The God Pestilence

by Johann Most

Among all mental diseases which man has systematically inoculated into his cranium, the religious pest is the most abominable.

Like all things else, this disease has a history; it only regrettable that in this case nothing will be found of the development from nonsense to reason, which is generally assumed to be the course of history.

Old Zeus and his double Jupiter were still quite decent, jolly, we might even say, somewhat enlightened fellows, if compared with the last triplet on the pedigree of gods who, on examination, can safely rival with Vitzliputzli as to brutality and cruelty.

We won't argue at all with the pensioned or dethroned gods, for they no longer do any harm. But the more modern, still officiating cloud lollers and terrorists of hell we shall criticize, expose, and vanquish the more disrespectfully.

The Christians have a threefold God; their ancestors, the Jews, were content with a single simpleton. Otherwise both species are quite a humorous crowd. "Old and New Testament" are to them the sources of all knowledge; therefore, willing or not, one must read the "holy writ" if one wants to fathom their shallowness and learn to deride them.

If we only take the "history" of these deities, we find an ample sufficiency for the characterization of the whole. In a short sketch the case stands thus: in the beginning God "created" heaven and earth — consequently he found himself next of all in a complete void, where it surely may have been dreary enough to bore even a deity. And it being but a trifle for a god to conjure worlds out of nothing by magic, like a juggler shaking eggs or silver dollars out of his coat sleeves, he (God)"created" heaven and earth. Somewhat later he molded the sun, moon, and stars to suit himself.

It is true, certain heretics, called astronomers, have established long since that the earth neither is nor could have been the center of the universe, nor could its existence have antedated that of the sun, around which it revolves. These people have proved it to be sheer lunacy to speak of sun, moon, and stars and with the same breath of the earth as being, compared with the former, something special and of great preponderance. It has been taught to every schoolboy that the sun is only a star, the earth one of its satellites, and the moon an under-satellite of the earth; and, furthermore, that the earth, compared with the universe, far from acting a conspicuous part, is only an atom, looking like a rain of dust.

But why should a God concern himself about astronomy? He does what he pleases and poohoos science and logic. For this reason, he made, after manufacturing the earth, first the light and afterwards the sun. Today even a Hottentot can understand there can be no light on earth without the stuff, but God — well, he is no Hottentot.

But let us continue to investigate. Thus far the "creation" was quite a success, but there was still something lacking — things were not lively enough. The creator wanted some pastime, therefore he finally made man. Curiously enough, he now deviated entirely from the method previously applied. Instead of accomplishing this creation by a simple and imperative "Let it be!" he made it exceedingly troublesome. He took a prosaic lump of common clay in his hand, modelled it into the figure of a man "after his own image" and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." God being of infinite wisdom, benign, just, in short — amability itself — it occurred to him that this Adam, as he had named his last article, being alone, would find life exceedingly tedious (perhaps he remembered his own former lonely existence to "Nothing"), and so he made him quite a nice, enticing little Eve. But, in the meantime, experience had evidently taught him that the handling of a lump of clay was a rather unclean business, especially for a god, therefore he applied another new method of manufacture. He tore (dexterity is no witchcraft, least of all for a god) a rib out of Adam's body and changed it into a charming female. Whether this rib, extracted from Adam was restored at a later period or whether, after the performed operation, Adam had to run about in the world as a "one-sided" individual is a matter upon which the polite historian says nothing.

Modern natural science has established that animals and plants have, through the most manifold ramifications, developed during the course of millions of years from simple molluscous matter to their present forms. Man is nothing but the most perfect form of this development, and that he not only had, some thousands of years ago, a very brutish appearance, without language, but also that he — every other supposition excludes itself — must have developed from inferior animal species.

Consequently, natural science stamps God with his self-proclaimed creation of man as a preposterous braggart. But of what avail is all this? — God won't have any tomfoolery. Whether his tales have a scientific ring, or whether they sound like foolish babble, he commands belief in them, otherwise he will let it come to pass that his competitor, the "devil," will get you into his clutches, which is supposed to be quite uncomfortable. For in hell there is not only moaning and the gnashing of teeth but an eternal fire burns, an indefatigable worm is gnawing your soul, and a dreadful stench of burning pitch and sulfur fills the air. To all these discomforts the bodiless man is supposed to be exposed. His flesh, of which he is void, is stewed; his decayed and fallen-out teeth clatter; he howls without a throat or lungs; he smells without a nose — and all this eternally. A devil of a god! Taking all in all, God is, as he candidly informs us in his autobiographical chronicle — the Bible — extremely whimsical and revengeful; actually, an ideal model of a despot.

