Lenny Bruce was damned funny (some gems of his on censorship and religion)

What Would Lenny Bruce Say About Facebookʼs Censorship Policy? Click here.

Lenny Sez…

“If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer.”

You canʼt put tits and ass on the marquee!

Why not?

Because itʼs dirty and vulgar, thatʼs why not!

Titties are dirty and vulgar? Okay, weʼll compromise. How about Latin? Gluteus maximus, pectoralis majors nightly.

Thatʼs alright, thatʼs clean, class with ass, Iʼll buy it.

Clean to you, schmuck, but dirty to the Latins!

Lenny on Religion

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.

I knew in my heart by pure logic that any man who calls himself a religious leader and owns more than one suit is a hustler so long as there is someone in the world who has no suit at all.

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I do not doubt for a moment that if Christ were to come down he would go immediately to headquarters and ask the Pope, “What are you doing wearing that big ring? What are those gold cups encrusted with jewels for? Donʼt you know that people are starving all over the world?

Christ and Moses go to New York … Saint Patrickʼs cathedral. Confused, Christ is, at the grandeur of the interior. His route took him through Spanish Harlem. He would wonder what fifty Puerto Ricans were doing living in one room. That stained glass window is worth nine grand!

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If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

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Alright, letʼs admit it, we Jews killed Christ — but it was only for three days.

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I suppose that if I were Christ-like, I would turn the other cheek and keep letting you punch me and even kill me, because what the hell, Iʼm Godʼs son, and itʼs not so bad dying when you know youʼve got a pass to come back indefinitely. All right, so you have to take a little crap when you come home and you have to “get it” from your Father… “Oh, you started again, you canʼt get along. Who was it this time? The Jews, eh? Why canʼt you stop preaching? Look, this is the last time Iʼm telling you, the next time you get killed, youʼre STAYING there. Iʼve had enough aggravation with your mother.”

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Head Tribesman: I have spoken with the Lord and the Lord has asked that we give up things for him. Now, Iʼll tell you what Iʼm going to do. Iʼll start the ball rolling here. I pledge that I will give up…something very dear to me…I will give up…fifteen rivers and eighteen of my farms for the Lord. And that makes me the best man in the tribe!

Second Tribesman: Iʼll beat him…is he kidding with that? Iʼll give up seventy-five of my farms and all my cows. Thatʼs it. And that makes me the best man in the tribe.

Third Tribesman: Just a moment. Just a moment now. I will show you all how much I love the Lord. I will give up something that will astound you…I will give up…

Second Tribesman: Go ahead…say it.

Third Tribesman: No…I donʼt want to say the word.

Head Tribesman: Oh…then write it down someplace.

Second Tribesman: Yeah…hereʼs a writing down thing.

Head Tribesman: Put it down here.

(They read what he wrote.)

First Tribesman: Oh, come on now…are you kidding with that?

Another: Youʼre giving that up just to prove a point? Youʼre out of your mind.

Another: How long you giving it up for?

Third Tribesman: Forever and ever.

Another: Well, go beat that…now heʼs the best man in the tribe.

Another: Thatʼs right…cause he gave that up for the Lord.

Second Tribesman: Now wait a minute. I donʼt intend to give that up.

Wife of Second Tribesman: Oh, you gave that up a long time ago.

Second Tribesman: But what about the people who donʼt give it up?

Head Tribesman: That makes them second best. Thatʼs how the scale works.

Another: Well, what about the people who talk about it?

Head Tribesman: The people who do what?

Another: The people who talk about “doing it.” What about them?

Head Tribesman: Weʼll just…bust their ass. And talking about it will be dirty…dirty…dirty…

Tribe: Dirty…dirty…dirty…

Julian Barry, Lenny: A Play Based on the Life and Words of Lenny Bruce

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Now, a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. Thatʼs what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is—One Who Killed Our Lord. I donʼt know if we got much press on that in Illinois—we did this about two thousand years ago—two thousand years of Pollack kids whacking the shit out of us coming home from school. Dear, dear. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce. And I really searched it too, why we pay the dues. Why do you keep breaking our balls for this crime?

