- 
 thing more than human, that he must have had 
 a divine nature. Soon stories were circulated 
 that his body was missing from the sepulchre, and 
 that he had been seen alive; and they came to the 
 conclusion that he must be the Son of God, that 
 he had risen from the dead, and ascended into 
 heaven. And, as evidence of his divine nature, 
 it was rumored that while living he had wrought 
 miracles. 
 
 Now we may discard all the claims in regard 
 to his miraculous origin, which he never claimed, 
 and the resurrection. He was too good a man to 
 think of imposing upon the people by attempting 
 to work miracles, and many things were probably 
 interpolated in his biographies, during the thirty 
 or forty years that elapsed after the crucifixion 
 before any gospel was published, which had no 
 foundation in anything he taught or did : but 
 his pure life, his tender sympathy for the suffer- 
 ing, his noble charity for the erring, his high 
 standard of morals, his nice distinction between 
 pretense and practice, truth and error, and be- 
 tween hypocrisy and charity, his famous sermon, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MCSKS. 67 
 
 his plain, pointed and touching illustrations of 
 truth, by his simple but inimitable parables, all 
 proclaim a noble soul, and shine out with a beauty, 
 loveliness and sublimity which command the 
 respect, admiration and reverence of mankind. 
 Let him be honored and held in grateful remem- 
 brance ; let the day of his birth be the most noted 
 of the year, and let it be celebrated with " songs 
 and dances," with jo/ and merriment, eulogy and 
 praise, till the whole race of man shall be brought 
 into sympathy with his true teachings, and the 
 practice of his virtues. 
 
 But, great, good and worthy as Jesus was, he 
 certainly was not the True Almighty God. He 
 never claimed to be. But the unjust and cruel 
 treatment he received for teaching real truth and 
 true charity proves that the groundwork and 
 foundation of the system that would not listen to, 
 adopt, sustain and practice such preaching was 
 false ; that it did not proceed from, and was not 
 founded or authorized by, the True God. 
 
 After the crucifixion a party of Jews, includ- 
 ing the disciples, upon thinking over what Moses 
 and the prophets had written, concluded that this 
 Jesus must be the Christ that they had dimly 
 spoken of, that would be born of a Virgin and 
 come to redeem Israel ; and that his crucifixion 
 was the end of the law, and a perfect fulfillment 
 of all imagined types and of all prophesies ; and 
 
68 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 tliat through him salvation had come to a fallen 
 world. They became very earnest and enthusi- 
 astic in this belief; and they were not selfish about 
 it, either. They did not claim, as Moses did, all 
 the benefits for their own race, but placed the Gen- 
 tiles, all mankind, on the same level with them- 
 selves, entitled to share equally in all the blessings. 
 
 Soon, marvelous stories were circulated about 
 miracles which it was rumored that Jesus had 
 wrought; and it was claimed that he was the 
 Son of God, begotten by God, and also that he 
 had risen from the dead. 
 
 It was easy enough to induce people in that age 
 to believe that Jesus was begotten by God, for in 
 those days it was generally believed that gods and 
 goddesses had intercourse with mortals. Greek 
 and Roman histories related many cases of the 
 kind, and it was (as one might &ay) an e very-day 
 occurrence. There had been many instances on 
 earth, where divine and human natures were be- 
 lieved to have been united in the same person. 
 Hence, it seemed no great mystery in the case of 
 so good a man as Jesus, and it was readily believed 
 as a matter of course. 
 
 Belief of the Resurrection was more difficult to 
 establish. The evidence of that supposed event 
 is the stories which are related in the four gospels 
 attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 
 It is by no means certain who wrote any of them, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 69 
 
 or wlien or where they were written, or that they 
 now retain their original shape. None of them 
 were written in less than from thirty to forty years 
 after the Crucifixion. But we will examine them 
 as they now appear, and afterward speak of other 
 matters relating to them. 
 
 The story contained in them is substantially as 
 follows : In the evening of the day of the Cruci- 
 fixion, which was Friday, one Joseph of Arama- 
 thea, with the permission of Pilate, took the body 
 of Jesus. It was then naked, for the soldiers 
 had stripped off the clothing and divided it among 
 themselves. This Joseph bought linen, with which 
 he enwrapped the body, laid it in a new sep- 
 ulchre, closed the door, rolled a stone against it, 
 and departed. Nothing further is said or known 
 of Joseph. This left the sepulchre accessible, 
 for the stone which Joseph rolled against the door 
 with his own hands might be rolled away by a 
 like instrumentality. 
 
 Very early, as early as sunrise if not earlier, on 
 the morning of the first day of the week, which 
 corresponds with our Sunday, and consequently 
 only about thirty-six hours after the body was laid 
 in the sepulchre, it is related that Mary Magda- 
 lene came to the sepulchre, found it open, and the 
 body of Jesus gone. It is stated that she said she 
 saw there, Matthew says, "an angel"; Mark says/' a 
 young man"; Luke says, "two young men"; and 
 
70 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 John says, "two angels," " clothed in long white 
 garments/' who told her " Jesus is risen." On 
 turning to leave, she saw a person that she did 
 not recognize. John says she thought he was 
 u the gardener." (Of course, lie was then clothed. 
 Where did the clothes come from ?) He spake 
 and called her by name, and then, it is said, u she 
 knew it was Jesus." And then, (according to 
 Matthew, Mark and Luke,) he requested her to 
 " go and tell his brethren who were in the city, 
 and but a little way off, to go to Galilee and there 
 they would see him." Mark says, that when 
 Mary came and delivered the message, and told 
 them that Jesus was alive and had been seen of 
 her, "they believed not "; Luke says, " her words 
 seemed as idle tales and they believed them not." 
 Matthew, alone, says that " the disciples went to 
 Galilee and saw Jesus," and worshiped (i. e., sa- 
 luted) him, ''but some doubled." 
 
 This comprises about all that relates to what 
 Mary said and did, according to Matthew, Mark, 
 and Luke. We have nothing direct from Mary 
 herself. And all that is contained in those Gos- 
 pels about her is nothing but oral rumors about 
 what she said, from at least thirty to forty years 
 before either of them was written. If her story 
 had been true, it is most likely there would have 
 been more than a casual street meeting between 
 them ; and 'his mother and other friends of the 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 71 
 
 family, also, would certainly have received some 
 notice of it. 
 
 The report that Jesus told her " to tell his 
 brethren to go to Galilee/' to meet him, is absurd. 
 The alleged meeting and conversation between 
 Jesus and Mary was near the sepulchre, and on- 
 ly a short walking distance from where his " breth- 
 ren " were then known to be. He might have 
 gone to them, or sent and invited them to come to 
 him, or appointed some near-by place for a meet- 
 ing and seen them in a few minutes. Mary found 
 them quickly. And it is wholly incredible that 
 he would, under the circumstances, have requested 
 them to go way to Galilee, which was fifty or six- 
 ty miles from where they all then were, to meet 
 him. This has a tendency to show that there was 
 a design on the part of Mary, or some one else, to 
 work a scheme and create a false impression. 
 
 None of the other evangelists mention or allude 
 to any such meeting in Galilee, and if what all 
 three of them agree in stating is true, no such 
 meeting could have occurred. For, in addition 
 to the statement of Mark and Luke, that " the 
 brethren " did not believe Mary, and, conse- 
 quently, would not have acted on her statement, 
 Mark, Luke and John all agree in saying that 
 there was a meeting of " The Eleven " in the 
 evening of the same day. that is, only about for- 
 ty-eight hours after Jesus was laid in the sepul- 
 
72 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 chre, at their usual place of meeting in Jerusa- 
 lem ; and when the door was shut, for fear of the 
 Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, im- 
 plying, of course, that he had passed through 
 solid matter to get in. 
 
 And those evangelists also say that when he 
 appeared " they (the disciples) were terrified and 
 affrighted," and supposed they had seen a spirit ; 
 but that he calmed their fears, and to prove that 
 he was not a spirit, requested them " to handle 
 him," and said to them, " A spirit hath not flesh 
 and bones, as ye see me have." And to further 
 convince them he called for "meat," and ate some 
 "broiled fish and honey comb" before them. 
 This is a strange commingling of evidence, to 
 prove, first, that he was a spirit that could pass 
 through solid matter without affecting it, and 
 immediately show that his body was composed of 
 flesh and bones, and that he could eat. 
 
 After this meeting Mark says he was taken up 
 into heaven, but gives no particulars. But Luke 
 says that after the meeting " he (Jesus) led them 
 out as far as Bethany." This might have been 
 rather late in the evening, but could not have 
 been more than from fifty to fifty-one or two 
 hours after he was laid in the sepulchre. And 
 " there he lifted up his hands and blessed them, 
 and while he blessed them he was parted from 
 them, and carried up into heaven." Now this 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 73 
 
 certainly is what Luke at the time he wrote, 
 (which was about forty years after the crucifix- 
 ion,) supposed and believed the fact to be. And 
 that fixes the time when, it must have been then, 
 at the time lie wrote, generally understood and 
 believed that the ascension occurred, in the eve- 
 ning of the second day after the crucifixion. 
 Luke certainly never heard or believed that Jesus 
 was seen by anybody alive after that evening ; 
 nor did Matthew or Mark, or they would have 
 mentioned it. 
 
 There can be no doubt that there was a meet- 
 ing of u The Eleven " on that evening, to wit, 
 the evening of the day of the alleged resurrection. 
 It was at the usual time and place, when and 
 where they were accustomed to meet and dine 
 together. And if, as Luke says, Jesus ascended 
 on that same evening, immediately after that 
 meeting, the evidence is conclusive that the meet- 
 ing in Galilee that Matthew speaks of could not 
 not have occurred. For it is impossible that the 
 brethren could have gone to Galilee, fifty miles 
 away, had a meeting there with Jesus, and re- 
 turned so as to be present at that meeting in 
 Jerusalem on the evening of the same day, and 
 immediatelv after which meeting the ascension 
 
 ti 
 
 occurred. This is not a case where different 
 witnesses give different accounts of the same 
 transactions, all of which may be true ; but this 
 
74 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 is the case of an alibi, where if one statement be 
 true the other cannot possibly be true. The 
 statement in Matthew's gospel, therefore, is cer- 
 tainly erroneous. No such meeting as there 
 spoken of could possibly have occurred. 
 
 Yet Matthew was one of " The Eleven," and 
 must have known of the meeting in Jerusalem, 
 and all that occurred at it. The only solution 
 to the discrepancy about the meeting in Galilee 
 is, that Matthew did not write that part of that 
 Gospel, if any. It must have been written by 
 some one that was not inspired as to facts. 
 
 It is to be remarked, also, as affecting the 
 credibility of the gospel of Matthew relating to 
 the resurrection, that it evinces too strong a dis- 
 position on the part of the writer, whoever he 
 was, to ascribe miraculous intervention of angels 
 and almighty power, without the least proof , to 
 acts that were within the power of human agen- 
 cies. Therefore he gratuitously assumes that 
 <( there was a great earthquake,'' and that " an 
 angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and 
 came and rolled away the stone from the door, 
 and sat upon it." The writer of that part of the 
 gospel was not there, and could not have known, 
 personally, how the stone was rolled away, or 
 what happened there. He simply assumes the 
 fact, without any evidence except, perhaps, idle 
 gossip ; and it was evidently done to create a 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 75 
 
 belief that there were miraculous appearances at 
 the sepulchre. Whereas, if Jesus could enter 
 the room where his disciples were, while the 
 door was shut, he might have found his way out 
 of the sepulchre in the same way, without troub- 
 ling an angel to roll back the stone, and in spite 
 of the Roman guard, too. 
 
 That disposition to imagine miracles, and heap 
 one upon another, probably had the desired effect 
 in those days ; but as looked upon now it has a 
 strong tendency to discredit the whole story. 
 Considering, then, the improbability that Jesus, 
 if risen, would have sent a request to his brethren, 
 wlio were then within a short walk of him, to go 
 off fifty miles into the country in order to meet 
 him, together with the fact that no other evan- 
 gelist speaks of or alludes to such a meeting, and 
 that there was a meeting of The Eleven at Jerusa- 
 lem on the evening of that day, we may dismiss 
 all that that gospel says about the meeting in 
 Galilee as unworthy of belief. As Matthew says 
 nothing about any other meeting, or of the ascen- 
 sion, we may conclude that he, although one of 
 " The Eleven," did not know of any meeting of 
 Jesus with his disciples ; and therefore he fur- 
 nishes no evidence touching the resurrection, ex- 
 cept his report of the vague rumors about what 
 Mary Magdalene said, with the fact standing out 
 that the disciples did not believe her when she 
 
76 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE 
 
 told them that "Jesus was alive, and had been 
 seen of her." 
 
 The next thing to be considered is the meeting 
 of " The Eleven" at Jerusalem, on the evening of 
 the day of the alleged resurrection, at which Mark 
 and Luke say, that while " they sat at meat," and 
 the door was shut, Jesus appeared among them, 
 and after the close of that meeting ascended up to 
 heaven. There can be no doubt there was a meet- 
 ing of " The Eleven " on that evening. It was a 
 usual meeting of " The Eleven," where they were 
 accustomed to dine together. The fact that there 
 was a meeting is one thing, but what occurred at 
 the meeting is a very different question. Neither 
 Mark or Luke was of " The Eleven," and neither 
 of them was present at that meeting; for it was 
 a meeting only of "The Eleven," at their usual 
 dinner ; hence, neither Mark nor Luke could have 
 had any personal knowledge of what occurred. 
 If they wrote the gospels attributed to them, they 
 did not write until forty or fifty years after the 
 supposed event; and then wrote, not what they 
 personally knew, but only what others had told 
 them, and do not state from whom they received 
 information. Their gospels are only the gather- 
 ing up or compiling of rumors that had been 
 floating about for forty years. An effort has been 
 made to show that there was a record from which 
 the stories of the evangelists were taken ; but 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 77 
 
 there is no proof that any such thing ever ex- 
 isted: therefore, the testimony of Mark and Luke 
 as to what occurred at that meeting is at best 
 only the hearsay evidence of floating rumors. 
 
 Matthew was one of " The Eleven," and must 
 have been at that meeting, and must have known 
 what took place ; and the fact that he does not 
 mention or allude to it is strong evidence that 
 nothing occurred at the meeting out of the ordin- 
 ary course of things at their dinners. If Jesus 
 had appeared, and all those remarkable things 
 had followed that Mark and Luke speak of, they 
 could not have been forgotten, and Matthew cer- 
 tainly would have said something about them. 
 This negative evidence, this silence of Matthew 
 and others of "The Eleven," who must have 
 known all that happened at that meeting, is of 
 far more weight than the testimony of Mark and 
 Luke, who were net present, and did not personally 
 know what took place, but recorded only what 
 they had heard from others. So that, in fact, 
 there is no reliable evidence thus far that either 
 the meeting in Galilee took place, or that Jesus 
 appeared to his disciples at the meeting in Jerusa- 
 lem, on the evening of the day of the alleged 
 resurrection, or at any other time or place. 
 
 And it must not be lost sight of, that these 
 gospels were not hurriedly written, on the spur of 
 the moment, immediately after the happening of 
 
78 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 the events they pretend to record ; but the writers 
 all had at least from thirty to forty years to think 
 over what they would write. The probability is 
 that they wrote personally only a part, if any, of 
 what is attributed to them, and that the originals 
 were afterwards changed and altered, by additions, 
 interpolations and excisions, by unknown and irre- 
 sponsible hands, into the shape in which they now 
 appear ; and we have no reliable knowledge of 
 what they in fact originally wrote. At the best, 
 all those gospels are only compilations of floating 
 rumors. This covers all that is said about the 
 resurrection in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and 
 Luke, all the so-called synoptic gospels ; and 
 our verdict on that evidence must be Not proved. 
 The gospel, according to John, agrees with 
 Mark and Luke about the meeting at Jerusalem 
 on the evening of the day of the alleged resurrec- 
 tion, and says there was another pieeting eight days 
 after, at which Jesus appeared in the same way 
 that he is said to have appeared at the first meet- 
 ing, and convinced Thomas, who was not pres- 
 ent at the first meeting. If this is true, it would 
 disprove what Luke says about the ascension : 
 and if this second meeting occurred, at which 
 Jesus appeared, Matthew and the rest of "The 
 Eleven " must have known of it, and Mark and 
 Luke must at least have heard of it, and some of 
 them would have spoken of it. But neither Mark, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSiiS. 79 
 
 Luke, Matthew nor Thomas, nor any other of 
 " The Eleven," says a word about it, and that fact 
 is strong evidence that no such thing occurred. 
 
 Besides, if John's gospel is to be credited, it 
 would prove that the disciples did not think it 
 important to stay around Jerusalem, and try to 
 have more meetings with Jesus, for six or seven 
 of them got up a fishing excursion and went up to 
 the Sea of Tiberias, sixty miles from Jerusalem, 
 a-fishiug. There they took a ship, went out and 
 toiled all night, and caught nothing. In the 
 morning, being only two or three hundred feet 
 from land, they saw a man on shore that they did 
 not recognize, who hailed them arid asked if they 
 had u any meat," (meaning, Had they caught 
 any fish ?) They replied, No." He then told 
 them to cast their net on the right side of the 
 ship. They did so, and immediately the net was 
 filled with fishes, and to such an extent that they 
 could not draw it aboard the vessel ; so they 
 dragged it ashore and found they had caught " a 
 hundred and fifty-three " large fishes. Then they 
 saw a fire of coals burning, and fish laid thereon. 
 Presently, the stranger said to them, "Come and 
 dine." None of them durst ask him, " Who art 
 thou? for they knew it was Jesus." This state- 
 ment contradicts itself, for it is evident they did 
 not recognize him as Jesus. " He took bread and 
 gave them, and fish also." Then the Evan- 
 
80 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 gelist says, " This is now the third time that Jesus 
 showed himself to his disciples after that he was 
 risen from the dead." This, of course, reads out 
 Matthew's account of a meeting in Galilee. For, 
 although the Sea of Tiberias is in Galilee, the 
 meeting at the seaside does not correspond in any 
 manner with the meeting that Matthew speaks of. 
 Now this covers all that is said in the four gos- 
 pels upon the alleged resurrection. 
 
 This last story attributed to John, in its details, 
 circumstances and surroundings, smacks a little 
 too much of the business the disciples were then 
 engaged in. The idea that Jesus followed and ap- 
 peared to them on that fishing excursion, and 
 acted in the manner detailed, was a little too much 
 for the early fathers of the Church to swallow, and 
 they did not believe that John, the "beloved dis- 
 ciple/' had anything to do with that gospel, not- 
 withstanding it is said in the 24th verse of the last 
 chapter, " This is the disciple which testifieth of 
 these things and wrote these things." It is sup- 
 posed that that was falsely added to enhance its 
 credit. 
 
 John, the disciple, was over ninety years old 
 when the gospel was written, and was very decrep- 
 it in mind and body. But there was another John 
 at Ephesus, where the disciple was stationed, 
 known as John the elder. And it was believed 
 by those then in a position to judge, that this 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OK MOSKS. 8 1 
 
 John the elder, and several other persons acting 
 with him, compiled that gospel from oral tradi- 
 tions that had come to their ears during the sixty 
 years following the crucifixion, and that John the 
 disciple had nothing to do with it. It was a final 
 compilation of all vague rumors, and the setting 
 forth of certain mystic mythical mysteries which 
 were then considered necessary to perfect a sys- 
 tem of religion. But learned critics, knowing the 
 great age and decrepit condition of the Apostle 
 John at the time it was written, after closely com- 
 paring the style with his other known writings., 
 and taking all the circumstances into considera- 
 tion, came to the conclusion that John the disci- 
 ple did not write it ; and the early fathers of the 
 Church did not receive and credit it as having 
 been written or authorized by him. But after one 
 or two handred years, however, it was canonized 
 by the Christians, and declared by them to be in- 
 spired. It suited the then prevailing notions. 
 That is the way they manufactured evidence in 
 those days. But this fact can amount to nothing 
 in the eye of reason and common sense. Suffi- 
 cient doubt and uncertainty are cast upon it to 
 destroy it as credible and convincing evidence 
 to prove such a miracle as the resurrection. 
 
 A similar doubt and uncertainty shade all the 
 other gospels. There can be no doubt that none 
 of them are in exactly their original shape, and 
 
82 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 there is no knowing when, where, or by whom 
 they were written, or how much they have been 
 changed since they were first written. Then, 
 assuming that John the disciple did not write the 
 gospel attributed to him, and excepting what is 
 said in Matthew's gospel about a meeting in 
 Galilee, which cannot possibly be true, we have no 
 account of any meeting of Jesus with his dis- 
 ciples after the crucifixion that was either written 
 or sanctioned by any of " The Eleven," or any 
 body that was present, and an eye witness of any 
 such meeting. No one that pretended personally 
 to have seen him or heard him talk has written a 
 word on the subject. All we have is a gathering 
 up and compiling by outside parties of vague 
 rumors, not written and published till forty years 
 after the crucifixion. Peter and James wrote 
 epistles, but neither says a word about any of the 
 meetings that Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John 
 speak of. And all that the enthusiastic Paul says 
 on the subject of Jesus being seen by any body 
 is obviously only hearsay. The superstitious ele- 
 ments in his nature, as in millions of other people 
 before and since, induced him to believe great 
 miracles on a kind of evidence that would not be 
 admitted to prove an allegation in a suit at law. 
 About seventy-six years before the crucifixion 
 the greatest and one of the best of mortals was 
 most ignominiously stabbed to death by senators 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 83 
 
 on the floor of the Roman Senate chamber. This 
 monstrous crime appalled society, and aroused all 
 the inventive powers of superstition to the high- 
 est pitch. Community was filled with rumors of 
 miraculous events, prodigies in the sky, among 
 the stars ; strange and unnatural appearances in 
 the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice ; and it 
 was also believed 
 
 " That graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead 
 Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets." 
 
 A similar shock was experienced by his friends, 
 when the pure and lovely Jesus was suddenly 
 snatched from them, and cruelly, brutally cruci 
 fied before their eyes. Then again frenzied su- 
 perstition imagined and believed that there were 
 miraculous occurrences, that there were earth- 
 quakes in divers places, that rocks were rent, and 
 "that graves were opened, and that many bodies 
 of saints that slept arose, and came out of the 
 graves, and went into the Holy City, and appeared 
 unto many." [ Vide Matt, xxvii : 52, 53.] None 
 of those saints, however, were ever identified. 
 Such were the wild assumptions and beliefs of a 
 superstitious people, smarting under that terrible 
 affliction. The friends of Jesus believed that he 
 rose from the dead and ascended up to heaven, 
 and there became a God. And so the Romans 
 before them believed that the Great Ca3sar as- 
 cended up to heaven and became a God, as many 
 
84 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 a great hero before him had done. It is impossi- 
 ble to determine what could be too absurd and 
 preposterous for superstition to imagine and be- 
 lieve, under such or similar circumstances ; it is 
 simply a psychological mystery. 
 