Hardly were Adam and Eve in existence, before God took it as a matter of course that this rabble must be governed. He decreed a penal code, which said categorically, "Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!" Since that time no tyrant has existed anywhere who did not lay down the same decree for the people.

Adam and Eve did not respect this prohibition, therefore, they were exiled and sentenced to hard labor for life — they and their descendants for all time to come. Beyond this, "civil rights" were taken away from Eve, she being declared to be a bond servant to Adam, whom she was to obey. Besides, both of them were to be under eternal divine police surveillance. Verily, not even William (the German Emperor) has got ahead of him as a haberdasher of human affairs.

But in spite of God's useless severity to mankind, they angered him more and more in proportion as they multiplied. How rapidly this multiplication took place is demonstrated by the history of Cain and Abel. After the former had slain his brother, he went into "a strange land, and took unto himself a wife." Where the location of this strange land and whence the women that were to be found there, God has forgotten to mention, a matter of no surprise, considering the burden of overwork he had to perform at that time.

At last the cup was overflowing. God resolved to destroy all mankind by means of water. Only a few specimens of the race were excepted, with which to make another trial. Unfortunately, notwithstanding all his wisdom, he had made a misgrab, for Noah, the chief of the saved, was soon unmasked as a drunken sot who disported with his own daughters. What good could ever come of so degraded a family?

Again mankind spread; again they developed to such simpletons and rapscallions in sin — about whom the renowned Mecklenburger psalmbook states so much viciousness — that God felt like bursting with heavenly wrath, the more so, as all his exemplary local punishments, such as the destruction of whole cities with fire and brimstone, were entirely disregarded and "thrown to the dogs." He resolved to destroy the whole mob, root and branch, when a really remarkable event occurred which toned him down considerably. Otherwise mankind would have been done for long ago.

One fine day, a certain "Holy Ghost" suddenly appeared upon the stage. He came hither like a wart overnight, nobody knew whence. The Bible scribe (God) merely says he himself was the Holy Ghost. All at once we have to deal with a dual deity. Said Holy Ghost took a notion to descend in the shape of a dove, or rather of a cock pigeon, and to enter into an intimacy with an obscure woman named Mary. In a sweet hour he "overshadowed" the selected of his heart, and lo! she gave birth to a baby boy, which occurrence, as God positively avers in the Bible, never encroached the least bit upon her virginity. Now, this boy was not only human, he was also God, being the Son of God (of the Holy Ghost). The first mentioned God now called himself God the Father, at the same time assuring us of his identity not only with the Holy Ghost but also with God the Son. The father to be his own son, the son his own father, and either or both the Holy Ghost. Thus the "Holy Trinity" was shaped. — Neat!

And now, poor human brain, stand firm, for what now follows is enough to stagger a horse. We know that God the Father had resolved to friccasee the whole human rabble. This intention filled the Son with unbearable sorrow. He (being his own father), shouldered all the guilt of man, and allowed himself, to appease the fury of the Father (being his own son), to be cruelly put to death by the "to be redeemed" rabble — of course, not without subsequently ascending hale and hearty to heaven. This sacrifice of the Son (who is one with the father) tickled the Father (who is one with the Son) to such an extent that he immediately proclaimed a general amnesty — under conditions — which partly remain in force today.

That is the "historical" part in the "Holy Scriptures." Here we see that absurdity and nonsense are put on so thick that those who are already idiotic enough to digest such stuff are susceptible to the most crazy hallucinations. Among these must be classed first and foremost the doctrine of reward and punishment of mankind in the "great hereafter." It has long ago been scientifically proved that there is no existence of a soul independent of the body. That which the religious humbuggers call soul is nothing more or less than the seat of thought, the brain, which receives impressions by means of the living senses, and by such impressions becomes active; and, consequently, at the moment of physical dissolution this action necessarily must cease. But what care the deadly enemies to human reason for the results of scientific research? Just as much as is necessary to prevent their promulgation among the people.

And so they preach the immortality of the soul. Woe to it in the "hereafter" if the body which here held it has not punctiliously respected God's penal code during life. As these folks assure us, their "all bountiful," "all righteous," "all benevolent," "all merciful" God is a super highly developed pokenose, sniffling into the minutest affairs and trifles of each and every individual and making entries of all their shortcomings in his blacklist. He is quite a queer coon anyway. Under danger of giving newborn babes a bad cold, he desires that, to his glory, they be drenched with water (otherwise, baptized).