“Why, Jew? Because you skirt the issue. You blame it on the Roman soldiers.”

All right, Iʼll clear the air once and for all, and confess. Yes, we did it. I did it, my family. I found a note in my basement. It said:

We killed him.
signed, Morty.

And a lot of people say to me, “Why did you kill Christ?” I dunno...it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know. We killed him because he didnʼt want to become a doctor, thatʼs why we killed him. Or maybe it would shock some people, some people who are involved with the dogma, to say that we killed him at his own request, because he knew that people would exploit him. In his name they would bust people. In Christʼs name they would exploit the flag, the Bible, and—whew! Boy, the things theyʼve done in his name!

But heʼs going to get it if he comes back. Definitely. Heʼs going to get killed again, because he made us pay so many dues. So heʼs going to get whacked. And you can tell that to the Jehovahʼs Witnesses, who have all those dates. As soon as he comes back, whacked again.

The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, and a “Holy War”

In the United States disputes over slavery brought Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists to schism by 1845, and encouraged the fratricidal Civil War that finally resolved that crisis. One of the chief ironies of the conflict over slavery was the confrontation of Americaʼs largest Protestant denominations with the hitherto unthinkable idea that the Bible could be divided against itself. But divided it had been by intractable theological, political, and economic forces. Never again would the Bible completely recover its traditional authority in American culture.

Stephen A. Marini, “Slavery and the Bible,” The Oxford Guide to Ideas & Issues of the Bible, ed. by Bruce Metzger and Michael D. Coogan (Oxford University Press, 2001)

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Mark A. Noll in The Civil War as a Theological Crisis points out that a belief in divine providence and adherence to Scripture provided purpose and stability in the lives of antebellum Americans. But, religious leaders in the years leading up to the Civil War were unable to provide a definitive answer on the most difficult question of the period: Does the Bible condemn or condone slavery? Americans were also at odds over the workings of a providential God as both Northerners and Southerners tried to understand the meaning of the war and Godʼs role in it. Relying primarily on the writings of nineteenth-century theologians and other religious thinkers, Noll concludes that the clashes over these two issues revealed a theological crisis and resulted in a major turning point in American religious thought.

Noll contends that a

“fundamental disagreement existed over what the Bible had to say about slavery at the very moment when disputes over slavery were creating the most serious crisis in the nationʼs history.”

Indeed, Southerners argued that Scripture sanctioned slavery, while those opposed to the peculiar institution insisted that it did not. Noll points out that the supporters of slavery rested on a literal interpretation of the Bible, while abolitionists maintained that slavery violated the spirit of the Bible. Opponents of slavery furthermore contended that Scripture condemned slavery as it existed in America, for the system was riddled with abuses. While Southern ministers admitted the system required reform, but not abolition. Thus, the nationʼs most trusted religious authority, says Noll, was “sounding an uncertain note” on this critical issue.

In addition to the slavery question, Noll argues that Americans were also at odds over the workings of a providential God. Before the war, American theologians demonstrated confidence in their ability to fathom the meaning behind worldly events. During the war, both sides claimed that God supported their cause; however, the ways of God had become uncertain. God appeared at times to be “acting so strikingly at odds with himself,” especially when it came to battlefield defeats, and for Southerners in particular, the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy. This sense of “providential mystery” carried over into the postwar years as many abandoned the idea that God controlled worldly events. Noll devotes only one chapter to this important topic and leaves the reader wanting to know more.