 The same kind of superstitious belief may be 
 traced in all ages to the present time. There is 
 liardly a city or important town in this country, 
 or perhaps in the world, but has some legend or 
 remarkable story about some house or locality 
 being haunted ; thousands of good people believe 
 in ghosts, strange apparitions of persons that have 
 been murdered or unjustly put to death. The 
 same kind of stones were probably fabricated by 
 his superstitious friends about Jesus, and were the 
 foundation, and all the foundation there ever was, 
 for all that has since been said about his resur- 
 rection. But all of them lack reasonable proof. 
 When fairly sifted down, it will be found that 
 there is nothing to support them but hearsay evi- 
 dence and vague rumors, like all ghost stories 
 among a superstitious people, in a superstitious 
 age, frenzied and distracted by the cruel death of 
 a very dear and most worthy friend. Hence, to 
 sum it all up, there is no fairly credible and con- 
 vincing evidence that Jesus was ever seen alive by 
 any one after the crucifixion ; no evidence of a 
 kind that would sustain an allegation of fact in a 
 Court of Justice, let alone the miraculousness of 
 the question here involved. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 85 
 
 Jesus was a firm believer in Moses and the 
 prophets, and as the existence of Hell, and a great 
 personal Devil, who once lived in Heaven, was 
 not at all recognized in their system, it is incred- 
 ible that Jesus should have had any such belief 
 in regard to them as is indicated in the gospels. 
 All that is said or alluded to about them in the 
 gospels, as coming from or pertaining to Jesus, 
 was probably inserted and interwoven after his 
 death, without any authority from him, or from 
 any of his real teachings. They doubtless were all 
 unauthorized fabrications, designed to support 
 the new doctrine in regard to the immortality of 
 the soul, which the Christians after the crucifix- 
 ion received from the Gentiles ; and they created 
 the Devil and Hell to supply the place of the 
 heathen Pluto and Hades, which were not terri- 
 ble and fearful enough to suit them. It is true 
 that about the time the Greeks began to preach 
 immortality, that a sect arose among the Jews 
 called the Pharisees, who believed in a resurrec- 
 tion, while the Sadducees did not. But none of 
 these things disturbed the even working of the 
 regular Hebraic system. They were all separate, 
 private, personal, and individual concerns ; and 
 it may well be that on this question Jesus adopt- 
 ed the belief of the Pharisees. But they did not 
 go so far as to imagine a big personal Devil, or a 
 future terrible Hell. That was all the work of 
 
86 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 the Christians, long after the death of Jesus, and 
 he is not responsible for them. 
 
 Considering then the facts, that the gospels are 
 only compilations of vague rumors, oral traditions 
 and legends, that none of them were compiled in 
 less than from thirty to forty years after the cru- 
 e"ifixion, that the authors are not known to a cer- 
 tainty, that the originals have undoubtedly been 
 greatly changed by additions, interpolations, and 
 excisions; the improbabilities, inconsistencies, and 
 contradictions contained in them, we must con- 
 clude that they constitute but a very frail found- 
 ation on which to build a belief of such a miracle 
 as the resurrection. 
 
 It is contended by some that many things are 
 purposely left obscure, uncertain and doubtful, to 
 give rn opportunity to exercise faith. Faith in 
 what? Faith in what never happened ? Faith in 
 what is not and cannot be proved? Faith in con- 
 fused, inconsistent stories about miracles ? Faith 
 in wild, flying rumors? Faith in absurd and im- 
 probable stories, which it was rumored that a wo- 
 man told forty years before any of them were put 
 in writing? A woman, too, out of whom it was 
 
 O ' ' 
 
 said seven devils had been cast, and might have had 
 many more left? If faith is such a predominant, 
 all-overriding, supreme virtue, suppose we turn 
 the tables a little, and say : I have faith in God, 
 faith in his integrity, faith that he is ever true to 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 87 
 
 himself and his own character, faith that he keeps 
 his laws and the laws of nature inviolate, faith 
 that he would not allow them to be violated, brok- 
 en, and set at naught to work miracles. How 
 would that kind of faith answer? Such a faith, 
 it seems, does not answer the purposes of religion 
 and never did. Religion is not satisfied with faith 
 in God. Plis glorious works and ways, the even, 
 constant and sublime working of his laws, are not 
 sufficient for the purposes of religion. Religion 
 requires that those laws shall be reversed, broken, 
 violated. It calls for Miracles Miracles that is 
 the only food that will sustain religion. It must 
 have miracles, and not real miracles either. They 
 would not answer the entire purpose so well. It 
 must be faith in absurd and ridiculous rumors of 
 miracles, invented by priests and designing per- 
 sons to foster superstition. This kind of mira- 
 cles is better than the pure article, Faith in 
 Moses, faith in the prophets, and faith in all suc- 
 ceeding impostors, faith in the everlasting tor- 
 ments of unbelievers ; that is what religion feeds 
 on, that is its life-blood, the vitalizing principle, 
 what it depends upon for its support, and it can- 
 not live without it. True faith in the True God 
 would give a sure death-blow to it all. 
 
 Besides, if the resurrection were a fact, and it 
 was important that mankind should believe it, in- 
 finite wisdom and goodness certainly would not 
 
88 VINDICATION OF THE TRUH GOD 
 
 have left the proof of it to vague and uncertain 
 rumors, inconsistent and contradictory oral reports, 
 to be gathered up from doubtful sources, and not 
 published till forty years after the event. He 
 would have adopted some more certain, convincing 
 and adequate means to prove and establish the 
 fact beyond doubt or cavil. It is not pretended 
 that Jesus made any attempt to show himself ex- 
 cept to Mary Magdalene and his disciples, all 
 interested friends. He did not even notice his 
 mother. And all the meetings he is represented 
 to have had with his disciples, setting aside all 
 the uncertainties, inconsistencies, and contradic- 
 tions in the stories, were in the night; all secret, 
 clandestine, and miraculous of themselves. The 
 ascension was in the night. It is not stated where 
 he lodged or kept himself during the intervals of 
 those meetings, if there was more than one, or 
 that there was any effort made to see more of him. 
 But after the second meeting that John speaks of, 
 as it appears from that gospel, not regarding the 
 fact that he was somewhere about Jerusalem, 
 seven of them went off to the Sea of Tiberias, 
 sixty miles away, on a fishing excursion. 
 
 Jesus certainly could not have had any fear of 
 anything more that man could do unto him, and 
 he might have gone boldly to Pilate, who was 
 kindly disposed toward him, and convinced him ; 
 or he might have gone into the temple or the 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 89 
 
 synagogues, and publicly proclaimed his resurrec- 
 tion. In some such way the fact might have 
 been proved and established beyond a doubt, in 
 the presence of disinterested witnesses. As he is 
 represented in the gospels, he does not appear to 
 have been inclined to show himself at Jerusalem 
 to anybody but this Mary Magdalene and his dis- 
 ciples, at night, and in a very secret and mysteri- 
 ous manner ; did not even call upon his mother. 
 This shunning and avoiding everybody else, all 
 open public demonstrations, and neglecting to put 
 himself in the way to have the fact then and there 
 established by disinterested, straight-forward, 
 sure and convincing evidence, and an abundance 
 of it, is strong proof that he did not rise from the 
 dead. 
 
 It has been cunningly argued that any such 
 attempt to convince the Pharisees or Sadducees 
 would have been useless, because they were pre- 
 determined not to believe, did not want to believe, 
 and would not have believed under any circum- 
 stances. With all due deference, (which is very 
 small,) it may be boldly and confidently asserted 
 that there was not then living: a human being of 
 
 o o 
 
 ordinary intelligence, from the cruel and beastly 
 Emperor then on the throne, down to the hum- 
 blest Roman citizen, nor a Pharisee or Sadduccc, 
 or anybody else, who would not have been 
 more than glad to be convinced of a resurrection 
 
9O VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 of the dead. There is nothing which mankind 
 could be so delighted and so rejoiced to know. 
 Everything else would have dwindled into insig- 
 nificance in comparison with it. Crowns and 
 scepters would have been right willingly thrown 
 down, and the kingdom of Christ would have 
 been at once established throughout the whole 
 world. 
 
 In the entire absence of all such proof, the un- 
 certain, inconsistent, and contradictory compila- 
 tions of the rumors, gossips, verbal reports, and 
 stories that were floating about and accumulating 
 in a superstitious age for forty years next follow- 
 ing the 'rucifixion, are not sufficient to warrant 
 the belief of such a miracle as the resurrection of 
 Jesus from the dead. So, if he in fact rose from the 
 dead, and ascended into heaven, he certainly did 
 not leave behind him any reasonably fair convinc- 
 ing evidence of it, nor has he furnished any since. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE DEVIL, HELL, AND THE SCHEME 
 OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 WHETHER true or false, the doctrine of the 
 Immaculate Conception, Resurrection, and Ascen- 
 sion gained believers among the faithful Jews. 
 Its advocates scrutinized and expounded the writ- 
 ings of Moses and the prophets, and claimed to 
 prove by them that Jesus must be the Christ, the 
 one that Moses saw by faith, as was said, who 
 wquld bruise the head of the Serpent ; that he 
 was born of a Virgin, that it was necessary for him 
 to suffer crucifixion as he had done, and that he 
 would build up a new and better kingdom. It 
 was all claimed to be founded upon the Mosaic 
 dispensation, and evolved directly from it, and 
 depended wholly upon the belief that the God 
 which Moses had set up was the only living and 
 True God the same one he saw on Mount Sinai, 
 and had daily interviews with in Egypt and 
 through the wilderness, and that promised to assist 
 the Israelites to murder and cut off all of the in 
 habitants of Canaan, and give them all their land, 
 and who had all the traits of human character 
 which Moses and his followers ascribed to him. 
 
92 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 He had always been a true, faithful, and ex- 
 elusive God of the Israelites. But now he had 
 become a father, had a son of his own named 
 Jesus, and, thenceforth, he would favor and be 
 the God of those only, whether Jew or Gentile, 
 who would believe that this Jesus was his son, 
 was the true Christ spoken of by the prophets, 
 and would join heart and hand to help him to 
 build up a kingdom on earth. 
 
 In a little while, a belief in the immortality of 
 the soul, and future rewards and punishments, 
 were engrafted on the system. This was not in 
 the Mosaic system, and evidently was never 
 thought of by Moses, nor did he pretend that 
 God ever spoke of it to him. It has been claimed 
 that life and immortality were brought to light 
 through the gospel. But this is a mistake ; for 
 immortality and future rewards and punishments 
 had been taught by the Greeks and Romans for 
 centuries, and some of the derni-gods that were 
 rumored to have lived on earth were permitted to 
 visit the home of departed souls. So this doctrine 
 came bodily from the Gentile believers in Jesus, 
 and as the supposed resurrection and ascension 
 of Jesus seemed to prove it, it was adopted with- 
 out objection. 
 
 While the Christians were contented to receive 
 the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and 
 future rewards and punishments, from the heathen 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 93 
 
 Gentiles, they were not satisfied to accept their 
 Hades for a hell or their Pluto for a devil ; Hades 
 was too near by, somewhere under Italy, or there- 
 abouts, and all departed souls had to go there in- 
 discriminately, and, by a very fair and impartial 
 judge, were assigned to different places, according 
 to real merit. Then Pluto was not a devil, by 
 any means. He was a God, with good family 
 connections, was a brother of Jupiter and Nep- 
 tune, on good terms with both, and behaved him- 
 self just as well as other gods. Hades was his 
 kingdom. He had no such gorgeous throne as 
 Satan had in his Hell, which, for splendor, 
 
 " far . 
 Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind," 
 
 but a plain, modest throne, made of sulphur, (i. e., 
 brimstone,) and it was not on fire ; there was no 
 lake of fire and brimstone anywhere about. 
 
 Such things would not answer the purposes of 
 the Christians. It was necessary for them to 
 have a real, big, earnest Devil, and a remote, ter- 
 rible lake of fire and brimstone for a Hell, to scare 
 sinners, and make them shell out money to sup- 
 port the church, and pray their souls out of the 
 clutches of the Devil after death. As Moses had 
 made no mention of his creation, and given no hint 
 of the existence of any such place as Hell, they 
 had to invent and create those things for them- 
 selves and for their own use. And as they had 
 
94 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 it all in their own power and did all the work, 
 they made a Hell and a Devil just to suit them- 
 selves. 
 
 How, when, where, and by whom this business 
 was first started is involved in mystery. There 
 were Grecian scholars among the Christians who 
 were familiar with the mythological accounts of 
 the wars of the Titans against Saturn, and of the 
 Giants against Jupiter, and they undoubtedly em- 
 ployed this knowledge and their ingenuity to 
 Christianize those legends, and with them fabri- 
 cate the story that there had been a war in the 
 Christian heavBn. The manner in which it is re- 
 ported to have been carried on, and the style of 
 fighting, are so identical with the mythological 
 battles, there can be no doubt that the one was 
 suggested by the other, and that both had the 
 same heathen origin. 
 
 It was readily perceived that such a war would 
 be a very good way to create a terrible Hell, a 
 first-class Devil, and lay a good foundation for a 
 great scheme of redemption ; hence, the idea was 
 adopted as a necessary part of the Christian faith. 
 And, in fact, it was the most important part of it, 
 for without it they could have no Hell, no Devil, 
 and a scheme of salvation could have no founda- 
 tion, nothing to act upon, and would be as useless 
 as a sawmill in a treeless desert, where there could 
 be nothing to saw. The main ideas were seized 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 95 
 
 and acted upon, but the complete legend was a 
 long time in forming and assuming definite shape. 
 
 At length, however, about two hundred and 
 fifty years ago, John Milton, a learned man, stud- . 
 ied it out. and perfected the form and shape of 
 the tradition in precisely the same way that all 
 the traditions which Moses relates were original- 
 ly formed by himself and his ignorant ancestors ; 
 and that was by drawing upon the imagination 
 for facts, while Milton was aided by heathen my- 
 thology for his imagery. 
 
 The " Paradise Lost" has great merit as a 
 poem. It shows extensive learning, great intel- 
 lectual ability, and a poetic genius in its author 
 that has not been excelled but by a very few, if 
 any. But the story is a pure fiction, an inge- 
 nious twisting and contortion of Grecian mythol- 
 ogy, and has no more foundation in fact and 
 truth than the stories in the Arabian Nights, or 
 any other work of pure fiction ; yet it is believed 
 by many to be God's truth. 
 
 It is of great importance to examine this story 
 thoroughly and seriously, for on it is founded all 
 there is of Hell, a personal Devil, and the great 
 scheme of Redemption, that is so much talked 
 about. It is the only story that fully accounts 
 for the origin of any such things, and without it 
 they could not possibly have any standing or 
 foundation whatever. Besides, this story of Mil- 
 
g6 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 ton has been, and probably is now, believed by 
 the Christian world as fully and implicitly as any 
 of the traditions that Moses relates, and is doubt- 
 just as true, and just as worthy of belief. 
 
 As the story goes, somewhere about the time- 
 God is said to have placed Adam and Eve in the 
 Garden of Eden, a terrible war broke out in 
 heaven. A few discontented spirits raised a great 
 rebellion in those celestial regions, with the dire 
 intent to dethrone God, usurp his government, 
 and reign in his stead. The principal leaders in 
 this conspiracy were Satan, Moloch, Belial, Mam- 
 mon and Beelzebub, who up to that time had been 
 the boon companions, and stood very high in the 
 favor of God. Their power and influence may 
 be inferred from the fact that they are said to 
 have drawn to their side one-third of all the 
 powers and hosts of heaven. 
 
 The armies on both sides were very soon mar- 
 shalled, thoroughly drilled, and fully prepared for 
 the great struggle. Their arms, of course, con- 
 sisted for the most part of spirit weapons, spirit 
 swords and lances, and spirit engines and artil- 
 lery ; but during the battle it is said that God's 
 warriors u seized hills and mountains by their 
 shaggy tops,*' tore them up from their roots, and 
 hurled them at their enemies just as the warriors 
 of Saturn and Jupiter did. After some skirmish- 
 ing the armies met in earnest, and fought with 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 97 
 
 most determined bravery and courage on both 
 sides. The chances of victory varied from time 
 to time, sometimes on one side and then on the 
 other. The battle raged for three days ; but at 
 length on the third day God's dear Son, 4< grasp- 
 ing ten thousand thunders," made a desperate 
 charge in person upon the enemy, and single- 
 handed and alone drove them all out over the 
 battlements of heaven into open space, where 
 there was nothing to lodge against or fall upon. 
 Consequently there was nothing to do but fall. 
 So they fell, and kept on falling for nine days, 
 and from that circumstance they are known and 
 called " fallen spirits," "fallen angels," etc. In 
 nine days the momentum ceased and they came 
 to a halt, and the place where they are supposed 
 to have stopped is called Hell. The world has 
 been filled with most awful stories about it. 
 Poets and divines have racked their imaginations 
 to describe and paint its horrors. But those fallen 
 spirits seem to have been pretty well satisfied with 
 it, although they had been accustomed to better 
 things: first, on the ground that ;i u was better 
 to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven " ; and, sec- 
 ond, because they considered it a good place to 
 plot mischief against their great enemy. Satan 
 was the acknowledged chief or king, and from 
 that fact is recognized and known as the great 
 Devil) once a particular friend and associate of 
 
98 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 God, but now a terribly depraved being, going 
 about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may 
 devour ; and the capitol or seat of his empire, 
 which astronomy has not yet been able to locate, 
 is called Hell. Such is the origin of the Christian 
 Devil and Hell, and neither ever had any other or 
 different origin. 
 
 The fallen spirits were conquered but not sub- 
 dued, for they still breathed revenge and defiance, 
 and considered Hell as a good place to plot and 
 plan schemes to vex and annoy their great adver- 
 sary, and with a possible chance that they might 
 eventually overcome him, or drive him into some 
 desperate condition, and compel a reasonable com- 
 promise. 
 
 About this time, as the story goes, God had 
 created Adam and Eve, by whom he expected to 
 raise an innumerable race of intelligent beings, 
 who would ever be willing and ready to love, 
 honor and worship him, and sing his praises. He 
 laid out a beautiful garden, " with walks and 
 shades, fit haunt for gods," which he called Par- 
 adise ; ornamented it with flowers, filled it with 
 trees bearing every kind of fruit that could please 
 the eye, or that was good for food, and placed 
 them in it, " to dress it and to keep it," and enjoy 
 themselves. If he had done nothing more, proba- 
 bly everything would have gone right. But im- 
 pelled, of course, by infinite wisdom and goodness, 
 he planted in the midst of the garden a certain 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 99 
 
 other tree, which bore fruit that was most tempt- 
 ing of all to the eye, but forbade them to touch it. 
 Those innocent beings undoubtedly looked upon 
 it with great longing. Their mouths watered to 
 taste it, and the prohibition probably increased 
 their desire. But when God placed them there 
 he told them, " Of every tree in the Garden thou 
 mayst freely eat, but of the tree of the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil which is in the midst of the 
 garden thou shalt not eat, for in the day thou 
 eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." With this 
 injunction he left them to themselves, and went 
 home to heaven. ^ 
 
 It seems a little singular that this God, pos- 
 sessed, as it is claimed, of infinite wisdom, and hav- 
 ing millions of cherubim and seraphim, all warlike 
 spirits, around his throne, with nothing to do but 
 sing his praises, and knowing the desperate char- 
 acter of the beings he had expelled from heaven, 
 and sent out to roam the universe, did not detail 
 a few of those warlike spirits to guard that beau 
 tiful Garden and those innocent beings against 
 the wiles and schemes of such adversaries. He 
 coukl have spared and surrounded the place with 
 legions, that would have been delighted to fight 
 their hated enemies. But he did nothing of the 
 
 D 
 
 kind. 
 
 The rebel spirits held a council of war. Satan 
 was seated u high on his throne of royal state," 
 and the members of his cabinet were all present. 
 
100 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Each delivered a speech upon the general situa- 
 tion, and particularly upon the question as to 
 how they might most vex and annoy their great 
 enemy, and, if possible, overpower him, or defeat 
 some of his schemes. Moloch was for open war. 
 Belial and Mammon were more politic. They 
 were opposed to a useless war, and advised to try 
 and make themselves comfortable where they 
 were. But Beelzebub suggested there was 
 
 " Another world, the happy seat 
 Of some new race called man,*' 
 
 and advised that they had better bend their 
 thoughts to learn what kind* of creatures lived 
 there, and what might be done, " by force or 
 subtlety," to interfere and thwart God's plan in 
 regard to them. This gave universal satisfaction. 
 The scheme was adopted, and Satan at once vol- 
 unteered to attend to the business single-handed 
 and alone. At this the trumpets blew, and all 
 Hell resounded with acclamations and loud ap- 
 plause. Satan immediately started on the mis- 
 sion, and so became our Great Devil. 
 
 He landed upon this planet, readily found Par- 
 adise, hopped over the high walls without lei or 
 hindrance, and perched high up on the tree of 
 life, and " there sat like a cormorant," surveying 
 the field, and planning his attack. Soon he is in 
 the bower 
 
 " Squat like a toad close at the ear of Eve," 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. IOI 
 
 inspiring her with naughty dreams. After awhile 
 he assumes the form of an erect, fascinating, and 
 beguiling serpent, and manages to meet Eve as 
 she is walking alone, and enters into conversation 
 with her. He directs her attention to the "fruit 
 of that forbidden tree," and wonders why she 
 does not partake of it. She informed him, " God 
 has said to us, Ye shall not eat of it lest ye die ; 
 for in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt 
 surely die." Since we have discovered the origin 
 of Satan, and that he was the serpent, a fact 
 which Moses never heard of, we may substitute 
 his name. So Satan said to her, " Ye shall not 
 surely die," for u God knows that in the day ye 
 eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
 shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." He 
 thus contradicted what God told them. Satan's 
 council prevailed with Eve, and, as the poet puts 
 it, 
 
 " Her rash hand in evil hour 
 Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate, 
 Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, 
 Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe 
 That all was lost." 
 
 It seems that Satan was the most truthful. It 
 did not kill her, but, on the contrary, she had 
 never *' tasted such delight," and she hastened to 
 take some of the fruit to Ajdam, and easily per- 
 suaded him to eat also. The awful crime was 
 then committed, the terrible fatal deed was done. 
 
102 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 This is Adam's fall, the fall df man, which occa- 
 sioned the great scheme of Redemption. Now, 
 taking the Bible view of the matter, what did God 
 do about it ? The only account that was ever 
 attempted to be given before the Christian era of 
 what God did, is in the third chapter of Genesis. 
 Soon after this transgression, God was " heard 
 walking in the Garden in the cool of day " ; dis- 
 covered what had been done, and called them to 
 account. Adam excuses himself by saying, " The 
 woman thou gavest to be with me, she gave me 
 of the tree, and I did eat " ; and Eve said, "The 
 serpent beguiled me, and I did eat " ; and so the 
 fault was passed from one to another. 
 
