Flowers of Freethought (First Series)Foote, G. W. (George William)
Religion
Flowers of Freethought (First Series)
Foote, G. W. (George William)
Free thought
With characteristic inconsistency the Christian will exclaim "Here
is another blasphemous title. What has God to do with the weather?"
Everything, sir. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without his
knowledge, and do you think he fails to regulate the clouds? The
hairs of your head are numbered, and do you think he cannot count the
rain-drops? Besides, your clergy pray for a change in the weather when
they find it necessary; and to whom do they pray but God? True, they are
getting chary of such requests, but the theory is not disavowed, nor can
it be unless the Bible is 'discarded as waste-paper; and the forms of
supplication for rain and fine weather still remain in the Prayer Book,
although many parsons must feel like the parish clerk who asked "What's
the use of praying for rain with the wind in that quarter?"
We might also observe that as God is omnipotent he does everything, or
at least everything which is not left (as parsons would say) to man's
freewill, and clearly the weather is not included in that list. God is
also omniscient, and what he foresees and does not alter is virtually
his own work. Even if a tile drops on a man's head in a gale of wind, it
falls, like the sparrow, by a divine rule; and it is really the Lord who
batters the poor fellow's skull. An action for assault would undoubtedly
lie, if there were any court in which the case could be pleaded. What
a frightful total of damages would be run up against the defendant if
every plaintiff got a proper verdict! For, besides all the injuries
inflicted on mankind by "accident," which only means the Lord's malice
or neglect, it is a solemn fact (on the Theist's hypothesis) that God
has killed every man, woman, and child that ever died since the human
race began. We are born here without being consulted, and hurried away
without the least regard to our convenience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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