In order to provide a broader framework, Noll also includes foreign theological commentary, both Protestant and Catholic, on the issue of slavery and the Bible. Although Noll admits that his work here is preliminary, his use of these often overlooked sources makes these two chapters the most intriguing of the book. In short, European and Canadian Protestants as well as Europeʼs liberal Roman Catholics evinced their intense opposition to slavery. Indeed, they were more opposed to slavery than they were in favor of the North. The second strand of foreign commentary came from conservative European Catholics, who did not categorically condemn slavery, but did criticize the institution as it existed America. But, conservative criticism went much further as Catholics took advantage of the opportunity to underscore the authority of the Church. Catholic theologians pointed out that because of the religious individualism that played such an instrumental role in the creation of the United States and its national culture, there was no overarching religious authority to offer a definitive statement on the issue of slavery. Thus, Americaʼs religious individualism and liberal tradition contributed to a deadlock over slavery.

Reviewed by Kent T. Dollar for The Journal of Southern Religion

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Jefferson Davis & the Southʼs View of Slavery as Established & Sanctioned by God

Jefferson Davis, the leader of the South during the American Civil War, boasted, “It [slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God…it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation…it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts…Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God—let him go to the Bible…I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation…Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come [Rev. 6:15; 13:16; 19:18]. You find it in the Old and New Testaments—in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized, sanctioned everywhere.”
- Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Vol. 1

Davisʼs defenses of slavery are legion, as in his speech to Congress in 1848, “If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.” After 1856, Davis reiterated in most of his public speeches that he was “tired” of apologies for “our institution.” “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.”
- William E. Dodd, Jefferson Davis

After being elected President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis said, “My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses…We recognize the negro as God and Godʼs Book and Godʼs Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him—our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude…You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.”
- Kenneth C. Davis, Donʼt Know Much About the Civil War: Everything You Need to Know About Americaʼs Greatest Conflict But Never Learned]

The Bible is a book in comparison with which all others in my eyes are of minor importance; and which in all my perplexities and distresses has never failed to give me light and strength.
- Robert E. Lee, Leader of the Confederate Army of the South

When the Confederate states drew up their constitution, they added something that the colonial founders had voted to leave out, namely, an invocation of the Deity. The Southʼs proud new constitution began: “We, the people…invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God…”
- E.T.B. [See, Charles Robert Lee, Jr., The Confederate Constitutions]

Southern clergymen and politicians argued that the South was more “Christian” than the North, it was the “Redeemer Nation.”
- Charles Wilson, Baptized in Blood, 1980

With secession and the outbreak of the Civil War, Southern clergymen boldly proclaimed that the Confederacy had replaced the United States as Godʼs chosen nation.
- Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South]

Our [Christian] denominations [in the South] are few, harmonious, pretty much united among themselves [especially on the issue of slavery—E.T.B.], and pursue their avocations in humble peace…Few of the remarkable ‘isms’ of the present day have taken root among us. We have been so irreverent as to laugh at Mormonism and Millerism, which have created such [religious] commotions farther North; and modern prophets have no honor in our country. Shakers, Dunkers, Socialists, and the like, keep themselves afar off. You may attribute this to our domestic Slavery if you choose [the slaves being taught what to believe only by members of the ‘few, harmonious’ Southern churches—E.T.B.]. I believe you would do so justly. There is no material here [in the South] for such characters [from the North] to operate upon…A people [like we Southerners] whose men are proverbially brave, intellectual and hospitable, and whose women are unaffectedly chaste, devoted to domestic life, and happy in it, can neither be degraded nor demoralized, whatever their institutions may be. My decided opinion is, that our system of Slavery contributes largely to the development and culture of these high and noble qualities.
- James Henry Hammond, South Carolinian politician, cited by Drew Gilpin Faust, ed., The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), Chapter IV, “James Henry Hammond: Letter to an English Abolitionist,” pp.180, 181, 183, 184]

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A Slaveʼs View of Slavery in the South

We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen, all for the glory of God and the good of souls. The slave auctioneerʼs bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals of the slave trade go hand in hand.

Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to the enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.

It was my unhappy lot to belong to a religious slaveholder. He always managed to have one or more of his slaves to whip every Monday morning.

In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting and there experienced religion. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was made a class leader and exhorter.