 Now, if God had then immediately, on that 
 very day, killed them both, as he said he would, 
 or retired them, and allowed them to live and die 
 childless, and started with a new pair, all trouble, 
 if there was any, would have ended then and 
 there, and no scheme of Redemption involving 
 the crucifixion of God could have been founded 
 upon it. But what did he do? He first doomed 
 the serpent to crawl. It is most likely, if there 
 is any truth in the story, that God knew as well 
 as modern divines whether this serpent was only 
 a snake, a cunning beast, or whether it was Sa- 
 tan. According to Moses, he treated it as a 
 snake, and never intimated that Satan had any- 
 thing to do with the matter. And the punish- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 103 
 
 ments pronounced upon Adam and Eve were 
 personal to themselves alone, and there is not the 
 slightest intimation that their posterity would be 
 held responsible for it, or in any way affected by 
 it. All to the contrary is a mere fiction of priest- 
 craft, and there could not be, and is not, the 
 slightest foundation for it in justice, reason, or 
 even in the Bible, or any tradition. 
 
 Besides, if the posterity of Adam and Eve should 
 possibly have been rendered any way responsible, 
 the total destruction, that is claimed, of all man- 
 kind by the flood would have been ample expia- 
 tion. But, notwithstanding all this, modern priest- 
 craft insists that the sin of Adam, which was 
 caused by Satan, affected all his posterity, and 
 rendered it necessary for God to devise a scheme 
 of redemption, which involved the necessity that 
 either he himself or his dear Son, who was in 
 every respect his equal, should at some conven- 
 ient time appear in person on earth, in a human 
 form, as a poor mendicant, be spit upon and 
 scourged and crucified by men, as the only way 
 divine wisdom could devise to render it possible 
 for a small portion of mankind to be cleansed of 
 the sin Adam committed centuries before they 
 were born ; and as to personal sins, be placed in 
 a condition to work out their own salvation with 
 fear and trembling. But that even this scheme 
 would not be of any avail, except to those who 
 
104 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 heartily believe that it would be or had been fully 
 carried out by the crucifixion of Jesus ; involving, 
 of course, a belief that Jesus was in truth and 
 fact the truly begotten Son of God, etc. 
 
 The theory of the scheme is : First, that all the 
 posterity of Adam are equally guilty with him for 
 his act of disobedience, and for it richly deserve 
 everlasting punishment. Second, that by some 
 queer fiction of divine law the suffering and cru- 
 cifixion of a human body, into which God or his 
 dear Son might temporarily concentrate himself, 
 (he being immortal,) would be equivalent to the 
 everlasting punishment of all mortals. That in 
 this way the law, which required their everlast- 
 ing punishment, would be fully vindicated and 
 expiated, so that God would appear to have justly 
 executed the penalty, and could of free grace jus- 
 tify and save harmless all who truly believe that 
 he has so suffered and been crucified ; but that 
 it can be of no avail to those who do not so be- 
 lieve. 
 
 It is certain that no such scheme was ever pub- 
 lished or made known to man before the Chris- 
 tian Era, notwithstanding the talk about the faith 
 of the old patriarchs ; none of them ever heard a 
 word about it. There is no historic fact or plau- 
 sible tradition to support it. It is founded wholly 
 upon the arrogant assumptions of modern divines, 
 which are nothing but priestcraft aided by Grecian 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 105 
 
 mythology and poetic imagination. The assump- 
 tions are: 
 
 1st. That they have discovered something that 
 their God never thought of, and that is, that the 
 serpent which beguiled Eve was not a snake, as 
 God supposed he was, but Satan himself, the 
 great rebel, that was expelled from heaven, and so 
 disguised that God did not recognize him. 
 
 2nd. That the punishment which God pro- 
 nounced upon Adam and Eve was not severe 
 enough ; and they have taken the liberty to amend 
 his judgment, and insert, in place of the punish- 
 ment he pronounced, everlasting damnation for 
 them and all their posterity. 
 
 3rd. That God has heretofore had trouble in 
 his family circles, as mortals often have ; that in 
 consequence there was once a terrible war in 
 heaven, which resulted in the expulsion of many 
 of his most intimate and influential friends, who 
 afterwards gathered in some outside locality 
 which made a hell ; and that the chief rebel then 
 became the Great Devil, wlio afterwards, by his 
 wiles, caused the disobedience of Adam, which 
 necessitated the adoption of the scheme of re- 
 demption that involved the necessary crucifixion 
 of God or his only Son. 
 
 Such are the assumptions of modern divines, 
 and the pages of heathen mythology furnish no 
 parallel to them for superstitious and ridiculous 
 absurdity. 
 
106 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Of course, it all hinges upon the question 
 whether there ever was a war in heaven, and an 
 expulsion therefrom of some of its former inhab- 
 itants. If there was no war, then there is no 
 Devil and no Hell, and the scheme of Redemp- 
 tion falls to the ground ; for without a hell, a 
 place of everlasting punishment, there could be 
 no use for it, nothing to which it could be 
 applied. It would be like the aforesaid sawmill 
 in a desert where there was nothing to saw. 
 
 But the scheme of itself contains many absurd- 
 ities which clearly betray its human origin. 
 
 1st. To make men guilty or amenable for 
 sins committed by their ancestors, before they 
 were born, would be the use and gross abuse of 
 arbitrary power, of which the True God could not 
 possibly be guilty. 
 
 2nd. No such punishment is intimated, or can 
 be reasonably inferred, from the sentence God is 
 reported to have pronounced upon Adam and Eve. 
 It was all personal to themselves alone, and no 
 mention is made of their posterity. 
 
 3rd. If the general of an army should be so 
 outwitted, outgeneraled, and driven to such straits 
 in order to save a few of his soldiers, as to render 
 it necessary for him to deliver himself up to the 
 enemy to be crucified, common intelligence would 
 conclude that he was pretty thoroughly whippet}. 
 Did Satan so outgeneral and outwit God Almighty? 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 107 
 
 4th. Well knowing the kind of beings he ban- 
 ished from heaven, and that they would certainly 
 do all in their power to vex and annoy him, it 
 would show a negligence, want of sagacity, and 
 abilty to govern on the part of God which would 
 disgrace a militia officer, not to effectually guard 
 and defend Paradise and the innocent beings he 
 placed there against the wiles of such an adver- 
 sary, and with that tempting tree in full view. 
 The True God would not have been guilty of such 
 negligence. 
 
 5th. Another evidence that the scheme was 
 not devised by infinite wisdom is the fact that 
 its efficacy is made to depend upon belief. It 
 made it a necessary condition that this remarka- 
 ble story should be believed by men endowed with 
 reason, or all that suffering would have no saving 
 effect. Then, what is belief? Belief is an in- 
 voluntary operation of the mind, depending upon 
 and controlled by evidence, and of itself has no 
 moral quality whatever. If the evidence presented, 
 no matter whether it be strong or weak, true or 
 false, be such as to convince and convict, and it 
 does convict, the mind cannot fail to believe. It 
 has no choice in the matter, is not its own master 
 in that respect, and the will cannot control it. It 
 must and will believe. Whereas, on the contrary, 
 if the evidence does not convince, is so mixed up 
 with strange and unnatural occurrences and prop- 
 
108 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 ositions as to confound the judgment, the mind 
 cannot believe, though threatened with the rack 
 or faggot, or hell-fire: such threats may make 
 hypocrites, but not true believers. Therefore, be- 
 lief has no moral quality, any more than the beat- 
 ing of the heart, the winking of the eye, or any 
 other involuntary motion or emotion. And to 
 make the efficacy of a scheme of salvation to de- 
 pend upon such an involuntary action, having no 
 moral character, shows that it could not have 
 been devised by infinite wisdom. 
 
 6th. It is impossible to believe that the true 
 God, who has untold millions of worlds to take care 
 of, one who must be at one and the same time 
 and always present at each and every point in his 
 vast dominions, could, or would if he could, con- 
 centrate himself for years in a human body on 
 this planet, to be spit upon, scourged and cruci- 
 fied to save man from any merited punishment. 
 Besides, if he could and did, he certainly could 
 not have suffered any pain in the act. It is im- 
 possible that God should suffer pain at all ; cer- 
 tainly, not more at any one time than at all times, 
 for he is unchangeable. And the idea that God 
 could die or suffer pain is too absurd and ridicu- 
 lous to be thought of. 
 
 7th. Justice could not be satisfied by the pun- 
 ishment of the just for the unjust. It cannot be 
 satisfied with simply so much suffering , but re- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OK MOSES. 109 
 
 quires that the guilty should bear it, and that is 
 more absolutely necessary than the suffering itself. 
 
 8th. No human being could commit an act 
 that could justly merit everlasting torment. Pun- 
 ishment can be justly inflicted only for the pur- 
 pose of example, or for reformation, and eternal 
 torment could not answer for either. 
 
 These considerations are sufficient to prove 
 that the great scheme of redemption is not of 
 Divine origin ; and when we find that it is 
 founded upon and has nothing whatever to sup- 
 port it but the theory that there has been a war 
 in heaven, which is a ridiculous absurdity, only 
 a distortion and attempt to christianize heathen 
 mythology, we must come to the conclusion that 
 it is nothing but an invention of priestcraft. 
 
 To say that the stories in Genesis are allegori- 
 cal or symbolic that the language is mystic 
 that they do not say what they mean, and are 
 not to be understood literally as they read, but 
 that they contain a hidden meaning, which re- 
 quires interpretation and explanation, only makes 
 the matter still worse. This would prove that 
 they were designed so as to require the services 
 of a hired priesthood, pretending to be inspired 
 by God, to interpret them, and that would at once 
 stamp it all as a human invention. It must be 
 supposed that God was able to say what he 
 meant : and if he said anything, that he would 
 
110 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 say what he meant, and what he meant to be 
 understood as meaning; and further, that he 
 would say what he intended in so plain a manner 
 that men of ordinary capacity might understand 
 it, without being obliged to pay interpreters. 
 This is the grand secret of all the systems of 
 religion. They are designed and organized to 
 require and hence to support a hired priesthood ; 
 that is the only use there is for them, and there- 
 fore it is plain that they are not of Divine ori- 
 gin. The stories in Genesis undoubtedly give 
 the exact idea and belief the writer had about 
 what he relates and describes ; the absurdity and 
 untruthfulness of the stories are owing entirely to 
 his want of knowledge. 
 
 But without regard to reason or common 
 sense, frenzied and infatuated superstition adopted 
 and maintained a belief in the God of Moses, the 
 Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection, the 
 Immortality of the Soul, the old personal friend 
 and boon companion of God now turned into a 
 raging Devil, and a terrible Hell, with its lake of 
 fire and brimstone ; and this became the estab- 
 lished doctrine of all Christendom. We will 
 presently see how it worked under a perfect and 
 powerful organization. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE CHURCH IN OPERATION. 
 
 THERE was still one important matter that re- 
 mained to be settled, and that related to the per- 
 sonality of Jesus, whether he was in fact God 
 or man. Human reason, learning, ingenuity and 
 superstition exerted all their powers on the sub- 
 ject, and thousands of prayers were addressed to 
 God and his reputed Son, imploring them to settle 
 it. But God gave no response, and Jesus also 
 remained perfectly silent. So, at length, in the 
 year 325, as a last resort, a council of bishops was 
 called at Nicea, and the question was there sub- 
 mitted for them to determine. 
 
 There was a great deal of very acrimonious de- 
 bate upon the subject, but on the question being 
 put to vote, a majority by their votes declared and 
 decided that this Jesus was " the Son of God, be- 
 " gotten of the Father, of the same substance of 
 " the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very 
 "God of very God, begotten not made, being of 
 " one substance with the Father, by whom all 
 "things were made," etc. Thus the good Jesus, 
 in a little less than three hundred years after his 
 crucifixion, was by a decree of bishops apothoe- 
 
112 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 sized and made into God ; but he has never 
 thanked them for the honor they conferred upon 
 him, or given notice that he accepted the position. 
 
 However, the election was not unanimous, for 
 Arius and many other learned and good men 
 warmly protested against it, but to no purpose. 
 The vote of that majority in that council settled 
 the question, of course, beyond doubt, that Jesus 
 is God, and its decision has ever since been the 
 distinguishing doctrine of all orthodox churches ; 
 and a full and hearty belief of it is declared by 
 them to be necessary for salvation, and to doubt 
 it is damnable heresy. If anything more absurd 
 and ridiculous was ever done in an assembly of 
 learned men, it remains yet to be discovered. 
 
 With this the great Catholic Church became 
 established, and Rome became the seat of its em- 
 pire; and then, as the legitimate and necessary 
 consequence of its doctrines and teachings, a 
 cloud, more appalling than the fabled Egyptian 
 darkness, began to settle, and spread its gloomy pall 
 over the whole civilized world. There was a great 
 rush into the priesthood, where easy professional 
 services would secure a good livelihood. The 
 celibacy of the clergy was decreed. Priests were 
 not allowed to marry. But this, so far from se- 
 curing purity of life, only opened the whole field 
 to lust and profligacy, and no pot dared to call a 
 kettle black. Convents, monasteries and nunner- 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 113 
 
 ies multiplied. Jesuitical and numerous other 
 societies were formed, and all the members, to- 
 gether with priests, monks, friars, and nuns, were 
 spread thick over all Christendom ; all zealously 
 engaged in preaching and promoting the doctrines 
 and superstitions of the holy Catholic Church. It 
 was a matter of business and personal interest 
 with them the means by which they gained a 
 livelihood. The number so engaged was enor- 
 mous. They correspond with the large body of 
 priests and levites which Moses cunningly organ- 
 ized, so as to make their duty to support his sys- 
 tem exactly coincide with their personal interest 
 to support themselves. It was a great stroke 
 of policy with Moses, and is the whole secret of 
 the power that supported that system and insured 
 success. It was the same with the Catholic Church. 
 It is that personal interest of the priesthood, in- 
 cluding monks, friars, nuns, Jesuits, etc., as a 
 kind of levitical adjunct, to support themselves, 
 which has and still does sustain the Church, and 
 give it all its power. 
 
 Soo.n the great truth (than which there is none 
 more certain) that ' * ignorance is the mother of 
 devotion," was fully realized. I do not say that 
 it was directly taught. It was unnecessary, for it 
 was obvious then, as it is now, to everybody; but 
 it was recognized. Learning is too inquisitive; left 
 to itself it inquires after courses and reasons. It 
 
114 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 was necessary for religious purposes that it should 
 be bridled and curbed. Therefore, education was 
 not encouraged by the church, nor was it allowed, 
 except when thoroughly spiced, seasoned and fla- 
 vored with the mummeries and superstitions of the 
 priests. The minds and consciences of men were 
 fettered and enslaved. Science was forbidden to 
 publish her discoveries, knowledge was suppressed 
 and gross ignorance prevailed. Unbelievers were 
 persecuted and robbed, heretics were tortured 
 and burned, every art was employed to bring 
 revenue to the church. To this end all priests 
 and their levitical assistants, monks, friars, nuns, 
 Jesuits, etc., exerted themselves to foster and 
 promote superstition among the people. Rosaries 
 were introduced to assist them to count, and be 
 reminded of the saints. They gathered and 
 paraded manufactured relics of old saints to in- 
 crease reverence ; pretended to work miracles, and 
 by these means induced the people to contribute. 
 The poor pinched themselves of the necessaries of 
 life to contribute their mites. The rich made 
 large donations to secure their salvation. Many 
 contributed bountifully while living, and many 
 dying bequeathed, some large legacies, and others 
 all their estates to the church. Purgatory was 
 invented, and masses for praying departed souls 
 through it was a fruitful source of income, for 
 they all had to be paid for in advance. Pardons 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 115 
 
 for crimes that had been committed, and for all 
 moral faults, were sold at established prices ; and 
 dispensations, or full pardons, for contemplated 
 crimes, which had not been but were intended to 
 be committed, were bargained for and sold for 
 money. 
 
 In this way, the church became rich and pow- 
 erful. The nightmare of superstition spellbound 
 all sorts and conditions of men. Kings, queens, 
 princes and nobles, as well as all other classes, fell 
 under the same influence. All contributed to the 
 church ; all bowed, with humble reverence to the 
 Pope of Rome, and submitted abjectly to his dom- 
 ination. No one dared to do anything that he 
 would not sanction ; excommunication was feared 
 nnd dreaded/as what they then believed to be the 
 final doom of the damned. It would surely call 
 down upon them the dire vengeance of heaven. 
 And this hellish gloom of darkness spread over 
 and rested upon all Europe, and parts of Asia 
 and Africa, for more than a thousand years. If 
 the good Jesus could have looked in upon this 
 scene, how aptly might he have said : " My house 
 is called the house of prayer, but ye have made 
 it a den of thieves." 
 
 At length Martin Luther broke this spell, and 
 shook and astonished the religious world. This 
 
 o 
 
 bold reformer dared to think and reason, to ex- 
 press and publish his thoughts. That opened 
 
I 1 6 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 the eyes of other men, and they began to think 
 and reason and talk, and at once their shackles 
 fell. This broke the power of Rome, shattered 
 that great Rock, as with a blast of dynamite, in- 
 to fragments, and shook it to its center, and it be- 
 gan to disintegrate. The chief good of the 
 reformation was to unfetter mind and free it from 
 the thralldom of religious superstition. It for- 
 ever broke the power of religion over mind. 
 Once free, it was sure to remain so. Reason left 
 to itself will find truth, and truth unshackled will 
 work her way to drive out error. The immedi- 
 ate effect was to provoke bloody persecutions, for 
 it could not be supposed that the vast multitudes 
 that were being fed and supported by the church 
 would give up without a struggle. -All the frag- 
 ments of the great rock took with them the same 
 God and his reputed Son, and formed into differ- 
 ent sects. Each sect claimed to be the true 
 original rock, and all there was of it ; and if it 
 had had the power, it would have done just 
 about the same as Rome had done. It would 
 have considered that it was doing God service to 
 destroy and cut off all opponents, as thoroughly 
 as the Israelites did in Canaan. 
 
 That is the nature of a false religion. Each 
 assumed to be God's chosen people, and employed 
 to establish his kingdom on earth. They were 
 all unanimously bitterly opposed to Rome, and 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. HJ 
 
 could be relied upon to fight her under any cir- 
 cumstances. But, fortunately, they were so 
 jealous of each other, it was impossible to com- 
 bine themselves into a single force. This fact 
 secured the general safety of mankind, as it does 
 now. For however fairly and smoothly they 
 may talk about the blessings of religious liberty, 
 it would be found on close scrutiny that each 
 sect thinks it. is a good thing to have liberty to 
 preach its own doctrines, but is doubtful about 
 the policy of allowing some other sects to do the 
 same. It is obvious if either could get the power 
 to prevent it, no other would have the license. 
 This is the natural tendency of bigotry, which is 
 the child of superstition. The same old leaven 
 and the same old bigotry are clearly developed 
 before us, right now, near the close of this nine- 
 teenth century, in the trial of Dr. Briggs for 
 heresy for daring to doubt the literal accuracy, 
 the absolute inerrency and infallibility of portions 
 of the old testament. This proves that the religious 
 sects are all on a wrong basis. They preach charity 
 but have none. They are all founded on the false 
 pretences of Moses on faith in Moses instead of 
 faith in God. They are following false ideas of 
 God, that he is like man, and advocating false 
 systems. If it were not so, they would harmon- 
 ize w r ith freedom of thought and freedom of action 
 with rational diversions and amusements which 
 
Il8 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 are necessary to a healthy development of botli 
 the physical and mental natures, and with all the 
 best interests of mankind. But they do not; 
 they are discordant with the nature of man, which 
 proves that they are not true. They are selfish 
 and bigoted, divided into different sects, differing 
 about what each claims to be essential. A house 
 so divided against itself cannot stand. So the 
 work of disintegration, which began over three 
 hundred years ago, is slowly but surely going on, 
 and must continue until all the old doctrines are 
 entirely done away with. The manhood of God, 
 the fabulous stories about a war in heaven, a 
 hell, a great personal devil, the scheme of salva- 
 tion, the divine paternity of Jesus, and the story 
 of his resurrection, must all pass away as phan- 
 toms of a superstitious imagination. 
 
 The old doctrines are still persistently main- 
 tained in the pulpits, but not in the pews. They 
 are all honeycombed at the foundation, for the 
 people do not believe. They go to church as a 
 matter of habit, or to see the fashions. They be- 
 come members, and contribute to its support. 
 Every Sunday, thousands on their bended knees 
 solemnly declare, " I believe in the resurrection of 
 the body." It is in the form, and they repeat it 
 after the minister, it is in fact the doctrine of 
 the church but does anybody believe it? And 
 worse yet, in some churches even now the priests 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. It 9 
 
 every Sunday claim and pretend that for and on 
 behalf of their people they eat a piece of the 
 very body of Jesus Christ, manufactured on the 
 spot, and drink some of \usreal, true blood, which, 
 by some kind of magic, they make out of pure 
 wine without changing the vinous flavor. Some 
 may doubt this assertion, and I do not wonder at 
 it, for it seems too incredible to be believed by 
 human beings, but nevertheless it is strictly true. 
 <; 'T is true, ' t is pity, and pity ' t is, ' t is true/' 
 for it shows to what a depth of nonsense super- 
 stition may degrade the human intellect. But all 
 these things are passing away "Mene, Mene, 
 Tekel, Upharsin," is written all over them. 
 
 The churches may flatter themselves that they 
 are growing in strength and power but they are 
 not. Their doctrines, theories and organizations 
 are but a mere shell, and very thin ; nothing but 
 a bubble, inflated with superstition; for the peo- 
 ple do not believe. They are looked upon as 
 absurd ; the stories in the Bible, for the most 
 part, are regarded only as mythological fables. 
 So the work of disintegration is quietly but surely 
 going on among all thinking people, and prepar- 
 ing for a final exit of all the old superstitions and 
 mythological doctrines. 
 
