has cursed man, hated man, hunted man, tortured man, and murdered
man, for the sake of shadows and fantasies of his own terror, or
vanity, or desire. We tiny, vain feeblenesses, we fussy ephemera;
we sting each other, hate each other, hiss at each other, for the
sake of the monster gods of our own delirium. As we are whirled
upon our spinning, glowing planet through the unfathomable spaces,
where myriads of suns, like golden bees, gleam through the awful
mystery of "the vast void night," what are the phantom gods to us?
They are no more than the waterspouts on the ocean, or the fleeting
shadows on the hills. But the man, and the woman, and the child,
and the dog with its wistful eyes; these know us, touch us, appeal
to us, love us, serve us, grieve us.

Shall we kill these, or revile them, or desert them, for the sake of
the lurid ghost in the cloud, or the fetish in his box?

Do you think the bloodthirsty vindictive Jahweh, who prized nothing
but his own aggrandisement, and slew or cursed all who offended him,
is the Creator, the same who made the jewels of the Pleiades, and
the resplendent mystery of the Milky Way?

Is this unspeakable monster, Jahweh, the Father of Christ? Is he
the God who inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and
Beethoven, and Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in
warfare and massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and
deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debasement of women;
and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds of royalty, of clericalism,
and of usury and barter--we may easily discern the influence of his
ferocious and abominable personality. It is time to have done with
this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of savages. We have no