I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin whip upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote the passage of Scripture, “He who knoweth the masterʼs will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.” (Luke 12:47)

I prayed for freedom twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

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Frederick Douglass Was Not The Only Witness to Testify That Christians Were the Cruelest Slaveholders

Henry Bibb…lists six “professors of religion” who sold him to other “professors of religion.” (One of Bibbʼs owners was a deacon in the Baptist church, who employed whips, chains, stocks, and thumbscrews to “discipline” his slaves.) Harriet Jacobs, in her narrative, informs us that her tormenting owner was the worse for being converted. Mrs. Joseph Smith, testifying before the American Freedmenʼs Inquiry Commission in 1863 tells why Christian slaveholders were the worst owners: “Well, it is something like this—the Christians will oppress you more.”

Donald B. Gibson, “Faith, Doubt and Apostasy,” Frederick Douglass: New Literary and Historical Essays, ed. Eric J. Sundquist Gibson

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Letter Written by a Slave To A Minster Who Had Preached At That Slaveʼs Plantation

I want you to tell me the reason you always preach to the white folks and keep your back to us. If God sent you to preach to sinners did He direct you to keep your face to the white folks constantly? Or is it because they give you money? If this is the cause we are the very persons who labor for this money but it is handed to you by our masters. Did God tell you to make your meeting houses just large enough to hold the white folks and let the Black people stand in the sun and rain as the brooks in the field? We are charged with inattention. It is impossible for us to pay good attention with this chance. In fact, some of us scarcely think we are preached to at all. Money appears to be the object. We are carried to market and sold to the highest bidder never once inquiring whether sold to a heathen or Christian. If the question was put, “Did you sell to a Christian?” what would be the answer, “I canʼt tell what he was, he gave me my price, thatʼs all I was interested in?” Is that the way to heaven? If it is, there will be a good many who go there. If not, their chance of getting there will be bad for there can be many witnesses against them.

Blacks in Bondage: Letters of American Slaves, ed., Robert S. Starobin

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It is not uncharacteristic in the study of race relations that the catechisms, as instruments of control, revealed more about the thinking of the slaveholding society and its clerical leaders than they did about the slaves.
- Forrest G. Wood, The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth

Woodʼs book explodes the myth that most slaves became Christians: figures were closer to 10%, roughly the same percentage of the free population that attended church regularly. Another false legend exposed here is that northern churches aided and encouraged efforts to free the slaves: many abolitionists broke away from the mainstream churches because they would not provide assistance to escaped slaves. Northern churches considered slavery a political issue rather than a moral one so as not to offend their southern affiliates. “Spiritual” music was anything but: Allowed to sing only religious music, slaves often composed songs that were outwardly biblical, but that were actually coded messages for the underground railroad. Subjugation of all “inferior” races was an integral part of Manifest Destiny. The author contends that since the few freethinkers were not organized, they had no say in the slavery issue. His research is incomplete: Thomas Paine almost single-handedly abolished slavery in Pennsylvania, the first state where it was outlawed, in 1780. In fact, when did the other northern churches abolish slavery? You wonʼt find that answer in this book. Most of the material deals with slavery in the United States during the antebellum period, which is probably the authorʼs special field of study. He spends only a few pages on the genocide of the Native Americans, and almost totally ignores slavery in the Spanish settlements.
- John Rush (Austin, Texas) reviewer of Woodʼs book at amazon.com

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African slaves were allowed to organize churches as a surrogate for earthly freedom. White churches were organized in order to make certain that the rights of property [including the masterʼs right to own his slave] were respected and that the numerous religious taboos in the New and Old Testaments would be enforced, if necessary, by civil law.

Gore Vidal, “(The Great Unmentionable) Monotheism and its Discontents,” essay

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Before the South seceded politically from the North, she seceded religiously. The three largest Christian denominations in the South, the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians, seceded from their northern brethren to form separate “Southern” denominations, each founded on the Biblical right (of laymen and ministers) to own slaves.