 But, notwithstanding all I have said, I am 
 bound to remark here that it is not to be assumed 
 or thought that all who have believed in and 
 
120 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 earnestly supported the Mosaic and Christian sys 
 terns were bad men, hypocrites, and evil disposed 
 persons, doing what they knew to be wrong, for 
 they were not by any means ; they were simply 
 deluded and deceived. There have been thou- 
 sands upon thousands of truly great, good and 
 true men, who have heartily believed and zeal- 
 ously supported both. As the field was much 
 larger, many more are found among Christians 
 than among Hebrews. To attempt to number 
 them would be like attempting to count the stars. 
 I will allude to only one as a sample of many, 
 and that one is the noble old hero known as St. 
 Paul. He, too, was a Jew, a learned man, and 
 after the " most straightest sect of his religion, 
 he lived a Pharisee " a believer in a resurrec- 
 tion. He was a sincere and earnest believer of 
 Moses and the Prophets. He was living at the 
 time of the crucifiixon of Jesus, and with others 
 of his countrymen believed that Jesus taught doc- 
 trines that were subversive of their system. 
 When he heard the claim to Immaculate Concep- 
 tion and ihe Resurrection, he looked upon it as 
 blasphemous, and thought that such teaching 
 ought to be suppressed ; and armed with author- 
 ity from the chief priests he undertook to do it. 
 He was the same good, earnest man then that he 
 afterward was, for he verily believed that he was 
 doing right. But on looking more carefully into 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 121 
 
 the writings of Moses and the Prophets, and par- 
 ticularly inquiring more about the life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus, he became convinced that he was 
 wrong, and that Jesus must be the very person 
 spoken of by the prophets, who should come to 
 redeem Israel. He at once became a firm, zeal- 
 ous and sincere believer, and devoted his life with 
 energy to support and maintain that doctrine ; and 
 to his preaching and personal labors, more than 
 all others, Christianity is indebted for its start in 
 the world. And if it could have been kept under 
 the influence and control of just such men, it 
 would, no doubt, have done much good, notwith- 
 standing it was based upon a false and imaginary 
 foundation. For almost any system, under the 
 exclusive guidance and control of real good men, 
 will work well for mankind. Hence, it is con- 
 ceded that an absolute monarchy, if it could 
 always be sure of having a real good man at the 
 head, is the best of all governments. 
 
 It may be conceded that St. Paul was some- 
 what superstitious. Superstition may be a de- 
 fect, but it is not a crime ; and it cannot be treas- 
 ured up as a fault against any one, for all men 
 are more or less superstitious. 
 
 But some superstitions have naturally and nec- 
 essarily a bad tendency and a bad influence upon 
 mankind, and our effort and object should be to 
 hunt out all such, apply the torch of reason to 
 
122 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 them, and burn them out. So, while we may 
 admit that St. Paul was superstitious, believed 
 in and supported a system wholly founded on 
 superstition, and taught some things, such as the 
 doctrines of election, preterition, etc., which are 
 horrible to think of, and cannot be true, we can 
 well afford to overlook all such things, and blow 
 them to the winds as husks and chaff. But, while 
 we do this, let us take care not to blow away and 
 lose any of the good wheat. 
 
 It is said of St. Paul, that he was rather inferior 
 in personal appearance, was short, bow-legged, 
 bald-headed, blear-eyed, etc., but in that dome 
 of thought there resided a lofty mind, a grand 
 and noble soul. The character of one who offers 
 his life for a cause does not depend upon the 
 question whether the cause is abstractly right or 
 wrong, whether it is founded upon fact or fiction. 
 If he believes it is right, although his death does 
 not prove it to be so, still he gives his life for 
 what he believes to be right, and that ennobles 
 the sacrifice. Paul believed that his cause was 
 right, and with what a sublime resignation he 
 submitted to the cruel decree of the infamous 
 Nero! As he writes to Timothy: C6 I am now 
 " ready to be offered, and the time of my departure 
 "is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have 
 " finished my course, I have kept the faith." A 
 noble ending of a noble life. He kept a faith 
 
AGAINST TH GOD OF MOS3S. 123 
 
 that was dear to him and for which he gave his 
 
 D 
 
 life, and he had a high hope of an everlasting 
 life of happiness; but still there was something 
 which he regarded as of much more importance 
 than even this faith and this hope, and illustrated 
 it in his life; and in proof of this I will quote his 
 own words. 
 
 " Though I speak with the tongues of men and 
 of angels and have not charity, I am become as a 
 sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though 
 I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all 
 mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have 
 all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and 
 have not charity , I am nothing. And though I 
 bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though 
 I give my body to be burned and have not charity, 
 it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long 
 and is kind. Charity envieth not, vaunteth not 
 itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself 
 unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily pro- 
 voked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
 but rejoiceth in the truth. And now abide Faith, 
 Hope and Charity, these three, but the greatest 
 of these is Charity" 
 
 There is the ring of the true metal. Even 
 with him charity was of more consequence than 
 faith arid hope. And it is not limited and con- 
 fined to giving old clothes and cold pieces to the 
 poor, but consists of a high, noble, ardent desire, 
 
124 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE) GOD 
 
 coupled with energetic, self-denying, persistent 
 action, to promote the general good, well being, 
 comfort and happiness of all mankind. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MOSES AND His TRADITIONS. 
 
 WE now come to inquire more particularly 
 about the God of Moses and the creation. What 
 did Moses believe in regard to creation ? What 
 kind of a being did he believe and represent God 
 to be? How were those opinions formed? Is it 
 possible that Moses represented the True God ? 
 What were his pretences in regard to God, and 
 were those pretences honest and true? And with 
 what right is such a being as Moses represented 
 God to be now set up and claimed to be the True 
 God? 
 
 There is no evidence that any God had any per- 
 sonal meeting and talked with Moses, or ordered, 
 directed and promised to assist him to do any- 
 thing, except the word of Moses himself, if we 
 have even so much as that. Nobody else ever 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 125 
 
 saw any meeting or heard any conversation be- 
 tween them. He had it all in his own exclusive 
 power to say what he pleased about God, without 
 the possibility of any contradiction, for all his 
 pretended interviews were private, with himself 
 alone. Under such circumstances, and consider- 
 ing his stories are so inconsistent with human ex- 
 perience, to form a correct and proper estimate 
 of the weight and value of his testimony, we must 
 consider the age in which he lived, the opinion 
 and belief he had of creation and of God, all the 
 circumstances that surrounded him, and whether 
 he had any motive to misrepresent. And, above 
 all, we must inquire whether the things he pre- 
 tended that God ordered and directed him to do, 
 and promised to aid and assist him to do, were 
 consistent with the character of the True God. If 
 they were not, we may be sure that his pretences 
 were false, without reference to motive. For God 
 must be true to himself, though it make every 
 man a liar. 
 
 Moses was born and lived on the boundary line 
 between oral tradition, handed down from gener- 
 ation to generation, and written history, and was 
 among the first to enter the historic age. All be- 
 yond him was verbal tradition, and childish ignor- 
 ance everywhere prevailed. He entered the his- 
 toric age with all the ideas, notions, opinions and 
 conceits which then generally prevailed in the 
 
126 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 world, and wliicli were represented by traditions. 
 They were probably first formed and shaped into 
 stories in a still more remote, ignorant and child- 
 ish age, but were doubtless revised and changed, 
 or altered from time to time, as new light dawned 
 upon them. Moses doubtless remodeled them 
 somewhat to suit his own ideas and designs. 
 
 At the early dawn of reason, mankind groping 
 in darkness sought to discover the cause and 
 origin of what they saw around them. They had 
 not the slightest suspicion that there was anything 
 of creation but the earth, the sun. moon and the 
 firmament, with the little supposed insignificant 
 bright spots they saw in it at night. They 
 readily conceived that everything must have had 
 a beginning, and hence that all those things, in- 
 cluding man and beast, must have been created, 
 and consequently must have had a creator. From 
 this they came to the conclusion that there must 
 be some great unseen power or being that had 
 done all this work. 
 
 After concluding that there was a creator, they 
 could not rest contentedly until they imagined 
 out hew he did this work ; and also what kind of 
 a being he was ; what were his form and nature 
 and general characteristics, and where he lived. 
 Different people in different localities were doing 
 the same thing, and each formed its own peculiar 
 ideas and notions. On these subjects they exer- 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 127 
 
 cised their ignorant fancy and imagination, and 
 formulated stories which were handed down ver- 
 bally from generation to generation, and resulted 
 in the creation of multitudes of imaginary or 
 heathen gods. Then the whole world was pagan, 
 worshiping such gods as they had created by their 
 own imaginations. 
 
 When Jacob, after serving his uncle Laban in 
 Haran twenty years, clandestinely stole away to 
 return to Caanan, his wife Rachel stole her father's 
 gods and took them with her. Laban was sorely 
 aggrieved at this, made a great ado about it, 
 and hastily pursued, to recover those sacred 
 images. This proves that La ban's family, and 
 consequently his ancestors and family connec- 
 tions, were pagans. Abraham was very anxious 
 that his son Isaac should take a wife from the 
 same family, and he took Rebeckah, the sister 
 of Laban ; arid Jacob, following after, married 
 the two daughters of Laban. As there were 
 never any family jars on account of religion, the 
 necessary inference is that Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob and all family connections were pagans, 
 worshippers of imaginary gods, and had and used 
 images to represent them. Hence, their god was 
 of the same genus or class as the gods of the 
 Canaanitcs and other pagan people, all imagin- 
 ary beings, and all served and worshipped in the 
 same way. 
 
128 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 While they lived in Canaan, they did not rise 
 to the dignity of being a distinct people, but only 
 one family. Rachel died soon after reaching 
 Canaan, but that left to Jacob her maid servant, 
 her sister Leah and her maid servant, all of whom 
 Jacob treated as wives, and by all of whom he 
 had children. Then he had twelve sons, many of 
 them probably married to Canaanite women, who 
 had children and maid-servants, and all these, 
 together with other servants, male and female, 
 made up the family of seventy that migrated to 
 Egypt. They all went there as pagans, and to a 
 pagan country. 
 
 Arriving in Egypt, the land of Goslien was 
 allotted to them as a possession and a dwelling 
 place. And there they lived for upwards of four 
 hundred years. During this time they doubtless 
 intermarried with and became more or less in- 
 termixed with the Egyptians, but preserved their 
 race distinction, and multiplied and grew into a 
 distinct people, which in the time of Moses num- 
 bered somewhere about two millions. They evi- 
 dently retained their pagan ideas, and adopted 
 the paganism of the Egyptians, and their mode 
 of worship. Moses, under the auspices of the 
 royal family, was brought up and educated as a 
 pagan priest, and it is evident that his people 
 were strongly attached to the Egyptian paganism. 
 For, after they had gone into the wilderness, while 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. t2$ 
 
 Moses was up in Mount Sinai, manufacturing 
 evidence to prove his personal intimacy with his 
 God, the people clamored urgently for a God, and 
 Aaron, to pacify them, made them a golden calf, 
 which was an imitation of Apis, the chief God of 
 the Egyptians, and with this they were appeased. 
 Moses was greatly displeased at it, as it showed 
 that the affections of the people had not been en- 
 tirely weaned from the Egyptian gods, and wholly 
 fixed upon him and the god he had created for 
 them. 
 
 While Moses, during the forty years he spent 
 in the wilderness, was forming and perfecting his 
 scheme to take his people from Egypt to Canaan, 
 and there build up an independent nation with 
 them, he conceived the idea that it would be 
 proper and advisable for them to have a distinct 
 and separate God, a national God of their own, as 
 other peoples had. And consequently he invent- 
 ed and created one for that purpose, and shaped 
 all the stories and traditions which he relates to 
 suit his ideas of such a God. lie created this 
 God in a human form, with face, hands, feet and 
 " back parts," which he afterwards says he saw; 
 ascribed to him almighty power and a considera- 
 ble wisdom, though not of the highest order ; but 
 especially endowed him with many human frail- 
 ties, such as partiality, jealousy, vanity, deceit, 
 cruelty, revenge, etc.; located his private resi- 
 
130 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 dence up in the sky, where he was attended with 
 a retinue of angels. His presence was limited to 
 the locality of this personality, so that to be pres- 
 ent at different places on the earth it would be 
 necessary for him to " come down," and do more 
 or less traveling ; and that at times he did " come 
 down," and advise, consult and talk with human 
 beings. Such is the kind of God which Moses 
 represented to his people to be the God of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac and Jacob, and required them to adopt 
 and worship as their God. It must be noted, 
 however, that he recognized the existence of oth- 
 er gods, as conclusively appears in the first com- 
 mandment, which says, " Thou shalt have no other 
 gods before me "; that is, no other gods that you 
 will prefer to or like better than me. 
 
 All such ideas and representations of God are 
 clearly pagan, and they could not possibly have 
 had any other than a pagan origin. The fact 
 that Moses represents him as the God of Abra- 
 ham, Isaac and Jacob, and the God of the Israel- 
 ites exclusively, and not the God generally of all 
 mankind, but so particularly and exclusively the 
 God of the Israelites as to be tc an enemy of their 
 enemies and an adversary of their adversaries," 
 and promising to " cut off and destroy all other 
 people '' for their benefit, proves most conclusively 
 that he was not the True God, but only an imag- 
 inary pagan God, that Moses created for his peo- 
 ple and his own use. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 131 
 
 These views will be fully sustained by a critical 
 examination of the record of the stories which 
 Moses related, as showing what he believed, his 
 own actions, and all he said about his God. Some 
 of these stories consist of traditions similar to 
 those that had prevailed and been believed in 
 different parts of the world before his day. But 
 as they appear in Genesis, they were probably 
 modified and changed considerably by him to suit 
 his own ideas arid his designs. None of them, how- 
 ever, show that he was inspired with any scientific 
 knowledge superior to what other pagans pos- 
 sessed, nor do they show any more exalted ideas 
 or conceptions of God than other pagans had of 
 their gods. Each one, of course, claimed that 
 his God was the great original Creator, and supe- 
 rior to all other gods, except, other heathen did 
 not ascribe to their gods, as Moses did to his, any 
 such low attributes as jealousy and partiality, or 
 charge them with the abominable cruelty of 
 4< cutting off and destroying" a whole nation of 
 worthy people to give place to another people. 
 
 The first of these traditions which Moses gives 
 relates to the creation, which he says, was all done 
 in six days. It is evident from the Fourth Com- 
 mandment that he meant six ordinary, natural 
 days. But it is of no consequence at present, 
 whether in the tradition he really means days or 
 periods. But it is to be remarked that he claims 
 
132 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 that it was all done only about twenty-five hun- 
 dred years before his time, which is evidently 
 antagonistic to the discoveries of science. 
 
 The order in which the work proceeded on the 
 fifth and sixth days is what any ordinary mind 
 might conceive after the globe was formed and 
 sufficiently cooled, and therefore is of no import- 
 ance. But the story relates that God created 
 light on the first day, and nothing else. This was 
 before he made any bodies that emit light. Per- 
 haps we may not doubt that infinite power might 
 have done so, but it seems to be rather an 
 awkward mode of procedure and very improbable. 
 
 The second day's work is the most remarkable 
 of all, for he says on the second day God cre- 
 ated a firmament in the midst of the waters, to 
 divide the waters that were under the firmament 
 from the waters that were above the firmament. 
 That is undoubtedly just what he meant and sup- 
 posed to be the fact. This would necessarily im- 
 ply that he supposed that the firmament was of 
 some solid substance, and that it held back a body 
 of water, and kept it from falling on to the earth. 
 And he supposed that there were windows in this 
 firmament that might be opened as occasion might 
 require, and in the time of the great flood, as " all 
 the foundations of the great deep " did not fur- 
 nish sufficient water to {< cover all the high hills 
 that were under the whole heaven," the windows 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 133 
 
 of tliis firmament were opened, and the storage 
 reservoir that was above the firmament was 
 availed of to accomplish the work of destruction. 
 The story about a firmament certainly is not true. 
 Nothing of the kind, or that can be construed by 
 allegory or figure of any kind to answer the place 
 of it, ever existed except in the imagination of men 
 that were ignorant of the true fact. Moses un- 
 doubtedly believed it, or he would not have put 
 it so into his account of creation. It appeared so 
 to him and his ancestors. They had nothing to 
 judge by but appearances, and so they believed. 
 And if he could believe such a thing, what might 
 he not believe ? 
 
 On the third day, it says, the waters were gath- 
 ered into seas, and dry land made to appear ; and 
 on the same day, u the earth brought forth grass " 
 and vegetation generally. The improbable thing 
 to be remarked about this day's work is, that it 
 represents vegetation as flourishing before the sun 
 was created. We may admit this as within the 
 power of God, but, as a fact, very improbable. 
 
 On the fourth day, as the story goes, God 
 created the sun to rule the day, and the moon to 
 rule the night, etc., and "he made the stars also, 
 and set them in the firmament of heaven, to give 
 light upon the earth." That is all the stars were 
 made for, according to Moses ; quite insignificant 
 things, mere shining specks, set in the firmament 
 
134 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 as a jeweler would set diamonds in a brooch, and 
 to give light to the earth. 
 
 Such, Moses supposed and believed, was the 
 whole extent of creation, aside from man and 
 beast ; and, as afterwards appears, that the earth 
 was firmly and permanently fixed and established 
 in one locality, that it was the only place of any 
 importance in the universe, and that all other 
 bodies, great and small, were created simply for 
 the purpose of furnishing it with light. This, 
 then, was the idea Moses had of creation, that 
 the earth was the only important body in the 
 universe, that it was fixed immovably in a certain 
 locality, and of some considerable size, but how 
 large he had no idea. That over it, and some 
 distance from it, there was a solid firmament, 
 made to prevent the waters that were above it 
 from flooding the earth ; that it had windows in 
 it that might be opened, had been opened at the 
 time of the flood ; and that it was spangled with 
 some insignificant, light-giving objects, and that 
 the sun and moon revolved around between the 
 earth and firmament in whatever way they might. 
 From such a situation Moses contemplated, im- 
 agined, and formed his ideas of a God. 
 
 Other traditions which Moses relates most 
 clearly show what ideas he formed of the person- 
 ality of his God, and what he thought of him. 
 The one that comes next in order relates to the 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 135 
 
 creation of man. It declares that God made man 
 in his own image and likeness out of the dust of 
 the earth, and " breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life, and he became a living soul." 
 Soon after (< he thought it was not good for man 
 to be alone," so he caused a deep sleep to fall 
 upon the man, who was named Adam, and while 
 asleep " he took out one of his ribs, and dosed 
 up the flesh instead thereof,'' and of the rib " he 
 made a woman, and brought her unto the man." 
 This story must have originated in a very child- 
 ish and whimsical age, and also at a time when 
 arrogance and presumption' had free license to 
 say what they pleased. The modern mode of 
 accounting for the origin of man is much more 
 plausible, and undoubtedly approximates much 
 nearer to the fact. However, it establishes the 
 fact that Moses conceived the idea that man was 
 in the " image and likeness" of God, and it fol- 
 lowed as a necessary consequence, and so he cre- 
 ated his God in the image and likeness of man, 
 possessed of infinite power, and, perhaps, more 
 wisdom, but otherwise just like a man. Just 
 such a being as he said he saw from the cleffc in 
 the rock, with face, hands, feet, and " back 
 parts." 
 
 This view is sustained by the other parts of the 
 story relating to Adam and Eve, and also by 
 the other traditions. The story goes on to -elate 
 
136 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 that God planted a garden in the East, gives the 
 exact boundaries, and caused to grow in it " every 
 tree that was pleasant to the sight and good for 
 food "; and also planted in the midst of the garden 
 another peculiar tree, which he called "the 
 tree of knowledge of good and evil/' and placed 
 Adam and Eve in the garden " to dress it and 
 keep it." He commanded them, saying, "Of 
 every tree of the garden thou mayst freely eat, 
 but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil 
 thou shalt not eat of it ; for, in the day thou eatest 
 thereof, thou shalt surely die." After thus talk- 
 ing with and giving' them his commandment, he 
 left them to enjoy themselves and went home. 
 
 The Buddhists have a very similar tradition 
 about the origin of man, but in place of the Gar- 
 den of Eden which Moses speaks of, they say that 
 the first pair was placed on the Island of Ceylon. 
 This shows the wide prevalence of a tradition 
 which Moseys shaped to suit his own purpose, and 
 that was to enable him to trace the ancestry of 
 his people to his first man, which is all simply 
 imaginary. 
 
 Moses gives no account of the creation, or any 
 origin of a devil or a hell, and no such things 
 were recognized in his system. His system had 
 respect only to this life, and a future existence 
 was not thought of. According to his story it 
 seems to have pleased God to take Enoch home 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 137 
 
 with him, and it is afterwards related that he 
 sent a fiery chariot to fetch Elijah up there also. 
 But it is nowhere hinted that there was, or ever 
 would be, any general migration from earth to 
 heaven or hell, or any other place, either before 
 or after death. The Hebrews, after the days of 
 Moses, learned that the Gentiles recognized the 
 existence of certain bad beings, such as Satan, 
 Moloch, Belial, Mammon, and Beelzebub, but 
 they had no place in their theocracy. The only 
 villain the authors of the Mosaic traditions intro- 
 duced in the great drama was the serpent, which 
 is represented to be the most cunning of all beasts. 
 And it is represented that this serpent appeared 
 in the garden, and entered into conversation with 
 Eve about this tree of knowledge. She told him 
 what God had said and commanded concerning 
 it. And he then as much as said that God had 
 not told them the truth ; for, he said, God well 
 knew that it would not kill them to eat of it ; nor 
 would they die in consequence of eating of it ; 
 but, on the contrary, it would "open their eyes, 
 and they would be as gods, knowing good and 
 evil." The event proved that the serpent was 
 the most truthful. For after God discovered 
 that they had eaten of the fruit, instead of killing 
 them, as he said he would, on the very day, he 
 only drove them out of the garden, and required 
 them to go to work for a living, but allowed them 
 
138 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 to live to a good old age, and raise a large family 
 of children. 
 
 After eating of the fruit, God is represented as 
 coming there. " He, ivas heard walking in the 
 garden in the cool of the day,'' just like a gentle- 
 man enjoying the evening zephyrs at his country 
 seat. He calls aloud for Adam, and Adam ap- 
 pears with Eve by his side, and he talks to them 
 face to face, as a man would talk with his neigh- 
 bors. He draws from them the confession that 
 they had eaten of that tree. After listening to 
 their excuses, and learning the circumstances of 
 the case, he pronounces the several punishments 
 for each offender. He punished Adam by curs- 
 ing the earth, so that it would bring forth thorns 
 and thistles and make it hard to cultivate, and 
 doomed him as follows: " In the sweat of thy face 
 shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the 
 ground." Nothing is threatened or said relating 
 to his posterity. 
 
 Some fifteen or sixteen hundred years after 
 those garden scenes are represented to have 
 occurred, there happened, according to Moses, a 
 great flood on a part of the earth occupied by 
 the Semitic race. The fact that there was a 
 flood does not prove that God had any such con- 
 nection with it as stated in the tradition. It was 
 not by any means as extensive as the Bible ac- 
 count states, but to those on the spot it undoubt- 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 139 
 
 edly seemed to cover the whole earth. They had 
 no correct idea of the extent of the earth, but sup- 
 posed it had but one side, that on which they 
 lived. They could not conceive it possible that 
 human beings could live on, stand up, and walk 
 about on the underside, like flies on a ceiling. 
 Hence, they supposed that that flood covered the 
 wlWe earth ; and long after its occurrence they 
 set to work to account for it, and finally elaborated 
 a tradition from which Moses manufactures the 
 one he gives in Genesis. 
 
