A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and EssaysBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought
The orthodox fringe of the Theism of to-day is Hebraistic in its
origion--that is, it finds its root in the superstition and ignorance
of a petty and barbarous people nearly destitute of literature, poor in
language, and almost entirely wanting in high conceptions of humanity.
It might, as Judaism is the foundation of Christianity, be fairly
expected that the ancient Jewish Records would aid us in our search
after the meaning to be attached to the word "God." the most prominent
words in Hebrew rendered God or Lord in English are [------] _Jeue_, and
[------] _Aleim_. The first word, Jeue, called by our orthodox Jehovah,
is equivalent to "that which exists," and indeed embodies in itself the
only possible trinity in unity--i. e. past, present, and future. There
is nothing in this Hebrew word to help you to any such definition as is
required for the sustenance of modern Theism. The most you can make of
it by any stretch of imagination is equivalent to the declaration "I
am, I have been, I shall be." The word [----] is hardly ever spoken by
religious Jews, who actually in reading substitute for it, Adonai, an
entirely different word. Dr. Wall notices the close resemblance in
sound between the word _Yehowa_ or _Yeue_, or Jehovah, and Jove. In
fact [--------], Jupiter and Jeue, pater, (God the father) present still
closer resemblance in sound. Jove is also [----] or [----] or [----],
whence the word Deus and our Deity. The Greek mythology, far more
ancient than that of the Hebrews, has probably found for Christianity
many other and more important features of coincidence than that of a
similarly sounding name. The word [----] traced back affords us no help
beyond that it identifies Deity with the universe. Plato says that the
early Greeks thought that the only Gods were the sun, moon, earth, stars
and heaven. The word Aleim, assists us still less in defining the
word God, for Parkhurst translates it as a plural noun signifying "the
curser," deriving it from the verb _to curse_. Finding that philology
aids us but little, we must endeavor to arrive at the meaning of the
word "God" by another rule. It is utterly impossible to fix the
period of the rise of Theism among any particular people, but it is,
notwithstanding, comparatively easy, if not to trace out the development
of Theistic ideas, at any rate to point to their probable course of
growth among all peoples.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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