E.T.B.

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The Old School (Presbyterian) General Assembly report of 1845 concluded that slavery was based on “some of the plainest declarations of the Word of God.” Those who took this position were conservative evangelicals. Among their number were the best conservative theologians and exegetes of their day, including, Robert Dabney, James Thornwell and the great Charles Hodge of Princeton—fathers of twentieth century evangelicalism and of the modern expression of the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy. No one can really appreciate how certain these evangelicals were that the Bible endorsed slavery, or of the vehemence of their argumentation unless something from their writings is read.

Kevin Giles, “The Biblical Argument for Slavery,” The Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 1, 1994

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The Clergy Played A Pivotal Role in Promoting Secession

Southern clergymen spoke openly and enthusiastically on behalf of disunion…Denominational groups across the South officially endorsed secession and conferred blessings on the new Southern nation. Influential denominational papers from the Mississippi Baptist to the Southern Episcopalian, the Southern Presbyterian and the South Western Baptist, agreed that secession “must be effected at any cost, regardless of consequences,” and “secession was the only consistent position that Southern freemen or Christians could occupy.” (One amusing anecdote tells how a prominent member of a Southern Presbyterian church told his pastor that he would quit the church if the pastor did not pray for the Union. Unmoved by this threat, the pastor replied that “our church does not believe in praying for the dead!”)

Meanwhile, Northern clergymen blamed their Southern counterparts for “inflaming passions,” “adding a feeling of religious fanaticism” to the secessionist controversy, and also blamed them for being “the strongest obstacle in the way of preserving the Union.” In this way, the Northern clergy contributed to the belief in an irrepressible conflict, and aroused the same kind of political passions they were condemning in their Southern brethren.

One Southern sermon that had “a powerful influence in converting Southern sentiments to secession,” and which was republished in several Southern newspapers and distributed in tens of thousands of individual copies, was Reverend Benjamin B. Palmerʼs sermon, “Slavery a Divine Trust: Duty of the South to Preserve and Perpetuate It,” delivered soon after Lincolnʼs election in 1860. According to Palmer that election had brought “one issue before us” which had created a crisis that called forth the guidance of the clergy. That issue was “slavery.” Palmer insisted that “the South defended the cause of all religion and truth…We defend the cause of God and religion,” while abolitionism was “undeniably atheistic.” Palmer was incensed at the platform of Lincolnʼs political party that promised to constrain the practice of slavery within certain geographical limits instead of allowing it to expand into Americaʼs Western territories. Therefore, the South had to secede in order to protect its providential trust of slavery.

When Union armies reached Reverend Palmerʼs home state, a Union general placed a price on his head, because as some said, the Reverend had done more than “any other non-combatant in the South to promote rebellion.” Thomas R. R. Cobb, an official of the Confederate government, summed up religionʼs contribution to the fervor and ferment of those times with these words, “This revolution (the secessionist cause) has been accomplished mainly by the Churches.”

Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion (See also Edward R. Crowtherʼs Southern Evangelists and the Coming of the Civil War)

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The Southern Presbyterian Church resolved in 1864 (while the Civil War was still being fought): “We hesitate not to affirm that it is the peculiar mission of the Southern Church to conserve the institution of slavery, and to make it a blessing both to master and slave.” The Church also insisted that it was “unscriptural and fanatical” and “one of the most pernicious heresies of modern times” to accept the dogma that slavery was inherently sinful. At least one slave responded to such theological resolutions with one of his own: “If slavery ainʼt a sin, then nothing is.”

E.T.B.