 His version represents that God became utterly 
 disgusted with the whole race of mankind, which 
 had become quite numerous, and determined to 
 destroy it, as appears from the following quota- 
 tion : " And God saw that the wickedness of man 
 was great in the earth, and that every imagina- 
 tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 
 continually. And it repented the Lord that he 
 had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at 
 his heart" Then he had a personal interview 
 with Noah, told him of his intention to destroy 
 mankind, and ordered him to build an ark of 
 gopher-wood, with rooms in it, and to pitch it 
 within and without with pitch : gave him a plan 
 with full and minute specifications. It was to be 
 made with rooms so as to accommodate Noah 
 and wife and their three sons with their wives ; 
 also pairs of all living animals, and storage-room 
 
140 VINDICATION OF THK TRUK GOD 
 
 for a good supply of provisions, for both man and 
 beasts. " And Noah did according to all that 
 God commanded him/' When the Ark was com- 
 pleted and stored with provisions, Noah and wife, 
 his three sons and their wives, went aboard, took 
 rn pairs of all animals, and the craft was ready 
 for the great cataclysm. Then, " in the six hun- 
 d.edth year of Noah's life, in the second month, 
 the seventeenth day of the month, [very particular 
 as to the exact date] the same day were the foun- 
 tains of the great deep broken up, and the win- 
 dows of heaven were opened. And the rain was 
 upon the earth forty days and forty nights." u All 
 the high hills that were under the whole heaven 
 were covered, and all flesh and every man died," 
 except, of course, what were in the Ark. This 
 ought to have been considered the full expiation 
 of Adam's trangression. 
 
 After the storm was over, Moses says God 
 u came down " again, and Noah entertained him. 
 He built an altar unto him, and took of clean 
 beast and fowl, and offered burnt offerings to 
 him. This fact is of no consequence, but the 
 statement which follows is of great importance, 
 as showing the ideas which Moses had of God. 
 It is as follows : " And the Lord smell ed a sweet 
 savour/' The Lord is represented to have ex- 
 perienced just the same kind of sensation that 
 many a gentleman has experienced where good 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 141 
 
 meat was being roasted. " And the Lord smelled 
 a sweet savour." Just think of it. How pleased 
 and satisfied he must have been ! 
 
 Then it is represented God made a covenant 
 with Noah and sealed it with a rainbow, by which 
 he promised never to destroy the world again. 
 Gave it to Noah and his posterity, commanded 
 him to be fruitful and multiply, and replenish 
 the earth, and again went home. 
 
 It would seem that Noah did all that could 
 have been reasonably expected of him in the 
 matter of increasing and replenishing the earth 
 with a new population, for in less than two hun- 
 dred years the world was again pretty well filled 
 with people. And this imagined God must have 
 been considerably disappointed to find that the 
 new race was no better than the one he had so 
 mercilessly destroyed. As the story goes, he 
 heard that the impious people of Shinar were 
 building a tower, and designed that its top should 
 reach up to heaven, and by that means they in- 
 tended to invade and take possession of his pri- 
 vate residence, as the giants did when they 
 piled Pelion upon Ossa to get into Jupiter's 
 heaven, and frightened the old fellow out of his 
 wits. 4< So he came down to see it." After 
 viewing the plan and witnessing the progress of 
 the work for a while, he went back to consider. 
 He came to the conclusion that the plan was 
 
142 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 feasible, and that they would accomplish their 
 object unless he adopted some vigorous means to 
 prevent it. So he reasoned, and said to his 
 friends, "Behold the people is one, (i. e. united,) 
 and they have all one language ; and this they 
 begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained 
 from them, which they have imagined to do. 
 Go to, (i. e. come on ; ) let us go down and there 
 confound their language, that they may not un- 
 derstand one another's speech." It is said that 
 he did so, and consequently the work had to be 
 abandoned. 
 
 In all these stories in regard to the creation of 
 the world or the creation of man, or of any of the 
 work performed or the way in which it was done, 
 or about the personality of God, his residence or 
 his movements, there is not the trace of any- 
 thing but Pagan ideas, notions and imaginings. 
 But they show just the ideas and notions Moses 
 had of those things. As Moses gives them and 
 relates them (as modified by himself) as facts and 
 as true stories, we must come to the conclusion 
 that he believed them just as they read, and that 
 they fairly represent and portray his views and 
 belief. 
 
 Absurd and ridiculous as all such ideas may 
 seem to us now, a little reflection will show how 
 easy and natural it was for people in the days of 
 Moses to believe them ; and he did not live in 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS, 143 
 
 the nineteenth century of the Christian era either, 
 but some thirty-four centuries before, and when 
 mankind were very ignorant, and trusted to their 
 imaginations for facts. When we were children 
 all these stories were read and taught to us. Our 
 ancestors believed them as they read, and we fol- 
 lowed in the wake, and believed them all to be 
 literally true, as many Christians now do. Peo- 
 ple did the same in the time of Moses. There 
 was no talk of these stories being allegories in 
 my young days, but real facts. When it becomes 
 necessary to call them allegories, it is high time 
 to throw them away and pronounce them fictions. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE GOD OF MOSES. 
 
 As it is important to have and keep in view a 
 correct and definite understanding of the real sit- 
 uation and belief of Moses, ami the kind of God 
 he imagined and formed as a National God for 
 his people, I will here condense and summarize 
 them as follows : 
 
 Moses believed that this planet was the only 
 
144 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 body in creation that was of any consequence, and 
 tliat everything else was made for its benefit ; 
 that it was firmly and permanently fixed in one 
 locality ; that the firmament or sky overhead was 
 created as it appeared of some solid substance, 
 and made and fixed to prevent a body of water 
 that he supposed to be above it from falling upon 
 and submerging the earth. That there were 
 windows in it which might be opened as occasion 
 might require, and that at the time of the flood 
 they were opened, and some of that water let out 
 to aid in the work of destruction. That the sun 
 and moon were created to regulate the seasons 
 and give light to the earth ; and that the stars 
 were also created to give light to the earth ; that 
 they were very insignificant shining bodies, firmly 
 set in the firmament. That God formed man out 
 of the dust of the earth in the same way that an 
 artist would form a model for apiece of statuary, 
 and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, 
 and so he became a living soul. That, thinking 
 it not good for man to be alone, God caused a 
 deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and took a rib out 
 of his side, " and closed up the flesh instead there- 
 of," and of this rib " made a woman, and brought 
 her to the man." 
 
 This is just what we might suppose an ignorant 
 and childish people, who were intent upon account- 
 ing for everything they saw, might imagine. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 145 
 
 They had nothing but their imagination to rely 
 upon for facts, outside of what they actually saw. 
 It seemed probable enough, and Moses probably 
 believed it about as he relates it ; just as we did 
 when we were children, and just as many Chris- 
 tians do now. No such place as hell was ever 
 thought of in those days ; but Moses believed 
 that there was a certain permanent locality up in 
 the sky, between the earth and the firmament 
 and not far off, called heaven, where God had 
 established his throne and his private residence. 
 Hence, when he had anything to do on earth, 
 that it w r ould be necessary for him to " come 
 down." Every heathan nation located its God 
 up in about the same locality and in the same 
 way. 
 
 Moses claimed that his God was in the image 
 and likeness of man, possessed almighty power 
 and considerable wisdom ; but otherwise was like 
 man, and had his general characteristics, includ- 
 ing partiality, jealousy, vanity, liability to get an- 
 gry and fly in a passion, etc.; that he occasionally 
 left this heavenly mansion and " came down '' to 
 earth on official business, or to make friendly 
 visits. He " came down " to make Adam, and to 
 make a wife for him, and to settle them in the 
 garden of Eden which he planted for them. That 
 after Adam's transgression he came down again, 
 was heard to be " walking in the garden in the 
 
146 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 cool of the Jay," and then discovered (lie great 
 sin Adam and Eve had committed ; called them 
 to account for it, and had several personal inter- 
 views with them on the subject; spoke a human 
 language, and talked with them face to face, as a 
 man would talk with his acquaintances. After- 
 wards he " came down " to visit Noah, told him he 
 intended to destroy mankind from the face of the 
 earth, ordered him to build an ark of gopher- 
 wood, and and gave him a plan with full and 
 minute specifications. After the flood he "came 
 down " again, and enjoyed the smell of "the sweet 
 savor" of the meat Noah roasted for his enter- 
 tainment, and made a covenant with Noah, by 
 which he gave to Noah and his seed full control of 
 the earth and all there was in it, and agreed never 
 again to destroy the world. That still later his 
 God "came down" to see what the people of 
 Shinar intended to do with the tower they were 
 building, and frustrated their designs by confound- 
 ing their language. 
 
 It will not do for learned divines to hatch out 
 and invent theories and suppositions that Moses 
 said anything about the creation, which he did 
 not suppose and believe to be the real facts ; that 
 he said one thing when he meant another; that 
 his "six days'' meant six long periods; that he 
 did not mean what he said about the firmament 
 and the waters above it; that he did not mean 
 
AGAINST TH GOD OF MOS3S. 147 
 
 that Adam and Eve were made exactly as he de- 
 scribes ; that he did not mean that God actually 
 planted the Garden of Eden, and the tempting 
 tree, called the tree of knowledge, in the midst of 
 it; that he did not mean to be understood that 
 God had a human form and the general charac- 
 teristics of man ; that he sometimes left heaven 
 and "came down 1 ' to earth, and had personal in- 
 terviews with mankind, spoke a human language, 
 talked with Adam and Eve and Noah, face to 
 face, as one man would talk to another ; that it is 
 all mystic language that requires interpretation ; 
 that it was not intended to be understood by the 
 common people until they paid priests to inter- 
 pret it. It will not do to talk so in these days. 
 It is obvious that Moses understood the meaning 
 of the words he used, and if he at any time said 
 one thing when he meant another, used language 
 to conceal his thought, or said what he did not 
 mean, that of itself would be sufficient to im- 
 peach his testimony altogether; for it would be 
 impossible for priests or anybody else to determine 
 what he meant by what he said. If he did not 
 mean just what he said, then why did he say any- 
 thing ? 
 
 And if it should be said that he was inspired by 
 God to write as he did, and that it was the inten- 
 tion of God to have him hide the real truth in 
 mystic language and allegorical stories, which 
 
148 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 could not be understood without a skilled interpre- 
 ter, that would make it still worse, it would ac- 
 cuse God of intent to deceive. Such an assump- 
 tion as relates to the true God would be blasphemy. 
 It is equivalent to charging him with deception, 
 of which it is impossible that he should ever be 
 guilty; or, what is quite as bad, of hiding his 
 meaning in mystic language, so as to make it nec- 
 essary to employ, and thus to support, a hired 
 priesthood to interpret it. It is therefore only 
 fair and reasonable to take it for granted that in 
 all he said about the creation of the world, the 
 firmament, and Adam and Eve, ridiculous as it is, 
 Moses related just what he imagined and believed 
 to be the facts. There is no reason to suppose or 
 believe that Moses had any other different ideas 
 or opinions about those things than just exactly 
 what he said. As corrected by him, they were 
 substantially the notions and opinions of the age, 
 and there is no evidence that Moses held any 
 different opinions. His w r as the case of a man of 
 great intellect, but whose knowledge was neces- 
 sarily limited to what was then known in the 
 world. He made no new discoveries. 
 
 Now we know that his ideas and belief in re- 
 gard to the creation were wrong, inadequate, in- 
 finitely below the facts, and we might naturally 
 suppose that his ideas of God would be equally 
 erroneous. Neither he nor his ancestors had any 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 149 
 
 reasonable conception of the True God, They 
 relied wholly upon their imaginations to idealize 
 him, and their ideas were formed and founded on 
 the basis that this world was all there was of 
 creation. Of course, his presence wouid be con- 
 fined within its limits. They assigned him an 
 elevated position in the sky, to enable him the 
 better to observe what was j;oing on below. That 
 the earth and the people upon it comprised every- 
 thing that required his care and supervision. 
 They as well as he invested God with a human 
 form, as the highest excellence they could conceive 
 of, and assumed that he must have the attributes 
 and general characteristics of man. They could 
 have no doubt that he might travel about, and 
 visit any place as he pleased within the limits of 
 that imagined creation. They had no idea that 
 he was every where present at the same time. He 
 could not possibly be without the ability to talk ? 
 and it seemed natural to suppose that he could 
 speak any human language in vogue. From such 
 crude imaginings, in their endeavor to account 
 for everything they saw or heard of, they formu- 
 lated the stories about the creation of the world, 
 the Garden of Eden, the creation of Adam and 
 Eve, and all about the flood, (all probably modi- 
 fied somewhat by Moses himself,) but all of which 
 are manifestly the creatures of the pagan imagin- 
 ation of an ignorant and childish age, but fully 
 and fairly representing the belief of Moses, 
 
150 VINDICATION OF THK TRUK GOD 
 
 Therefore, we must come to the conclusion that 
 this God of Moses was conceived and born of the 
 imagination of man, created by the imagination 
 in the same way, and by precisely the same pro- 
 cess of reasoning, as Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune* 
 Pluto, Apis, Osiris, and other heathen gods were 
 created, and that he was the same kind of a being, 
 no other or different; and so understood and be- 
 lieved by Moses to be. And this view is confirmed, 
 established and proved most conclusively by the 
 general character and actions that are attributed 
 to him, and the way or manner in which Moses 
 used him. 
 
 With such a God at his command, there were 
 great possibilities for a cunning, shrewd politician 
 like Moses. He might easily make an ignorant 
 and superstitious people believe that such a God 
 had " come down," and called to him from a bush 
 that seemed to be oh fire, or shown his " back 
 parts" to him on the mountain, or done any other 
 absurd and ridiculous thing. 
 
 Three or four thousand years ago, it was be- 
 lieved that when the gods " came down " to visit 
 this world, they generally chose the tops of moun- 
 tains as their inns or stopping places, on the sup- 
 position that they were nearer their home, and 
 more readily accessible. A great poet, who did 
 not pretend to be inspired, says early one rosy 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSUS. 151 
 
 "That Jove convened the Senate of the skies 
 Where high Olympus' cloudy tops arise." 
 
 And Parnassus is famed as the favorite haunt of 
 Apollo, Bacchus, and the Heavenly Nine. The 
 God of Moses chose Mt. Sinai. His thunders, 
 however, were in no way superior to those of 
 Jupiter, and neither were his revelations. When 
 " Jove convened the Senate of the skies, 3 ' it was 
 for the purpose to prevent, and he issued his 
 solemn commandment, that no God should show 
 any partiality towards, or think of yielding any 
 assistance to, either of the armies of men that 
 were at war with each other, but leave them to 
 fight it out among themselves. And, generally 
 speaking, those heathen gods were above the 
 meanness of partiality and jealousy, which were 
 among the distinguishing traits of the God of 
 Moses. Certainly, none of them was ever guilty 
 of planning and instigating a scheme to " cut 
 off and destroy" a whole nation of well-behaved 
 people, to give their land and property to another 
 people of any sort ; and they never acknowledged 
 any " peculiar people," to whom they showed all 
 their favors, to the exclusion of all other peoples. 
 The acknowledged heathen gods were quite as 
 good as the God of Moses. They all had some 
 regard for right and justice. 
 
 The True God certainly has no such form or 
 general characteristics as are attributed to this 
 
152 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 God of Moses. Nor could he possibly be guilty 
 of any such base and detestable actions, or of any 
 of the foul and atrocious crimes that have been 
 perpetrated in the name of the God of Moses. 
 But such was the God that Moses taught his peo- 
 ple to believe in. He was just such a being as 
 would answer his purpose, and that was all he 
 cared for. Just such a being as a shrewd, cun- 
 ning politician might use with an ignorant and 
 superstitious people, to help carry out any scheme 
 he might project, and Moses took full advantage 
 of it. More than two thousand years after 
 Moses, Mahomet used the same God in the same 
 way that Moses did to carry out his schemes. 
 And he performed his deceptions near the same 
 place where Moses performed his. The Christians 
 will fly up and say, 4f But Mahomet was a 
 deceiver, an impostor." Indeed? How do we 
 know that he was any more of a deceiver than 
 Moses? We have the word of Mahomet for one, 
 and we have only the word of Moses, (if indeed 
 we have as much as that,) for the other. If 
 tested by the number of believers, the believers 
 in Mahomet far outnumber the Christians. As 
 Carlyle says, "For these twelve centuries it 
 (Mahommedanism) has been the religion and 
 life guidance of the fifth part of the whole kin- 
 dred of mankind. Above all, it has been a religion 
 heartily believed." Joseph Smith used the same 
 God in the same way, and he had his followers. " 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 153 
 
 Previous to their pretended interview with 
 God, the general character of Mahomet as well as 
 Smith was just as good as that of Moses, quite 
 as credible and worthy of belief. From the time 
 that> Moses was taken out of the bulrushes to the 
 time he pretended that God called him at the 
 burning bush, which was about eighty years, all 
 we know of him is that he murdered an Egyp- 
 tian and fled to the wilderness to escape punish- 
 ment for that crime. Neither Mahomet nor Smith 
 ever personally committed any crime. 
 
 Moses obtained employment to tend the flocks 
 of Jethro, married his daughter, and lived with 
 him about forty years before God noticed him. 
 All this time he was simply a fugitive from just- 
 ice. Under these circumstances, while he was 
 attending to his business, he pretends that this 
 God called to him from a bush that appeared to 
 be on fire but was not consumed, and introduced 
 himself as follows : "I am the God of thy father, 
 the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the 
 God of Jacob. He did not claim to be the great 
 Creator of the universe or the God of all man- 
 kind generally, but only the God of those partic- 
 ular persons and their posterity. 
 
 It was the custom of that age for every people 
 to have its own separate and peculiar God, and 
 Moses prepared to follow the fashion. After thus 
 introducing himself, Moses pretends that God said 
 
154 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 to him, u I have surely seen the affliction of my 
 people which are in Egypt." "And I have come 
 down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyp- 
 tians, and to bring them up out of that land unto 
 a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with 
 milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, 
 and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Periz- 
 zites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites." Now 
 this is what Moses pretends that God said to him 
 at the first interview he ever had with him, when 
 he introduced himself and called him at the burn- 
 ing bush. It was then and there that the great 
 scheme was first unfolded. It was a scheme to 
 cut off and destroy all those peoples who inhab- 
 ited the land of Canaan, to give place to the Israel- 
 ites who were then in bondage in Egypt. This is 
 implied in what is above quoted, but is made 
 more clear and certain by a subsequent interview, 
 at which Moses represents that God said to him 
 " I will send an angel before thee to keep thee in 
 the way." "I will be an enemy unto thy enemies, 
 and an adversary unto thine adversaries," " and 
 bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, 
 and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hi- 
 vites, and the Jebusites, and I will cut them off" 
 "I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy 
 all the people to whom thou shalt come." This is 
 the scheme which Moses pretended that his God 
 planned, devised, laid out, and ordered him to 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOS3S. 155 
 
 undertake and execute. And to encourage and 
 strengthen him, said to him, " Certainly, I will be 
 with thee." Then, if we believe Moses, this was 
 all God's work, his plan, his scheme, his object, 
 devised, first suggested, and directly ordered by 
 him. This is the great, dominant and overruling 
 pretence of Moses, and by which all his other pre- 
 tences, which were all only, in furtherance of the 
 same object and end, must be judged of and de- 
 termined. Is it true that the one only living and 
 True God devised, first suggested, and ordered the 
 execution of that scheme, and promised to per- 
 sonally assist in carrying it out ? Is it true ? Was 
 it God's own personal scheme, or was it only the 
 scheme of Moses ? On the answer to this ques- 
 tion depends the all important question whether 
 Moses was a true prophet, and representative of 
 the True God, or whether he was an imposter. 
 
 An effort to rescue a worthy people from bond- 
 age, and place them where their condition might 
 be improved, is certainly in and of itself worthy 
 of all commendation. But to plot and plan and 
 scheme by superior force to cut off, deslr* y and 
 annihilate another distant and innocent people, 
 who never gave any offense, and who had no 
 hand in the enslavement, in order to give them a 
 country exclusively to themselves, is a very dif- 
 ferent thing. It is the plan of a human or in- 
 human conqueror, who tramples heedlessly on the 
 
156 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 rights of others in total disregard of justice and 
 all moral principle. 
 
 It was no part of this scheme to take the Israel- 
 ites to Canaan as an army of missionaries to re- 
 form the people, to teach them the knowledge of 
 God, persuade them to accept, serve and worship 
 this God. Nothing of the kind. No other peo- 
 ple were to be allowed in the circle. They would 
 not intermarry or associate with any other people, 
 or allow them to have any interest in or claim 
 upon this God. He was their own God, the God 
 of Israel and of the Israelites exclusively ; was 
 not the God of any other people ; " was an ene- 
 my of their enemies," and all other people must 
 be cut off and destroyed, so that the Israelites 
 might have the whole country to themselves ex- 
 clusively. This was the scheme. 
 
 There were to be no friendly negotiations to al- 
 low the Israelites to settle there peaceably among 
 them, as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had done, 
 and allow them to adopt their own system of wor- 
 ship. No, this would not answer. The only 
 thing to be done was to cut off and destroy all 
 the people to whom they would come kill them 
 put them out of the way, and seize and appro- 
 priate all their property. The justice and moral- 
 ity of the scheme had no weight with Moses. 
 Moses coveted the land of Canaan, and his tenth 
 commandment was not allowed to interfere with 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 157 
 
 his plan. The people that lived in that land must 
 all be cut off and destroyed. It was the scheme 
 of a robber and murderer ; and, as it was after- 
 ward carried out, was one of the blackest, most 
 inhuman and atrocious crimes ever committed by 
 man. 
 
 Who were the people of Canaan, who were to 
 be thus cut off and destroyed to give place to the 
 Israelites ? What kind of people were they ? 
 Three of these peoples, namely, the Canaanites, 
 Perizyites and Hittites, were the immediate neigh- 
 bors of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for over two 
 hundred years, while they lived there, and these 
 were probably a fair sample of all the rest of 
 the dwellers in Canaan. Some few little inci- 
 dents crop out in the record, from which we may 
 judge of their character. Abraham, with Sarah, 
 his half-sister, for a wife, came and settled among 
 them about six hundred years before the time we 
 are now speaking of, and when he came li he was 
 rich in cattle, and in silver and gold." They did 
 not attempt to rob him, or overreach, or take any 
 advantage of him, but allowed him to settle 
 among them, and always treated him with great 
 respect and kindness. ' Those peoples inherited 
 the land from their ancestors, who had owned 
 and occupied it from time immemorial, and had 
 a good right and perfect title to it. 
 