He takes a heathenish delight in hearing an innumerable herd of his faithful sheep bleat their litanies to hire from their church stalls consecrated to such practices, or when the most devoted of his adherents send aloft without cessation their pious "caterwaulings" and pray, or rather beg, for all things possible and impossible, while he participates in bloody wars and receives the thanksgivings and frankincense of the victors as the "God of battles."

He gets rip-roaring mad if anybody doubts his existence, or when a Catholic eats meat on Friday or does not by repeated application to the confessional chair scrub off his sins; or when a Protestant does not hold in contempt the bones of saints and the paraphernalia and images prescribed for Catholics, or when he does not, as a rule, toddle through the world with a face long enough to stop a clock, turned up eyes, bent back, and folded hands.

If such a person dies impenitent, then his "all merciful" God decrees a punishment to him, in comparison to which all the scourges of the knout or cat-o'-nine-tails, all pangs and sufferings of prison life, all privations of deportation and exile, all emotions of those sentenced to the scaffold, all pains of the rack and other instruments of torture that human tyrants ever invented are only pleasant, agreeable, tickling sensations. This God exceeds in bestial cruelty everything malignant that we know of on earth. His prison is hell, his handman the devil, and his punishments last forever. He employs worms that never cease gnawing, fires which are never quenched, and other deviltries a thousandfold as chastisements and only shows mercy for minor transgressions after long periods of time, provided the transgressor died a Catholic; for these he has under certain circumstances provided a "purgatory," which differs from hell about as much as a jail from prison. It is fitted up only for comparatively transient inmates, with somewhat more lenient regulations — but, at any rate, even in purgatory you will be singed mercilessly.

The so-called "cardinal sins" are never punished with purgatory, always with hell. These include, among others, "blasphemy" perpetrated by word, by writing, or by thought. Consequently, in this direction God permits neither freedom of the press nor speech, not even of the unspoken thought. This in itself is enough to stamp him from the outset as a successful competitor in churlishness with the basest despots and tyrants of any country or time, but the means and the duration of his punishments augment the baseness of his nature to the utmost. Consequently, this God is the most atrocious monster conceivable.

His attitude is the more infamous in that he allows it to be said of him that the entire world, and especially mankind in their behavior, are regulated by his omnipotent divine providence. He maltreats man for actions of which he himself is the originator or prime cause. How amiable, compared with this monster, are the tyrants of earth of the past and present time. Should it please God, however, to permit a person to live and die happy in accordance with his (God's) conceptions, he maltreats him still worse, because the promised "heaven," examined by gaslight, is a good deal worse institution than hell itself; for there you have no desires, you are always satisfied, without ever having a longing for anything. (But as without desire and attainment thereof no gratification is possible, so existence in heaven is without enjoyment.) Eternally employed in "beholding the Lord," eternally listening to the same strains from the same harps, eternally singing that same new and entrancing song in the same melody, if not the one of "Gabriel blowing the trumpet in the morning," surely not anything more exhilarating.

This is the highest degree of "getting tired after a whilishness." The occupancy of an isolated prison cell would be decidedly preferable. It is not surprising, then, that those who are rich and mighty enough to enjoy paradise on earth, should laughingly proclaim with Heine:

The angels and the birds may own
The heavens for themselves alone!

And yet the rich and mighty foster and nourish divine idiocy and religious stupidity. It is, in fact, part of their business; it is really a question of life or death to the domineering and exploiting classes whether the people at large are dumbfounded religiously or not. With religious lunacy stands and falls their power. The more man clings to religion, the more he believes — the more he believes, the less he knows — the less he knows, the more stupid he is — the more stupid, the easier he is governed — the easier to govern, the better he may be exploited — the more exploited, the poorer he gets — the poorer he, the richer and mightier the domineering classes get — the more riches and power they amass, the heavier their yoke upon the neck of the people.

The tyrants of all time and of all countries were always well acquainted with this train of thought, and for that reason always were on good terms with the priesthood of all creeds. Casual quarrels between these two kinds of enemies to mankind were at all times only of a domestic character, merely a struggle for supremacy. The priests or preachers know that they are done for, unless they have the support of the circle of cronies at the governmental top. It is no secret to the rich and powerful that mankind can only be enslaved and exploited when the necromancers of the churches ingraft sufficient servility into the hearts of the masses of the people to make them look upon the earth as a vale of tears, to imbue their minds with the justness of the godly decree; "Serve ye your master" (those in authority), and to buy them off with an alleged "sparerib," of which the people will get the soup in that home beyond the skies, the "Nobodyknows."