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To judge by the hundreds of sermons and specially composed church prayers that have survived on both sides, ministers were among the most fanatical of the combatants from beginning to end. The churches played a major role in dividing the nation, and it may be that the splits in the churches made a final split in the nation possible. In the North, such a charge was often willingly accepted. Granville Moddy, a Northern Methodist, boasted in 1861, “We are charged with having brought about the present contest. I believe it is true we did bring it about, and I glory in it, for it is a wreath of glory round our brow.” Southern clergymen did not make the same boast but of all the various elements in the South they did the most to make a secessionist state of mind possible. Southern clergymen were particularly responsible for prolonging the increasingly futile struggle. Both sides claimed vast numbers of “conversions” among their troops and a tremendous increase in churchgoing and “prayerfulness” as a result of the fighting.
- Paul Johnson, A History of the American People

Other “results of the fighting” that clergymen were not nearly as boastful about included tremendous outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea among both northern and southern troops who took time out from their fighting and prayers to visit women who attended to the troopsʼ less than holy concerns.
- E.T.B.

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The Crusades aside, Civil War armies were perhaps the most religious in history. Troops who were not especially religious prior to the war often found comfort in religion when faced with the horrific reality of combat. Those who had held strong religious beliefs before they went into battle usually found their faith strengthened. One southerner reflected that “we are feeble instruments in the hands of the Supreme Power,” while his northern counterpart believed that he was “under the same protecting aegis of the Almighty here as elsewhere…It matters not, then,” he concluded, “where I may be the God of nature extends his protecting wing over me.”

Religion, specifically the Protestant religion, went to the very heart of the American experience in the nineteenth century. Both northerners and southerners were used to expressing themselves via religious metaphors and Scriptural allusions. Once war broke out, both sides saw themselves as Christian armies, and the war itself served to reinforce this.

The Confederate soldier, in particular, was encouraged to equate the cause of the Confederacy with the cause of Christ, by the efforts of religious journals such as The Army and Navy Messenger and The Soldierʼs Friend, many of which began publication after 1863. The Messenger advised southern troops as late as 1864 that the Confederacy was “fighting not only for our country but our God. This identity inspires our hope and establishes our confidence. It has become for us a holy war, and each fearful and bloody battle an act of awful and solemn worship.” In the same year, The Soldierʼs Paper reminded its readership, “The blood of martyrs was the seed of the Church, the blood of our heroes is the seed of liberty.” According to the Mississippi Messenger, the Civil War was no more nor less than “…the ordering of Godʼs Providence, which forbids the permanent union of heterogeneous nations.” The southern soldier responded to such arguments, and took them to heart. Even after the fall of Atlanta, an artillery lieutenant from Alabama could not “believe that our Father in Heaven intends that we shall be subjugated by such a race of people as the Yankees.”

Northern soldiers too, were encouraged to find Scriptural justification for the Union cause, particularly over the matter of slavery. After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Julia Ward Howe composed the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which was set to the tune of “John Brownʼs Body.” Union troops needed little encouragement to sing “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,” nor to reassure themselves that as Christ “died to make men holy, let us die to make men free / While God is marching on.”

Susan-Mary Grant, “For God and Country: Why Men Joined Up For the US Civil War,” History Today, Vol. 50, No. 7, July 2000, p.24-25

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Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died in the Civil War, more than the combined number of all the American soldiers who died in every other war from the Revolutionary War through two World Wars, right up to the Gulf War against Iraq. (Admittedly, diarrhea killed more Civil War soldiers than were killed in battle. But then, influenza killed more World War I soldiers than were killed in battle.) Neither is there any doubt among historians that religion played a more pervasive and intimate role in heightening disagreements and animosities during the Civil War than in those others.

E.T.B.

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The Civil War as a Religious War:
It can be argued that the Civil War was as much theological as it was political. The split between northern and southern churches may have precipitated political secession—once religious leaders stopped trying to work together, political leaders didnʼt bother. Ministers signed up for war in larger numbers, especially in the South. All the officers in one Texas regiment were, apparently, Methodist preachers. Religious propaganda drove war fever and inspired confidence in ultimate victory.