 After Abraham had lived there some forty 
 
158 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 years, more or less, his wife Sarah died, and he 
 had no suitable place to bury her. He modestly 
 made his want known to his neighbors, the sons 
 of Ileth. The sons of Ileth immediately rose up 
 as one man, and said to him, " In the choice of 
 our sepulchres bury thy dead. None of us shall 
 withhold from thee his sepulchre, but that thou 
 mayst bury thy dead." This was a kind and gen- 
 erous offer. Abraham thanked them for their 
 kindness, but desired to have a sepulchre of his 
 own. He knew of a field which had the cave of 
 Machpelah in it, and it was owned by a man 
 named Epliron^ and he desired that they would 
 treat with Ephron for that field for him. As soon 
 as Ephron heard that Abraham wanted the field 
 for a burial place, he immediately came forward, 
 a noble soul, and said, " My lord, the field give I 
 thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee. 
 In the presence of the sons of my people, give I 
 it thee. Bury thy dead." But as Abraham was 
 rich, he did not wish to receive it as a gift. He 
 chose to pay for it, and therefore desired Ephron 
 to set a price upon it. In compliance with 
 that request, the generous-hearted Ephron said, 
 " My lord, hearken to me 4 ; the land is worth four 
 hundred shekels of silver ; what is that betwixt me 
 and thee ? Bury, therefore, thy dead ? " He 
 did not try to drive a sharp bargain, did not want 
 to take money for it ; but Abraham weighed out 
 
AGAINST TH GOD OF MOS^S. 159 
 
 tlie silver, which Epliron reluctantly received, and 
 passed the title. The same people were equally 
 kind and friendly with Isaac and Jacob, and so 
 they lived friendly neighbors for more than two 
 hundred years. From these incidents we may 
 judge of the character of that people. They were 
 a generous, noble-hearted, magnanimous people. 
 And yet these are the people, specially named 
 among others, whom Moses pretended that God 
 ordered to be " cut off and destroyed," and their 
 land and property seized and appropriated by the 
 descendants of the very man to whom all this 
 kindness and generosity was shown. Is it true? 
 Was this God's scheme, or the scheme of Moses ? 
 A scheme that was never excelled on earth for 
 downright hellish atrocity. Did Moses tell the 
 truth ? Was it God's scheme ? Did God origin- 
 ate, devise, and out of the flames of a burning 
 bush order its execution ? Or was it the scheme 
 of Moses, wholly devised by him, and by him 
 falsely charged upon God ? We have nothing 
 but the word of Moses for it. Is it possible to 
 believe him ? Did he tell the truth ? 
 
 The scheme was successful, and was carried out 
 to the letter. All those innocent, unoffending, 
 noble people were "cut off and destroyed," all 
 their property taken by the Israelites; and the 
 deceptive glamour of success gilded with the 
 shining garbs of righteousness all the crimes and 
 
l6o VINDICATION OF THE) TRUB GOD 
 
 atrocities that were committed to accomplish it; 
 and it is claimed that they were noble, honorable, 
 praiseworthy, glorious deeds, the cause of hu- 
 manity, the cause of righteousness, the cause of 
 God. And ever since Moses has been lauded as 
 the most worthy of all men, the greatest patriot, 
 the greatest benefactor of the race, a model of 
 excellency, the grand vicegerent and foremost 
 prophet of God, and the prototype of Christ. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE MOTIVE or MOSES. 
 
 ASSUMING, for the sake of argument, that 
 Moses in his stories referred to the True God, 
 when we can readily see a motive for making a 
 remarkable pretence of private, personal intimacy 
 with God, and receiving special communications 
 and directions from him, we have a right to use 
 that motive and all attendant circumstances to 
 test the credibility of the pretence. If we find 
 the motive strong, and the pretence of something 
 miraculous contrary to human experience, this 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. l6l 
 
 of itself is sufficient to justify a strong doubt of 
 its truth. But, above all, if the pretence be in- 
 consistent with and antagonistic to the character 
 of God, we are forced to conclude that it is false, 
 without reference to motive, for God must be true 
 to himself though it prove every man to be a liar. 
 
 We have no evidence at all but the bare word 
 of Moses that God appeared and talked to him. 
 While we may admit that it is not impossible for 
 God to make a direct, personal, verbal communi- 
 cation to a human being, nevertheless it would be 
 so inconsistent with human experience, and so 
 miraculous, that the testimony of one man would 
 hardly be sufficient to entitle a single instance of 
 it to belief. If he should do anything of the 
 kind, it surely would be in regard to something of 
 public interest and importance ; and it is incredi- 
 ble that he would do it off in a remote by-place, 
 privately and secretly to one person, and not gen- 
 erally to all, or at least to many. 
 
 We discredit the stories of Mahomet and Joseph 
 Smith about communications claimed to have been 
 made in this way, and where we do not find any 
 very unworthy motive, nothing more than a 
 desire to have others believe as they did. Then 
 why not discredit the story of Moses ? What 
 better right have we to believe Moses than Ma- 
 homet and Smith ? From what we know of the 
 men, Moses was personally no better or more en- 
 
1 62 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 titled to credit than either of the others. Neither 
 of them ever personally committed a murder or 
 other crime. And neither of them ever planned 
 or instigated a scheme to cut oft' and destroy a 
 whole nation of worthy people, or any people, to 
 make room for their followers. On the contrary, 
 they were always ready to receive all that were 
 willing to join them. If God visited and talked 
 with Moses, why may he not have done the same 
 with Mahomet and Smith ? They were quite as 
 respectable, and their motives were certainly full 
 as good. 
 
 It is particularly incredible that God should 
 take such a special interest in the Israelites, and 
 have more regard for them than he had for the 
 Egyptians, or the Canaanites, or any other peo- 
 ple. They certainly were no better, or more 
 worthy. They were pagans, and quite as much 
 so as any of the other people. But if he chose 
 to do so, it is incredible that he should have gone 
 to Moses alone in the wilderness, and, in a clan- 
 destine way, ordered and directed him to take 
 steps to ameliorate their condition in such a way 
 as Moses pretended, when there was a much 
 easier, more direct and certain way of accomplish- 
 ing the object. Here is an instance where Moses 
 did not credit his God with a high order of wis- 
 dom and sagacity. The Israelites were then in 
 a rich and delightful country. And if God, in- 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 163 
 
 stead of going to Moses off in the wilderness, 
 had appeared directly to Pharoah, made him 
 conscious of his personal presence, and requested 
 him to see that they were properly treated, it 
 would, most certainly, have been attended to at 
 once. Besides, Pharoah and all Jiis subjects would 
 have been exceedingly delighted with the oppor- 
 tunity of thus being made personally acquainted 
 with God. This is just what they and everybody 
 else then were, and ever since have been, most 
 intensely desirous of and anxious for. Everything 
 earthly then (or now) would readily have been 
 exchanged for it. There are many fanatics and 
 enthusiasts now, who claim and pretend to have 
 such a personal acquaintance ; but God knows 
 they are all liars. 
 
 It is obvious that the great, all-absorbing, and 
 controlling motive and main object Moses had in 
 view was not merely to rescue his race from 
 bondage, that was only an insignificant part of it, 
 but to conquer, subdue, " cut off and destroy " 
 all the people of Canaan, a large and delightful 
 country, and give it to his people. He had set 
 his heart upon that particular country. He 
 would not be satisfied with obtaining control and 
 governing it and the people that lived there. 
 His scheme was to butcher, murder, cut off and 
 destroy them all by an universal and indiscrim- 
 inate slaughter, and give his people most exclu- 
 
164 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 sive possession of it. This was the scheme Moses 
 devised and set his heart upon. This was his 
 great controlling motive, and everything else was 
 subordinate to it. And he used his absurd and 
 childish ideas of God as among the most efficient 
 means to accomplish that purpose. 
 
 To judge of the power and effect of this motive 
 upon the mind of Moses, we must take into con- 
 sideration the great magnitude of the main object 
 he had in view, that of acquiring the land of 
 Canaan, the age in which he lived, all his cir- 
 cumstances and surroundings, his opinion and be- 
 lief in regard to creation ; and more particularly 
 his iJeas and belief in regard to God, what kind 
 of a being he supposed him to be, the gross 
 ignorance of his people, how easy it was to make 
 such a people believe that God had appeared and 
 talked to him ; also the prevailing opinions and 
 beliefs of people generally at that time on those 
 subjects. All these things have a direct bearing 
 upon the point. 
 
 It was customary in those days for rulers to 
 use pretended directions and communications 
 from their gods with their ignorant subjects, to 
 excite enthusiasm, to promote their personal de- 
 signs. Moses, undoubtedly, used his God in the 
 same way. A very important piece of evidence 
 to prove that his God was of the kind that might 
 be so used, is the fact that he pretended that he 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OP MOSKS. 165 
 
 saw him, and described him as having a human 
 form, with feet, hands, a face too glorious to be 
 looked upon with mortal eyes, but with " back 
 parts " which he was permitted to see. Can any- 
 body really believe this ? This obvious falsehood 
 is alone sufficient to prove that Moses was an im- 
 poster. Whether it relates to the True God or to 
 an imaginary being, it is equally false. It cer- 
 tainly is false as to the True God, and cannot pos- 
 sibly be true of an imaginary being. This proves 
 that, when Moses told that story, he was lying, 
 lying, lying. He deliberately told his people a 
 falsehood, for the purpose of inducing them to 
 believe that he had personal intimacy with God. 
 And it had that effect, as he knew it would with 
 the ignorant people he was then dealing with; 
 but it should have quite the opposite effect with 
 people nowadays. It is just one of those things 
 which often happens now, where a false witness, 
 in his effort to insure a belief of his false story, 
 unwittingly over acts, makes his story a little too 
 strong, and says or does something which betrays 
 its falsity. There was not much danger of this as 
 between Moses and his ignorant people ; but with 
 people of this age, who are not crazed or demented 
 with superstition and ignorance, it must prove 
 that he was deceiving his people ; that he told 
 them a deliberate falsehood, and that he was an 
 imposter. 
 
166 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 The falsity of his pretences is also betrayed by 
 the fact that he did not dare or attempt to rely 
 and act upon what he pretended God promised 
 to do. He did not dare to attempt to lead his 
 people directly to Canaan just as they were, and 
 rely upon the promise of God to " cut off and 
 destroy all the people to whom he would come.'' 
 If it had been true as he pretended, that God had 
 so promised, they would have no serious fighting 
 to do themselves, and he might have led them 
 direct the shortest route to Canaan, and had them 
 all settle there in less time than it took to go to 
 Sinai. But Moses was too wise and cunning to 
 attempt such an experiment. This clearly shows 
 that he was using an imaginary God. That all 
 his pretences were false, and made for the effect 
 they would have upon his people, to keep them 
 under his control and keep them quiet, while he 
 attended to the real business. They were a raw, 
 unorganized rabble, and would have stood no 
 chance against the Canaanites. They would have 
 been totally annihilated. Moses well knew that 
 when they were lead to Canaan his God would 
 expect to be on the strongest side, and that it 
 would be folly to take them there until they were 
 fully able to do the business without relying upon 
 special assistance from God. The cunning Moses, 
 like all such men, had ready a plausible excuse. 
 If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, his 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 167 
 
 God would suddenly change his mind, and order 
 Mahomet to go to the mountain. The excuse 
 Moses had was, that while they were all together, 
 before they would be scattered all over the land 
 of Canaan, he wanted to introduce and teach them 
 his system of worship. So, instead of attempting 
 to lead them directly to Canaan, like Mahomet, 
 he went to the mountain . Mt. Sinai. There he 
 dallied with them for a lon time, introduced his 
 
 O 7 
 
 deceptive and ridiculous system of worship, and 
 with it diverted their minds, while he attended 
 most assiduously to the main business, which was 
 to organize, drill and train all able-bodied men 
 into an army of soldiers. 
 
 His system of worship, like his pretences, was 
 all a deception and a fraud. It was the same kind 
 of worship that had been used for centuries by 
 other heathen nations towards their imaginary 
 Gods, and it was adopted by Moses for the same 
 purpose that other heathens used it, namely, as a 
 means of supporting a priesthood. Moses well 
 knew that no real, intelligent God could be hon- 
 ored or pleased by the killing and roasting of 
 dumb animals. It is ridiculous to suppose that he 
 could be. It is evident that it was adopted and 
 used by him to deceive the common people, the 
 producers, into the belief that it was a sacred 
 duty, required by God, to contribute of their sub- 
 stance for his service. And this answered a 
 
1 68 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 double purpose. First, the contributions supported 
 the army of priests and levites, who thereby be- 
 came personally interested to support his system 
 and all his pretences ; and secondly, it diverted 
 the minds of the people, while Moses himself was 
 attending to the more serious business of forming 
 an army. 
 
 The human traits and characteristics which 
 Moses ascribes to his God, such as partiality, 
 jealousy, vanity, deceit, injustice, cruelty, etc., 
 prove that he had no adequate or proper concep- 
 tion of the character of the True God, for it is 
 impossible that the True God can have any such 
 characteristics. 
 
 The collateral stories that are told about the 
 plagues, the dividing of the waters of the Red 
 Sea and the Jordan, and causing the sun and 
 moon to stand still for about a whole day to accom- 
 modate Joshua, and all the other remarkable 
 stories, so far from tending to corroborate and 
 promote belief in the pretences of Moses, are so 
 absurd and ridiculously false that they have the 
 effect, like his pretence that he saw the person of 
 God, only to cast a Munchausen hue over the 
 whole. If there had been any truth in those 
 stories, some mention, or at least some hint, of 
 them would have appeared in the history or tra- 
 ditions of Egypt and other countries. 
 
 Morality, right and justice were not considered 
 
. AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 169 
 
 in forming his scheme. They had no weight with 
 Moses. The doctrine that might makes right 
 was adopted by him as it was by other people in 
 that age. In his pretences he took it for granted 
 that his God agreed with him ; held the same 
 views that he did. This fact detects, exposes, 
 proves and establishes the falsity of his pretences 
 beyond a doubt as to the True God. For the true 
 God certainly did not, could not, agree with him. 
 It is plain to see that the motive and object 
 Moses had in view was sufficient with such ab- 
 surd and ridiculous ideas as he had of God, to 
 induce him to make any pretence that lie thought 
 might have a favorable impression on the minds 
 of his people, and help him to carry out his scheme. 
 Other conquerors have cruelly invaded and con- 
 quered countries without right, and occasioned 
 much bloodshed and suffering. They did it to 
 acquire control and extend their government over 
 the people. No human wretch but Moses, how- 
 ever, ever planned to kill, cut off and destroy all 
 the inhabitants of the country they proposed to 
 conquer. Moses could not be satisfied with any- 
 thing short ef the entire extermination of all the 
 inhabitants of Canaan. That was the scheme he 
 set his heart upon, and the motive power of all 
 his actions. But it was too horrible to be sug- 
 gested even to his own people, on his own respon- 
 sibility alone. They might see that it was un- 
 
170 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 just, too cruel. Besides, they might think, How 
 can we do it ? We are not strong enough to go 
 and kill all the inhabitants of Canaan. They 
 would kill us. We had better stay where we are. 
 Moses saw this, and so he determined to charge it 
 upon God, pretend that God had appeared to 
 him and ordered it to be done, and promised to 
 assist in doing it. To open even this story to 
 them required great care and consideration. 
 
 It would be necessary that they should be first 
 impressed with the belief that God did at times 
 u come down," and visit and talk with mankind, 
 and tell them what to do. So he shaped the old 
 traditions to meet the case, had it instilled into 
 their minds how he " came down,"(" came down " 
 was an important idea,) and talked with Adam 
 and with Noah. He fabricated all the traditions 
 about the visits to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I 
 say fabricated, for there is no proof of them ex- 
 cept his word. Told them how God promised to 
 give the whole land of Canaan to their seed. 
 This was said to make them believe that they had 
 a divine right to that country. Pretended that 
 God told Abraham that they would be strangers 
 in a strange land for four hundred years, (which 
 was said to correspond with what had happened 
 to them,) but that after that time they would 
 come out " with much substance " and possess 
 the land. And this is the sum and substance of 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 171 
 
 all the revelations made to those patriarchs, 
 that their seed should have all Canaan. What an 
 important revelation ! These stories show and 
 prove the scheming of a politician. 
 
 It was great business for God to " come down " 
 three several times, first to Abraham, then to 
 Isaac, and afterward to Jacob, to reveal those 
 particular things and nothing else, and then say 
 nothing more about them to anybody for four 
 hundred years, and until Moses came. It shows 
 how important Moses thought it was that his peo- 
 ple should be thoroughly impressed with the idea 
 that they had a divine right to Canaan, and this 
 is the reason why he invented and shaped the 
 patriarchal traditions as we now find them, so as 
 just to tally with his scheme. 
 
 In this way he prepared the minds of his peo- 
 ple to receive his great and leading and all-impor- 
 tant pretence. But it was necessary that even 
 that, should be accompanied by something that 
 was marvelous, striking and mysterious, to excite 
 their superstitious notions, or they might not be- 
 lieve him. So he invented the idea of having 
 God call to him from a bush that seemed to be 
 blazing with fire while it was not consumed. No- 
 body else saw it. lie was all alone, off in the 
 wilderness. They had no proof of it but his 
 word. But the story was so novel and wonder- 
 ful it excited their curiosity, and was sufficiently 
 
172 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 marvelous to satisfy superstition, and so they lis- 
 tened and believed. Then he unfolded what he 
 pretended that God said to him, and particularly 
 that God promised to be with him and help 
 carry it out. Nothing more was necessary. This 
 was sufficiently wonderful. It captivated their 
 pagan hearts, and secured their confidence in 
 Moses. " Surely," (they thought,) " God must 
 be with him," and they were ready to believe 
 anything he might say. The scheme pleased 
 the,m. It tallied with their desires, and as God 
 was going to see them through they had nothing 
 to fear. They were transported with delight, and 
 longed for the time to come to start. They could 
 almost taste the milk and honey of Canaan. It 
 was not a great way off. They could reach it in 
 a few days. And then what delight to be free, 
 the owners of the land ! to sit under their own 
 vine and fig tree, and enjoy the fruit at their leis- 
 
 ure 
 
 Little did they think of the sufferings and 
 hardships they would have to undergo before 
 they reached Canaan. Moses understood it all. 
 He knew that it would require much time and 
 labor to prepare them to go to Canaan with any 
 hope of success ; that it would be necessary to 
 make soldiers of them, and organize them into a 
 powerful army. His pretences were for the peo- 
 ple, and were designed to comfort and pacify the 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 173 
 
 people bolster up their courage, and keep them 
 quiet while he directed the necessary work. His 
 actions plainly show that he was not relying up- 
 on the assistance of God, but was intent to have 
 the people think and feel so. He did not venture 
 to lead them direct to Canaan, but took them to 
 Sinai, and there diverted their minds with his 
 ridiculous system of worship while he organized 
 them into an army. 
 
 This leads us to consider the most important 
 of all questions touching the pretences of Moses, 
 and that is, How do they stand as respects the 
 True God, as respects the question of right, 
 justice, and morality involved in them? This is 
 another and the most important instance where 
 Moses has unwittingly furnished most incontesta- 
 ble proof of their falsity. As we have seen, he 
 had no just, proper, or reasonable idea or con- 
 ception of the True God, or any correct ideas of 
 right and justice among men not at all superior 
 to other heathen. All his ideas, notions, opinions 
 and belief in regard to these things were rude, 
 childish, and heathenish. They were all shaped, 
 colored and beclouded by the ignorance of the 
 age in which he lived. He was a heathen, in a 
 whole world of heathens. He supposed his own 
 ideas of right and justice were correct, and he 
 had no doubt but that God, as he imagined him 
 to be, entertained the same views and ideas that 
 
174 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 he did, and he therefore assumed such to be 
 the fact. He had no idea but that the God he 
 had imagined considered it right and just to se- 
 lect out and have a peculiar people, make them 
 the special recipients of all his favors, to the ex- 
 clusion of all the rest of mankind ; and that it 
 would be right and just to cut off and destroy all 
 the inhabitants of Canaan to make room for the 
 Israelites. And he instilled those ideas into the 
 minds of his people. Such were the prevailing 
 opinions among men of that age. And Moses 
 was in no way superior to them on moral or re- 
 ligious questions. All took it for granted that 
 might makes right, and had but little, if any, re- 
 gard for the rights of others, or any moral prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 It was the common practice among all the 
 other nations, on important occasions, through 
 priests, oracles, soothsayers, etc., to have the will 
 and wishes of their gods declared to the common 
 people, to inspire their enthusiasm and devotion 
 to a cause. But the rulers determined what their 
 gods should be represented as saying. Moses 
 undoubtedly had the same notions, and resorted 
 to precisely the same means to accomplish his 
 purposes. He thought it all right, that his god 
 agreed with him, and therefore he did not hesi- 
 tate to represent that God appeared to him at the 
 burning bush, and suggested, ordered, directed, 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 175 
 
 and promised to assist to carry out that atrocious 
 scheme. But his ignorance of the character of 
 the True God betrays the falsity of all his pre- 
 tences. If there had been the semblance of any 
 excuse for it, any show of right or justice, any 
 reasonable provocation, we might think differ- 
 ently of it. But there was none. The dwellers 
 in Canaan treated their ancestors with great re- 
 spect, kindness and friendship for more than two 
 hundred years, anil showed that they were a gen- 
 erous and noble people. They were pagans, to 
 be sure, but no more so than the Israelites ; and 
 this scheme to cut off and destroy them was one 
 of the basest, meanest, most ungrateful, detesta- 
 ble and abominable that ever disgraced the hu- 
 man race. So the ignorant, false and absurd 
 ideas which Moses had of God, and of right and 
 justice, and his own heart-cruelty, which are em- 
 bodied in his scheme, entrap him and betray all 
 his pretences, prove that the scheme originated 
 in his own mind, the mind of a covetous, un- 
 just, and bloodthirsty human monster, and that 
 all his pretences in regard to God were false : 
 That he was an imposter, and the great father of 
 all imposters. The True God could not possibly 
 have had anything to do with it. 
 
 But although Moses exceeded all others in un- 
 grateful, unprovoked and inhuman cruelty, the 
 ignorant ideas and opinions which prevailed 
 
176 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 among men in his age might, perhaps, furnish some 
 little palliation for him personally, lut not for 
 God. We must suppose and assume that God 
 knew just as much then as he does now, and that 
 he had the same ideas and views of right, truth, 
 and justice then as now. It is therefore impossible 
 that he could have suggested, originated and 
 promised to assist in carrying out any such unjust 
 and cruel scheme. It is inconsistent, antagonis- 
 tic, and repugnant to his nature and character. 
 And this is the crucial test of all the pretences of 
 Moses : when it is pretended that God is partial, 
 or that he has originated, suggested, ordered, or 
 promised to assist in carrying out any wrong, 
 unjust and cruel scheme, we may know, with un- 
 erring certainty, that it is false. He would not, 
 could not do it. " Let God be true and every 
 man a liar." The whole question, therefore, re- 
 solves itself to this: Is God ever and always true 
 to his own character, true to himself? If he is, 
 then the pretences of Moses were false, for they 
 are entirely inconsistent and antagonistic to each 
 other. Then, which shall we believe, God or 
 Moses ? Which kind of faith shall we have, faith 
 in God or faith in Moses? 
 
 We have nothing but the word of Moses to 
 prove anything which he pretends that God said 
 to him. Does the mere word of Moses outweigh 
 the character of God ? Is the testimony of Moses 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSKS. 177 
 
 sufficient to convict God of the abominable crime 
 of plotting and planning and employing him to 
 assist to " cut off and destroy" all the noble in- 
 1 abitants of Canaan and steal their property ? Is 
 the testimony of Moses alone sufficient to prove 
 that God was guilty as a " particeps criminis." 
 and accessory, before the fact, of stealing the 
 jewels of gold and silver and the wearing apparel 
 of the Egyptians, arid running away with them, 
 or playing double with Pharaoh? Can the testi- 
 mony of Moses alone thus prevail against the in- 
 tegrity and outweigh the character of God ? 
 
 I do not believe that God appeared and said 
 any such thing to Moses, as Moses said he did, at 
 a burning bush, because it involves and implies 
 partiality, injustice and cruelty on the part of 
 God, which are utterly inconsistent with and an- 
 tagonistic to his character; and that fact, to my 
 mind, stamps the whole story of Moses as a false- 
 hood, and Moses himself as an imposter. To me, 
 the character of God is much higher evidence than 
 the word of Moses. The trouble with religion 
 and the religious world is, that it sets Moses above 
 God. Moses is believed in preference to God. 
 The character of God has no weight, no standing, 
 against the testimony of Moses. The word of 
 Moses is the only evidence that is to be regarded. 
 His word is conclusive, and to doubt Moses and 
 his absurd pretences is a monstrous sin. Hence, 
 
178 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Moses must be allowed to charge God with par- 
 tiality, jealousy, vanity, cruelty, double-dealing, 
 petty larceny, and claim (hat he saw the " back 
 parts" of his person, and that august Being must 
 sit still on his throne, listen to and allow his creat- 
 ures to believe all those infamous blasphemies, 
 without being allowed to interpose proof of good 
 character, or saying a word in his own defense ; 
 for Moses was boss, and wanted Canaan ; there- 
 fore, God must not be allowed to say a word, ex- 
 cept what Moses told him to say, or impiously pre- 
 sumed to say for him, for fear it might upset the 
 scheme. Such is the ridiculous absurdity and 
 fanaticism of religion. What kind of a doctrine 
 is this for intelligent beings to believe ? So, here, 
 the question again recurs to us, as reasonable be- 
 ings, which shall we believe, God or Moses? 
 
 O ' 
 
 Who are infidels ? The word infidel is used as 
 a term of reproach by the followers of the two 
 paramount impostors of the world, Moses and 
 Mahomet, toward the followers of each other, 
 and it is freely bandied between them. The 
 Christian says, " You are an infidel," and the 
 Mahommedan quickly retorts, " You are another." 
 Both enjoy the luxury of having the same kind of 
 mud thrown in their faces, and it is a pretty 
 evenly drawn game between them. The Mahom- 
 medan has a little the advantage, in having by 
 far the larger number and the most devout and 
 
AGAINST THE; GOD OF MOSES. 179 
 
 faithful believers; but the Christians counterbal- 
 ance this somewhat by having on their side 
 Moses, the great original father of all impostors. 
 It seems to be agreed between them, that all who 
 do not believe in either Moses or Mahomet are 
 surely infidels. Faith in God counts for nothing, 
 unless you take one of these impostors with you. 
 You must take either Moses or Mahomet or, you 
 are surely an infidel. And neither of these will 
 shield you from the slang of the other. So all 
 are sure of being accounted infidels by many, 
 whatever they believe. But those who have 
 faith in God alone as he has portrayed himself in 
 his mighty works, and reject all impostors and 
 false prophets, can well afford to bear the intended 
 insult for a while. " Let the heathen rage and 
 the people imagine a vain," ridiculous and absurd 
 thing. The truth will find its way at last, and 
 the believers in the True God will eventually be 
 fully vindicated. 
 
 From what has been said, it is obvious that 
 the desire of Moses to acquire Canaan for his 
 people was the dominant and controlling motive 
 of all his actions, and induced him to make such 
 pretences in regard to God as he thought best 
 calculated to stimulate and encourage the people, 
 and at the same time inspire them with confidence 
 in himself, and that there is no truth in them. 
 His ignorant, false, absurd and heathenish belief 
 
ISO VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 made of his God, to his mind, just such a being 
 as he might use for that purpose. His ideas of 
 God were the same as surrounding heathen nations 
 had of their gods. He was himself a pagan, and 
 educated as such. Each claimed their god to be 
 the original god, and the greatest and best of all. 
 Moses used his god in the same way, worshipped 
 him in the same way, as other heathen people did 
 theirs; made just the same kind of pretences of 
 receiving direct communications from him as he 
 pleased. And the nature and character of the 
 communications he pretended to receive betray 
 their falsity, and prove him to be an impostor. 
 All his pretences emanated solely from his own 
 brain, and could not possibly have had any divine 
 origin. 
 
 A god that would or could from all others se- 
 lect out any one people, and such a people as the 
 Israelites then were, to be the recipients of all his 
 favors and regard, even condescended to steal 
 jewelry and wearing apparel for them, and order 
 other people to be "cut off and destroyed," to 
 give place to them, would not deserve or be en- 
 titled to any reverence or respect from anybody. 
 He could be regarded only as an arbitrary tyrant, 
 who exercised his power without regard to right 
 or justice. The world has no use for any such 
 God. Human nature shudders to think of such a 
 God. It would be impossible to respect and love 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. l8l 
 
 such a God. All the instincts of our nature would 
 compel us to despise and curse him. It is pre- 
 posterous to suppose that the True God can be 
 any such kind of a being. Therefore, let him be 
 vindicated from all such base aspersions and 
 against all false Gods. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 RELIGION AND WORSHIP. 
 
 Now, I propose to inquire into the origin of 
 religion and worship. Strictly speaking, religion 
 has respect to nothing but worship of God. It 
 has nothing to do with our conduct in regard to 
 ourselves or our fellow men. That is a distinct 
 and different field. That is confined to morals. 
 It is true that the various systems of religion 
 have adopted certain moral precepts, mixed them 
 in with, and claimed them as integral parts of 
 religion : that they were originated by religion, 
 and that their existence depends upon and is sus- 
 tained by religion alone. This is not the fact. 
 They are only the sugar coating that makes re- 
 
1 82 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 ligion palatable. Morals originate and spring 
 from an innate sense of riglit and wrong, which 
 is implanted within us as a law of our nature. 
 They are developed by reason, according to the 
 exigencies of society, and are designed to pro- 
 mote the well being and happiness of each indi- 
 vidual, and the general good of all in this life. 
 Therefore they respect only our conduct in re- 
 gard to ourselves and towards our fellow men. 
 Whereas, religion respects only worship of God. 
 As it can have no possible effect whatever with 
 or upon that great being, or influence him either 
 to do or not to do anything, it is neither required 
 nor desired by him. Therefore he has not com- 
 manded it, or revealed, or intimated anything in 
 regard to it. It is a creature merely of the im- 
 agination, nothing but mystic mythical myste- 
 ries with no actual knowledge to found it upon, 
 or reason to sustain it a mere superstition. When 
 priestcraft tries to make anything else out of it, 
 we may know it is w r orking for its own selfish ends. 
 Religious organizations were originally devised 
 and formed, and are now maintained, for the sole 
 purpose and object of giving place and support 
 to priests and their assistants. That cunning class 
 has always devoted their energies to perpetuate 
 the craft, and make it appear that their office is 
 necessary for the spiritual welfare of the people. 
 To this end, and to maintain and foster this be- 
 
AGAINST .THK GOD OK MOSKS. 183 
 
 lief, they always exerted their ingenuity to involve 
 and envelope the relations that exist between God 
 and man in Mystic Mysteries, which they claimed 
 to understand, but which nobody else was per- 
 mitted to know. They claimed to be nearer to 
 God, and to have direct, personal communion 
 with him ; and to receive personal advice and di- 
 rections from him ; arid that all the people had to 
 do was to believe what the priests told them, have 
 confidence in their priests, rely upon and obey 
 them. 
 
 In modern times all these Mystic Mysteries are 
 supposed to be contained or concealed in certain 
 old writings. Nobody knows when, where or by 
 whom they were written. It is all guess work. 
 One fact is settled. None of them were kept in 
 the Ark, for when Solomon placed the Ark in his 
 Temple, there was nothing in it but the two tables 
 of stone. [I Kings, viii : 9.] But they contain 
 so much pretended knowledge about the creation 
 of the world and of man such remarkable stories 
 about God <c coming down" at different times, 
 and talking and advising with man, and such con- 
 fident assurances that he had so much more re- 
 gard for the enslaved Israelites than he had for all 
 the rest of mankind, that he " came down," and 
 employed and directed Moses to take them out of 
 Egypt, and lead them to Canaan; and promised 
 te give them that country, and to "cut off and 
 
1 84 VINDICATION OF THK TRUK GOD 
 
 destroy " all other people that stood in the way, 
 all which seemed so merciful, just and reasonable, 
 and so necessarily characteristic of a just, wise 
 and true God, that religion pronounced and de- 
 clared those old writings to be the veritable word 
 of God, literally true in every particular ; but 
 mystically allegorical, in some parts, so that they 
 do not appear to say just what they mean, and 
 are not to be understood as meaning just what they 
 say, but require interpretation by persons whose 
 lives are devoted to that business, and who con- 
 sequently are divinely assisted "to read between 
 the lines," and so enabled to formulate such dog- 
 mas and doctrines as it is necessary for the peo- 
 ple to believe, however repugnant to reason. In 
 this way, the craft is sustained, by making it nec- 
 essary to support a priesthood. 
 
 So the orthodox Mahometan claims to believe 
 that the Koran existed from eternity ; that God 
 has always kept the original, bound in silk, and 
 ornamented witli gold and precious jewels, eter- 
 nally, close by his throne; that Gabriel gave a 
 true copy of it to Mahomet, and allowed him to 
 see the original once a year. The Christians 
 laugh and sneer at this ridiculous nonsense. But 
 their doctrine of the divine inspiration of the 
 Bible is an exact parallel to it a piece of the 
 same web ; precisely the same kind of stuff. It 
 is like the polemic contest between Gymnast and 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 185 
 
 Captain Tripet both supremely ridiculous, but 
 well designed to sustain the cruft of priestly in- 
 terpreters. 
 
 In the exercise of their office, the first step 
 taken by the priests, and as the foundation of the 
 whole building, was to attribute to that ancient 
 pagan, named Moses, divine wisdom, received 
 directly from God, and a direct, constant per- 
 sonal acquaintance and intimacy with and knowl- 
 edge of him ; while all the writings themselves, 
 and every act of his life that is recorded, clearly 
 display all the ignorance of his age in regard to 
 creation and the origin of man, and show that he 
 was as grossly ignorant as other pagans of his 
 time, and that he had nothing above the most 
 ignorant, childish and infinitely inadequate idea 
 and conception of a Supreme Being. All his 
 talk about God, and his descriptions of him, are 
 purely pagan. He supposed and believed God 
 to exist in the form, image, and likeness of man, 
 with face, hands, feet and " back parts," 
 which he pretended he was permitted to see, and 
 that he was possessed of all human frailties. 
 This was the idea and conception Moses had of 
 God. And when we consider his wicked, cruel 
 ambition (which is manifest) to conquer Canaan, 
 to murder, cut off arid destroy all the inhabitants 
 of that country and steal their possessions, to as- 
 sume or pretend that he, this pagan Moses, had 
 
1 86 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 any better, higher, truer, or different idea and 
 conception or knowledge of God than other pa- 
 gans, or that he had any personal intimacy and 
 conversations with him, is an insult to common 
 sense. And yet, such assumption and pretense 
 are the foundation, and all the foundation, there 
 is for the Hebraic and the Christian religions. 
 
 The True God is too far above us to be influ- 
 enced, or in the least degree affected, by any 
 service we can perform or any worship we can 
 render. Our attempts at worship are as if a 
 school of ants among our sandhills, should assem- 
 ble on one of their little hillocks, and attempt to 
 pass resolutions complimentary to Queen Vic- 
 toria, only there is infinitely greater and wider 
 difference between us and God than -there can be 
 between those little insects and the good Queen. 
 Hence it is wisely said, in one of the best of 
 those old writings : 
 
 "If thou sinnest, what dos't thou against 
 him? If thou be righteous, what giv'st thou 
 him, or what receiveth he of thy hand ? Thy 
 wickedness may hurt a man as thou art, and thy 
 righteousness may profit the son of man." The 
 necessary inference is, we cannot do anything 
 that can at all affect God. We can neither do 
 him good or harm, or increase or decrease his 
 happiness or his glory. Hence, he neither re- 
 quires or desires anything at our hands. As our 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES, 187 
 
 fellowmen may be benefited or injured by our con- 
 duct, the instinctive moral principles implanted in 
 our nature clearly point out the proper field for 
 ail human exertion. 
 
 In remote antiquity, as our race evolved into 
 manhood, the various phenomena of nature, the 
 actions of the elements, the wind, hurricane, 
 storms, rain, hail, lightning, thunder, particularly 
 the innocent thunder, because it made such a 
 noise, earthquakes, volcanoes, spouting fire, 
 famines, failure, of crops, plagues, pestilence, 
 disease and death, which they could not under- 
 stand or account for, appalled and terrified those 
 early ancestors, and induced in their childish 
 minds, first the emotion of fear, and then the 
 belief that there must be some great unseen being 
 or beings behind those manifestations that caused 
 and controlled them. Sometimes they assigned 
 a different spirit to each one. Bye and bye they 
 began to think that perhaps some of those things 
 might be sent as a punishment^ for something they 
 might have done that displeased those unseen 
 beings. Then, as children to parents, they natu- 
 rally began to pray and supplicate forgiveness. 
 Their prayers were, of course, thrown wildly into 
 the air, addressed to beings that had no existence, 
 except in their childish imaginations. After- 
 wards, they resorted to kneeling and abject pros- 
 trations which pleased earthly rulers, and, as they 
 
1 88 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 reasoned, could not fail to please those unseen 
 beings. After a while, numbers combined in 
 these rude acts of devotion gave names and at- 
 tributed characteristics to these imaginary spirits. 
 
 In process of time, some of the more cunning 
 perceived that there was a chance to make an 
 easy livelihood by leading in and conducting these 
 devotional exercises for the people, and in their 
 place. Then, priests, sorcerers, soothsayers, 
 witches, seers, and prophets began to appear. 
 They imposed upon the people by pretending to 
 have direct intercourse and communications with 
 those imaginary beings, and to know just what 
 would please arid displease them ; and forms and 
 schemes were then cunningly contrived by them to 
 excite awe and reverence in the artless minds of 
 the people. The priests, soothsayers and proph- 
 ets were facts, but the gods were only imagin- 
 ary. This is undoubtedly the origin of religion 
 and religious worship. And from these rude 
 originals have at length evolved all the systems 
 and forms of the present day. The people have 
 from time to time imagined gods of their own, or 
 adopted such as others imagined, and shaped their 
 forms of worship to suit their own fancy. 
 
 In early times the gods were numerous ; all 
 created by the imagination, just as the God of 
 Moses was created. The priests, prophets, 
 witches, soothsayers and sorcerers multiplied and, 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OK MOSES.. iSg 
 
 imposed their false pretences on the ignorant 
 minds of the people, who had been awed into ab- 
 ject submission to them. They pretended to 
 know all about their gods to have personal in- 
 tercourse with them ; to receive messages and 
 directions from them, and exerted their ingenuity 
 to personize them and define their attributes. At 
 length, to provide for their own support, they 
 organized systems of sacrifices, by which the peo- 
 ple, taught to believe it necessary to do* something 
 to appease or propitiate their imaginary gods, 
 were induced to contribute the very best products 
 of their labor corn, oil, and wine, and the best 
 of their flocks, beef and mutton, without spot or 
 blemish all theoretically to be sacrificed and 
 destroyed to please their gods, but in fact and 
 practice to support their priests. The same plan 
 was adopted by Moses, and seems to have been 
 about the same in all other heathen communities. 
 It is well worthy of its heathen origin. For how 
 it could be supposed that anj r intelligent, reaMy 
 existing being could be pleased with such service 
 is beyond the power of imagination to conceive, 
 notwithstanding it is said, " The Lord smelled the 
 sweet savor '' of the meat that Noah cooked for 
 his entertainment. 
 
 At the present day this great multiplicity of 
 gods has been reduced to one, and Jews, Chris- 
 tians and Mahometans have all adopted the one 
 
1 90 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 which Moses and his ancestors imagined, created 
 and worshipped, in precisely the same way that 
 all the other imaginary gods were created and 
 worshipped. He is the same partial, jealous, vain, 
 cruel God, having a human form, whose " back 
 
 7 O / 
 
 parts " Moses says he was permitted to see, but 
 who in fact had no more real existence than any 
 of the other imaginary gods. They have dropped 
 the ridiculous system of sacrifices, and his wor- 
 ship now 'consists of fasting, prayer, thanksgiv- 
 ing and praise, addressed to the same being. 
 Through all their creed there runs a distinct vein 
 of belief that this God is a most terrible being; 
 that he sits high up in the heavens, watching 
 every word that is spoken, every thought and 
 every action, ready to pounce down and devour 
 us for the slightest fault, or keeping the score till 
 a day of judgment, and then dooming us to ever- 
 lasting torment. That for this reason we must 
 live in constant fear, and that our tremblings 
 must never cease. We need not be alarmed, how- 
 ever, for that is only an imaginary god ; the True 
 God is no such being. Of all beings in the uni- 
 verse, he is the last to be afraid of. 
 
 The God of Moses seems to have been well 
 adapted for the use of scheming and designing 
 men. After he was imagined and personized, 
 Moses first introduced him to the world, and used 
 him to carry out his cruel and bloody scheme. 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES, igi 
 
 Then he passed him to Joshua, who used him to 
 instigate and sanction his atrocious crimes. From 
 that the prophets took him, and pretended to 
 have private interviews with him^arid it is claimed 
 that he inspired many of their mystic songs. 
 Afterwards Mahomet used him for his purposes. 
 And who can count the number of human beings 
 that were slain, or estimate the suffering that was 
 caused by the fanatics in that cause, claiming to 
 act just as Moses and Joshua did, under the direct 
 orders and commandment of the same God. 
 Joseph Smith also took him, but he used him 
 more innocently than any of the others, for under 
 Smith he did not inspire any war or slaughter. 
 
 The Christians took him, and the holy Catholic 
 Church, having full power and control over mind 
 and conscience in applying its principles and dog- 
 mas, enveloped the civilized world in darkness and 
 gloom for many centuries. When its head was 
 crushed, as in the case of the fabled Hydra, an 
 increased number of the same kind of heads ap- 
 peared in its place, and from each of these others 
 grew out, each one hissing some new dogma. 
 
 All sects and denominations have adopted the 
 same God, and used him to promote and support 
 some special object or design. Each has made a 
 little different kind of an instrument, and now 
 compels this God to play such tune as suits it- 
 self. Of course, all claim that he is the True God, 
 
.19 2 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 and pretend to know him personally; know all 
 about him ; just exactly what he thinks about ev- 
 erything, and what pleases and displeases him. 
 They assume that he needs and requires their aid 
 and assistance ; that they are employed by him, 
 and are working for him, and that their co-opera- 
 tion is necessary to enable him to carry on and 
 sustain his government, and to advance his glory. 
 And all this is true enough of the God they have 
 adopted. He could not get on without them. But 
 it is not true of the True God. lie requires none 
 of their services. 
 
 But these absurd delusions, mistaken, supersti- 
 tious notions and ideas of God, constituting what 
 is called Religion, first formed by and proceeding 
 from an ignorant and childish age, inspired and 
 promoted by priestcraft, and imposed upon ignor- 
 ant people, from generation to generation, by false 
 pretences, have gained mastery and control in the 
 world, and they now override and sway the in- 
 tellect, and influence the actions of a large part of 
 the most intelligent portions of the human family. 
 These false teachings, in times but recently passed, 
 have had their natural and legitimate effect. They 
 have caused more trouble, more crime, more suf- 
 fering, more heart-rending cruelty and bloodshed, 
 than all other causes combined. Cruel persecu- 
 tions, the inquisition, the dungeon, the gibbet, the 
 rack, and the faggot, were its adopted children. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 193 
 
 Inflamed passions, blind prejudice and fanaticism^ 
 ignorant and groundless assumptions, false pre- 
 tences, arrogance, hatred, malice, and all unchari- 
 tableness, followed in its train. These are the 
 fruits of a superstition that has long sailed, and 
 still sails, under the name of Religion; and the 
 world would be a great deal better off if it had 
 never been heard of. It all originated from a 
 childish imagination in remote and grossly ignor- 
 ant times, and has since been fostered and pro- 
 moted by the false pretences of false prophets, 
 and by priestcraft. All kinds had the same kind 
 of origin, and have been promoted in the same 
 way. They are not sustained by any real knowl- 
 edge, and have no solid foundation in reason. 
 Now in Christian countries it is all founded upon 
 the pretences of one man, educated as a heathen 
 priest, a heathen among heathen, who described 
 God as having a human form, and said that he saw 
 his " back parts," which assertion alone is suffi- 
 cient to prove that he was imposing upon his peo- 
 ple, and that he \vas an impostor. 
 
 As long as it is believed and taught that God 
 visited Moses and talked with him, so long Ma- 
 homets and Smiths and other impostors will at- 
 tempt to deceive and delude the world with false 
 pretences. And so long as it is believed and 
 taught that Jesus rose from the dead, and that he 
 will again appear on earth, so long we will from 
 
194 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 time to time hear of his arrival in the person of 
 some religious fanatic; and so long false prophets 
 will appear to frighten the ignorant by fixing the 
 day that the world will come to an end. Such 
 doctrines are the hotbeds of false Christs, false 
 prophets, and every species of fanaticism. 
 
 A belief without any knowledge, proof or rea- 
 son in the existence of invisible beings, whether 
 one or more, that exercise power and influence 
 over human beings and interfere in human affairs, 
 is the common origin of sorcery, witchcraft, relig- 
 ion and all religious dogmas, tenets and pretences. 
 They all had the same origin, and have the same 
 general characteristics, and one is just as well 
 founded in reason and is just as true as another. 
 This belief is a kind of mental disease. It comes, 
 prevails, and attacks all sorts and conditions of 
 men, indiscriminately, like a fatal pestilence, and 
 has done so in all ages. Intellect, intelligence 
 and reason are no preventives or protection. The 
 great, the wise, and the good are just as liable to 
 its attacks as the ignorant and vulgar. All are 
 carried away with it. 
 
 The stories of the magicians and sorcerers of 
 Egypt, related by Moses as no new thing in his 
 time, and the witch of Endor, argue great antiquity 
 for that species of development. So called proph- 
 ets were plenty in the days of Saul, and he was 
 counted as one himself, and yet he believed that 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 195 
 
 the witch of Endor could obtain more reliable in- 
 formation for him than the prophets could, or he 
 would not have gone to her ; and, if the story is 
 true, she could. The magicians and sorcerers of 
 Egypt called by Pharoah were able to compete 
 in many things with the sorceries of Moses, 
 although (if he is to be believed) in the end he 
 proved to be the most skillful. All this class of 
 pretenders was patronized by royalty, which 
 proves that they had for a long time been believed 
 in by the people. Of course, their pranks were 
 all delusions, devised and contrived by cunning 
 and designing men and women to take advantage 
 of and use the current belief of the people for 
 their own profit. In doing so it was necessary 
 to pretend that they knew and were on most inti- 
 mate and familiar terms of friendship with the 
 spirits they represented. 
 
 The only difference between them and the 
 prophets is, the prophets assumed the distinctive 
 name of prophets, and in their divinations used 
 only the God which Moses imagined and imposed 
 on his people, the " back parts " of which lie said 
 he saw. But they used the same kind of decep- 
 tion in pretending that they were on terms of fa- 
 miliar intimacy with him, and were honored with 
 visits and direct communications from him. It is 
 evident that the spirits used by the witches and 
 sorcerers, and their divinations, were as firmly 
 
196 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 believed in by the people at that time as those of 
 the prophets, and they were undoubtedly just as 
 true. Kings, nobles, and mighty rulers believed 
 them as heartily as the pretences of Moses have 
 since been believed. They all rest on the same 
 foundation, and are on the same level. The only 
 reason why the prophets inspired such severe 
 laws against witches was, because they were jeal- 
 ous, as their God was, of all other gods. 
 
 Prophets, sorcerers and witches have all exert- 
 ed their skill and cunning by their divinations, 
 some to make money, and others to promote some 
 other objects, and they have had the address to 
 deceive and delude multitudes of worthy people 
 in all ages. They have enticed into their net not 
 only the low, ignorant and vulgar, but millions of 
 the highest, noblest, wisest and best of mankind. 
 And it is all founded primarily on a belief that 
 some invisible being or beings exist, that exercise 
 control and interfere in human affairs. But there 
 is not the slightest evidence in the world that such 
 is the fact. 
 
 All the sacrifices and prayers of the Hebrews 
 did not secure their occupancy of the land which, 
 it was said, God sware unto them for u an ever- 
 lasting possession,'' or save Jerusalem. Nor can 
 it be shown that any or all the prayers of the 
 hundreds of millions of Christians that have been 
 poured out for almost nineteen centuries, any 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSKS. 197 
 
 more than all the prayers of the ignorant heathen 
 since the first man appeared on the earth, have 
 ever had the slightest influence or effect upon any 
 invisible being. The prayers and worship of Hot- 
 tentots and all pagan idolators have been as much 
 and as really noticed, recognized and answered 
 as those of Hebrews, Christians, or Mohamme- 
 dans. They have all feigned to believe that they 
 were heard and answered, and that their various 
 modes of worship were pleasing to the being or 
 beings addressed. But in no single instance can 
 it be fairly proved that any invisible being has 
 ever answered or noticed any prayer, or mani- 
 fested any sign of being either pleased or dis- 
 pleased with any form or mode of worship. No 
 partiality has ever been shown or indicated. All 
 have been treated alike, the Hottentot equally 
 as well as the Christian, and that is, with abso- 
 lute silence and inattention. This ought to be 
 considered as conclusive evidence that prayer 
 and worship are vain and useless. There is nothing 
 in them. There is no foundation or reason for 
 them, except to support priesthoods. They are 
 a mere relic of the superstitions of a very re- 
 mote, ignorant, and childish age, and as now 
 practiced are simply a huge joke. As soon as it 
 was known that the Czar of Russia was sick, all 
 Europe fell on its knees and prayed for his recov- 
 ery ; but to what purpose ? God's work went 
 on just the same, utterly regardless of them. 
 
I9 VINDICATION OF TH TRUE GOD 
 
 As God has thus shown that the time and 
 energy that are spent in prayer and acts of de- 
 votion to him personally are all thrown away, 
 wholly disregarded by him, and at the same time 
 has opened plainly to our view a broad field where 
 they may be employed with great and beneficial 
 results, it is clear that his design was that they 
 should be so exclusively employed, and that is to 
 promote the welfare, comfort and happiness of 
 our fellow men in this life, leaving the future 
 entirely to him who alone knows anything about 
 it. 
 
 As the first step toward such a result, we should 
 discard and abandon all ideas of the manhood of 
 God, which is the height and depth of ridiculous 
 absurdity, and has done more than anything else 
 to enthral the human mind with mystic darkness: 
 for God is no such kind of a being as Moses and 
 his followers have supposed him to be. He is not 
 in the image and likeness of man, and has none of 
 man's frailties. Then let the churches that are 
 now devoted to ^useless service be converted into 
 temples of learning, where the " toiling millions" 
 may learn something that is useful or pleasing to 
 know ; and let all priests and ministers devote 
 themselves to this business, instead of harping 
 upon Mythical Mysteries, which are of no conse- 
 quence to mankind. Let holidays, as often as 
 one in seven, be established, and strictly guarded 
 by law against unnecessary labor. 
 
AGAINST THK GOD OF MOSES. 199 
 
 There is a disposition and a great effort on the 
 part of Religionists to have the present Christian 
 Sunday kept and observed in the same strict and 
 lugubrious manner that the old Pharisees were 
 supposed to regard their Sabbath, as a day for 
 the keeping of which man was created. Against 
 such views and practice, the good Jesus uttered 
 one of his most pointed and earnest reproofs, when 
 he said: " The Sabbath was made for man, and 
 not man for the Sabbath." It is quite easy to 
 understand what this means. The present Sunday 
 is not the Mosaic Sabbath, nor was it ever de- 
 signed, authorized or intended to be substituted 
 in the place of it. It is the first day of the week, 
 not the seventh, a different day altogether. The 
 disciples, after the crucifixion, without any spe- 
 cial design, held meetings on the first day of the 
 week, as they had previously been accustomed to 
 do ; and it gradually ripened into a custom. They 
 afterwards preferred a week day instead of the 
 seventh for their meeting, to show their contempt 
 or disregard for the Jewish Sabbath, which they 
 claimed to have passed away with all other cere- 
 monials. It was nob selected because it was sup- 
 posed the resurrection occurred on that day that 
 was a mere coincidence and they never attached 
 any particular sanctity to the day. The early 
 Church continued t the custom of holding meetings 
 on that day. They had some religious exercises 
 
2OO VINDICATION OF THK TRUK GOD 
 
 in the morning, but kept the rest of the day as 
 what is now generally understood to mean a holi- 
 day, a day for feasting, social visiting and amuse- 
 ment. And we will search the New Testament 
 in vain for any authority or sanction for regard- 
 ing that day or any one day, even the seventh, as 
 more holy and sacred than any other day. The 
 fact is, the New Testament entirely ignores any- 
 thing like a Sabbath, or any particularly sacred 
 day. On this subject St. Paul, who ought to be 
 regarded as pretty good authority, says, " One 
 man estecmeth one day above another, another 
 esteemcth every day alike. Let every man be 
 fully persuaded in his own mind." And so he 
 leaves it for every one to do as he pleases, without 
 ever indicating the least preference for either side 
 of the question. And this is all that is said in 
 the New Testament on the subject. After cen- 
 turies, some innovators advanced the idea that 
 Sunday was the Lord's day, because it waa sup- 
 posed the resurrection occurred on that day. 
 Upon this, superstition clothed it with special 
 sanctity; but there is no authority for it, even in 
 the Bible, and no reason for it anywhere. 
 
 But it is of great importance to have holidays, 
 the more the better. But to be of any benefit, 
 they should be observed in some national and 
 beneficial way. They should be^ devoted to intel- 
 lectual entertainments, mingled with amusements, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 2OI 
 
 diversions, visiting, social gatherings, and what- 
 ever may tend to rest the brain, lighten the heart, 
 and promote good fellowship, good feeling and 
 brotherly kindness among men. Also let societies 
 and combinations be formed, to devise schemes of 
 employment for such as need it, and at fair wages; 
 and to carefully watch over all that are employed, 
 to see that they are fairly treated. Search out 
 and correct all wrongs, public and private. Par- 
 ticularly guard against monopolies, which tend 
 and lead most inevitably to serfdom. In fine, do 
 all that can be done by patient, self-denying, 
 earnest, vigorous effort and exertion to elevate, 
 even up, equalize, and improve the conditions of 
 men, and so promote the well-being, comfort and 
 happiness of all in this life, and that is the whole 
 duty of man. 
 
 It is a common saying, that it is our duty to 
 love God. I scorn the use of the word duty, in 
 connection with the subject. Duty implies service 
 performed as an act of servile obedience to some 
 law or commandment prescribed by another person, 
 power or being, whether one feels heartily in- 
 clined to do it or not. Love, like fear, hate, rev- 
 erence, etc.. is a purely mental emotion, which 
 cannot be generated, produced or controlled by 
 any external law or commandment. Love, as an 
 act of obedience to a commandment, is not love at 
 all. It is destitute of the life and soul of love, 
 
202 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 and of everything that can render it of any value. 
 Love that one human being entertains for another 
 cannot be awakened by the commandment of its 
 object, but only by the worthiness or supposed 
 worthiness of the object. Love of God differs 
 from that which exists between human beings, 
 but is based on the same principle, and is gener- 
 ated and called into action in the same way. It 
 is a spontaneous, involuntary, mental emotion of 
 admiration and reverence, caused and excited to 
 action by his excellent greatness and his ineffa- 
 ble perfections. When Solon made laws, he pre- 
 scribed no punishment for parricide, because he 
 thought it impossible that any human being 
 could be guilty of such a crime. God has enacted 
 no law or made any commandment requiring us 
 to love him, thus showing that he considered it 
 wholly unnecessary ; and that besides this such 
 commandment would destroy the very essence of 
 love. He wisely trusted that the great worthiness 
 of his character alone was sufficient to secure and 
 insure it. And this confidence was not misplaced. 
 For who can look at the starry heavens at night, 
 or, by the light of that glorious luminary that 
 makes the day, survey the varied works and 
 wonders of creation, or turn his attention to the 
 structure of his own body, and the intellect that 
 inhabits and animates it, without experiencing 
 irresistible emotions of admiration and reverence 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 203 
 
 for the great author of all these things? It is 
 impossible for human beings not to love God. 
 And further, it is impossible for human beings not 
 to admire and love the good Jesus, divested of 
 all claim to divinity and the working of miracles, 
 which superstition falsely attributes to him, for 
 his real true character shines clearly through all 
 that frivolous fustian a bright, pure, heart-glad- 
 dening beacon light to the whole human family. 
 "Enemies of God " is a cant phrase of religion- 
 ists, and they are profuse with their charges that 
 people hate God. This all proceeds from an im- 
 agination diseased by superstition. It is not true. 
 God has no enemies, nor does any human bein^ 
 with ordinary mental capacity hate him. Those 
 that make such charges identify God with their 
 own silly and absurd theories and dogmas. With 
 them, those who do not believe in the divine in- 
 spiration and the absolute literal inerrency of the 
 Bible, as now compiled, hate God. Those who 
 do not believe in Moses and the prophets hate 
 God. Those who do not believe in the Immacu- 
 late Conception and the Resurrection of Jesus 
 hate God. Those who do not believe that Jesus 
 is God, which he himself did not pretend to be, 
 hate him. Those who do not believe that he is 
 " a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God," 
 although he never answered one, hate him. Those 
 who do not believe that there is a great personal 
 
204 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 Devil, a terrible Hell, and that God foreordained 
 and foredoomed a large portion of the human 
 family, thousands of years before they were born, 
 to everlasting torment, hate him. This is all idola- 
 try of absurd dogmas ; mere fetichism. Ministers 
 may preach it, and imagine they are making a 
 profound impression, and religious enthusiasts or 
 monomaniacs may rejoi ( e in the belief of it, but 
 the people do not believe. Science, reason, com- 
 mon sense rebel against it. They illuminate the 
 mind, and that opens the eyes of the people to the 
 ridiculous absurdity of all such teachings. There 
 is nothing in them that tends to the betterment 
 
 o 
 
 of or any good to society, and they are now pass- 
 ing and must all pass away, be laid aside and 
 forgotten as effete delusions. 
 
 o 
 
 It is claimed that the world is indebted to the 
 revelations which Moses pretended to receive on 
 Mt. Sinai, and the Christian religion, for all the 
 sound moral teachings and principles that exist 
 in the world, and for all the progress that has 
 been made in the condition of society during the 
 last few centuries. Nothing could be further 
 from the fact. The absurd superstitions that 
 were from the beginning interwoven with and 
 adopted as an integral part of the Christian Relig- 
 ion were the prime cause of all the darkness and 
 most of the crimes and suffering of the dark ages. 
 They suppressed mental development, promoted 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 205 
 
 ignorance, and were the supreme barrier and 
 obstacle to all improvement. Religion always has 
 been and still is a heavy clog upon advancement. 
 Whatever is inconsistent with the absurd and 
 ridiculous theories and stories of Moses has al- 
 ways been denounced and resisted with all the 
 fulminations and powers of all the churches. Only 
 about three hundred years ago it was rank heresy 
 to believe that the earth moved, and religion is 
 still shaking and quaking over the developments 
 of science. For science has discovered the most 
 probable existence of many millions of other 
 worlds of quite as much importance as this ; that 
 this world has existed many millions of years ; 
 and that man has lived upon it at least two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand years, and probably a 
 great deal longer instead of six thousand; and 
 moreover, that he was not created in precisely 
 the same way that Moses speaks of, but that he 
 has evolved from a most infinitesimal beginning, 
 requiring millions of years to accomplish. These 
 theories, so consonant with reason and probabil- 
 ity, shatter the stories in Genesis into such flitters 
 that no mystic allegory can reconcile them. They 
 would all be suppressed if religion had the power 
 it once had. But it has not. It has lost its power to 
 enthrall and fetter mind, which alone makes pro- 
 gress possible and irresistible. All progress and 
 improvement have resulted from and been caused 
 
206 VINDICATION OF THE TRUE GOD 
 
 and promoted by rebellion against Religion, and 
 reason has come out uppermost in the struggle. 
 Mind is free, and Religion is obliged to submit. 
 The only consolation it has left as a last resort, 
 and to bolster up its courage and sustain a priest- 
 hood, is to hunt for allegories. 
 
 In regard to morals, it is a well known histor- 
 ical fact that there was nothing of any value in 
 the revelations Moses pretended to receive on Mt. 
 Sinai that was then new to the world. And after 
 his time, and long before Christianity was thought 
 of, and without any knowledge of Moses, what is 
 to be said of such pagans as Lycurgus, Solon, 
 Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, that "heathen Chi- 
 nee " Confucius, Cicero, Seneca, and hundreds of 
 others, all heathen as they were, who taught and 
 practiced, and by their lives elucidated, all the 
 great moral principles ? And how do they com- 
 pare on that subject with the strictest Hebrews, 
 or the loud-boasting Christians ? 
 
 But although Christians theoretically adopt and 
 approve of the prevailing system of morals, they 
 have never been remarkably distinguished for the 
 practice of them. Christianity has never consid- 
 ered the keeping and observance of the moral 
 laws as of vital importance. Violations of them 
 are mere peccadillos, easily remedied by a little 
 repentance, fasting, living a few days on bread 
 and water, or abstaining from a meat diet ; or, 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSES. 207 
 
 what is still more effective, paying a little money 
 to the Church. They do not affect Religion. 
 The chief, principal, paramount object and prov- 
 ince of Religion is, and always has been, to in- 
 culcate, promote, produce and secure a blind, 
 superstitious belief of, and a kind of fetich rev- 
 erence for, certain Mystic, Mythical, Mysterious 
 dogmas and doctrines, that cannot be proved 
 or understood, combined with some abject devo- 
 tional exercises. This belief, which cannot be dig- 
 nified into a virtue, is the sina qua non } the one 
 and only thing needful for Religion. This marks 
 the distinction and difference between morals and 
 Religion. Morals are founded in and supported 
 by reason, and are of the chiefest arid utmost 
 importance, for the well being of society, but are 
 considered by religionists of secondary and trifling 
 importance compared with this religious belief. 
 An upright, moral life, the highest development 
 of all the moral virtues, without this fetich be- 
 lief, is of no weight or consequence in the eye of 
 Religion. It will not save. u There is no relish 
 of salvation in it," no saving grace connected 
 with it. 
 
 The requirements of Religion have varied 
 from time to time in different ages, and been 
 formed and transformed into different shapes by 
 different people. In whatever form it exists, it 
 is only a relic or remodeling of the superstitions 
 
208 VINDICATION OF THK TRUE GOD 
 
 of remote antiquity. Among Christians, Relig- 
 ion now consists principally of a belief that God 
 interferes in human affairs, that the Bible is the 
 inspired word of God, and is literally true in all its 
 parts, as now compiled ; a belief in Moses and the 
 prophets, the Immaculate Conception, the Res- 
 urrection of Jesus from the dead, that Jesus is 
 God, a personal devil, and the everlasting tor- 
 ment of unbelievers in a terrible hell. Of what 
 benefit is a belief in such stuff to mankind ? But 
 a belief of these dogmas, which nobody knows, or 
 can possibly know anything about, but most of 
 which are absolutely absurd and ridiculous, alone 
 constitutes the soul and body, substance and mar- 
 row, of the Christian Religion. It never origi- 
 nated, elicited, or enforced any great moral prin- 
 ciple of action as between man and man. On 
 the contrary, it tends to produce laxity in morals, 
 for the reason that that Religious belief is re- 
 garded of so much more consequence, and as the 
 only thing that is of vital importance and neces- 
 sary to salvation, while all merely moral derelic- 
 tions are easily smoothed over with some trifling 
 penance. 
 
 This matter has been thoroughly investigated 
 and tested (and by religious people, too,) in a large 
 community consisting of many that professed re- 
 ligion, and many who had no religion, including 
 so-called infidels of all grades ; and it was found, 
 
AGAINST THiO GOD OF MOSKS. 209 
 
 to their chagrin, that taking an equal number 
 indiscriminately as they happened to come from 
 each class, for general character and standing in 
 community, for benevolence, charity, good deeds, 
 good deportment, honorable dealing, and all the 
 peculiar qualities that make a good and worthy 
 citizen, those that had no Religion were far the 
 superior. Such is the natural and necessary con- 
 sequence of elevating such a superstitious and 
 ridiculous belief into a position of such supreme 
 and vital importance, while morals, everything 
 that pertains to the welfare of man in his present 
 state, are degraded into matters of comparative- 
 ly trifling importance, violations of which are 
 only venial faults, mere peccadillos, that may be 
 easily atoned and expiated. Under the influence 
 of such teachings the true believer may, as has 
 heretofore been abundantly proved, contemplate 
 and deliberately commit any crime, however hor- 
 rible and revolting, with the perfect confidence 
 and assurance that, with a little subsequent re- 
 pentance, the blood of Jesus will eradicate and 
 obliterate all the stain. Believe, believe, only be- 
 lieve and ye shall be saved, whatever else ye may 
 do. That is Christianity, Mankind has no need 
 or any use for anything of the kind. 
 
 It is high time, therefore, that the True God 
 should be vindicated against this God of Moses 
 and all other imaginary and false gods created 
 
2IO VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 and set up by designing men to deceive the world. 
 Saturn, Jupiter, Osiris, and thousands of others 
 once firmly believed in by just as good and wise 
 men as now live, have long since been buried in 
 mythological story. The God of Moses is of the 
 same kind, was created in the same way, no better 
 than the others, belongs with them and must go 
 with them. And all the absurd dogmas, doctrines 
 and systems that have been founded and built 
 upon a belief in him must also pass away, be 
 cast aside and mingled with the rubbish of antique 
 delusions. And they are fast going. Science, 
 reason, intelligence and common sense have all 
 conspired and risen in rebellion against them, and 
 they must go. For a little while longer Chris- 
 tians ma}' be deluded with the idea of a " second 
 coming " that will never be realized. The earliest 
 believers felt sure that there were then living 
 many who would live to see " Jesus coming in the 
 clouds of heaven with power and great glory." 
 Nearly nineteen hundred years have since rolled 
 by, and as yet there are no signs of such an event. 
 Such delusions may last for a while longer, for 
 of all enemies to the progress of our race super- 
 stition is the worst and hardest to fight, and the 
 last to yield. 
 
 Bat all the elements of the nature which God 
 has implanted in us, and all the circumstances 
 with which he has surrounded us, while keeping 
 
AGAINST THE GOD OF MOSBS. 211 
 
 himself personally and the future entirely con- 
 cealed from us, most clearly mark, point out and 
 define our proper and appropriate sphere of duty 
 and field of action. It is all limited and confined 
 to this life and our own race. This field is par- 
 ticularly adapted to the cultivation of Charity, 
 for which there is a broad market and a large 
 demand, and diligent employment in it, limits the 
 whole duty of man. 
 
 Therefore, laying aside all attempts to pry into 
 the future, or impiously to encroach and trespass 
 upon the grounds that God, doubtless for wise 
 reasons, has chosen so effectually to close against 
 us, trusting that he is competent and fully able to 
 carry on his own government, without any aid or 
 assistance from us, and having the field for hu- 
 man exertion so clearly opened and spread out 
 before us, and our duties so clearly pointed out 
 and defined, let all rally under the broad, stream- 
 ing banner of CHARITY, and join heart and hand 
 in patient, persevering, self-denying, and vigorous 
 exertion, to elevate, even up, equalize and im- 
 prove the conditions of men, and to promote the 
 wellbeing, comfort and happiness of all in this 
 life, and leave all else to God. 
 
 Whether there be any conscious existence for 
 man after this life, or whether the soul, with the 
 death of the body, at once vanishes into nothing- 
 ness, like the extinguished flame of a lamp, it is 
 
212 VINDICATION OF THE TRUK GOD 
 
 not given us to know. We must recognize the 
 existence of a " bourn from whence no traveler 
 returns," and from whence no knowledge ever 
 came to man. All beyond is a most profound 
 secret, concealed in the bosom of God alone. But 
 although mortal eyes are not permitted to pen- 
 etrate the veil that obscures the great Beyond, 
 still 
 
 " This pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 This longing after immortality " 
 
 which stir within us may be the true premonitors 
 of our future destiny. Reason and philosophy 
 encourage the hope. It may be, as soon as the 
 grim messenger takes this " mortal coil " to his 
 gloomy mansions, that the soul at once awakens 
 to a new existence, and freed from all earthly 
 entanglements is ineffably delighted with a per- 
 sonal acquaintance with God, and a better and 
 eternally increasing knowledge of his works and 
 ways. This is and can be known only to God 
 himself, and it is vain for us to try to fathom the 
 secret. Our sphere, and the only field in which 
 we can labor to any purpose, is limited to our 
 present state and our own race. But with all our 
 duties to ourselves and towards our fellow men 
 fully and faithfully performed in this life, Hope 
 may plume her wings to soar above the bounds 
 of time, and from a lofty eminence watch for the 
 dawning of a more glorious and eternal day.