Ham and the Christian Defense of Slavery:
The primary focus of those using Christianity to defend slavery and segregation was the story of Noah, specifically the part where his son Ham is cursed to serve his brothers. This story long functioned as a model for Christians to insist that God meant Africans to be marked as the servants of others because they are descended from Ham. Secondary was the story of the Tower of Babel as a model for Godʼs desire to separate people generally rather than have them united in common cause and purpose.

Slavery, Christian Honor, and Social Order:
The concepts of honor and social order have been integral to Southern Christianity and Southern defenses of slavery. Honor meant protecting oneʼs personal image. It didnʼt matter, for example, if one was honest or dishonest, but it did matter that no one said you were dishonest. Black Africans, as descendants of Ham, were seen as lacking honor and therefore deserving of slavery. Maintaining social order meant preserving traditional structures of authority: men over women, whites over blacks.

Southern Christianity and Liberty:
Southern slave owners had little interest in general liberty or maintaining a democratic republic. Their ideals were founded upon patriarchy, timocracy, and authoritarianism — not liberty, democracy, or other values people tend to take for granted today. In effect, Christianity constituted an important basis for anti-democratic movements in the South designed to deny liberty to large numbers of people, primarily (though not solely) slaves.

Christianity as a Source of Weakness in the South:
Early on, Christianity was a powerful force for inspiration and national cohesion in the Confederacy. Over time, however, the quick and expected victory failed to materialize. This was a problem for both sides, but the North had a stronger nationalistic sense of self which helped see them through; the South lacked this and thus the failures on the battlefield translated into religious despair. This, in turn, sapped the Southʼs morale and prevented them from persevering.

Religious Reconstruction after the Civil War:
Southerners decided that they lost because they were impure of heart rather than because slavery was an unmitigated evil — to admit that they lost because they had been wrong all along would have bee too large a blow to their sense of self and their self-identification as Southerners. They had to have been right; therefore, their loss must be attributed to other reasons. Many argued that God was chastising them in order to prepare them for some higher and more glorious purpose in the future.

Statesʼ Rights, Guilt, and Manufactured Victory:
Southern secession was based upon a defense of slavery as a religious necessity and as a basic way of life. Guilt over slavery always lurked in the background, though, and losing the war made it even more difficult to face. Instead of facing it, however, Southerners claimed that they only fought for statesʼ rights and personal honor, both of which “survived.” This allowed Southern Christians to claim victory without having to deal with the moral implications of going to war over slavery.

White Supremacy and Christian Supremacy:
For Southerners, maintaining separate churches was necessary to hold on to who they really were. Churches were a primary vehicle for transmitting cultural as well as religious identity. Through the churches Southerners transmitted to their children ideals about slavery, the inequality of the races, the righteousness of secession, the evil and tainted gospel preached by Northerners, and so forth. Except for the overt racism and defense of slavery, the situation today remains strikingly similar.

Christianity and the Civil Rights Movement:
Although the South lost the Civil War, White Supremacy remained an important component of Christian teaching for the next century. White Christian churches taught that slavery was a just institution, as were Jim Crow laws and segregation; that white Christianity remained the last, best hope for western civilization; and that white Christians had a mandate to exercise dominion over the world — and especially the darker races who were little more than children.

Southern Christianity and Christian Nationalism in Modern America:
There has been discussion of the “southernization of American society,” an argument that many basic premises and principles from Southern culture have become integrated into the rest of American culture. Included with this are appeals to racism and ethnic demagoguery, militaristic patriotism, and extreme political localism.

A parallel development, or perhaps the primary underlying development, has been the “southernization” of American Christianity. Although mainline Protestant Christianity has grown more liberal, tolerant, and open in recent decades, they have also been declining in influence. During this same time conservative evangelical and fundamentalist churches have been growing in size and power.

Christian Nationalism in America is largely a consequence of the spread of Southern Christianity. Southern Christianity has long been more conservative, evangelical, fundamentalist, militaristic, and nationalistic than churches elsewhere in the nation. As these attitudes have spread, they have transformed Christian churches that were once more liberal, especially where issues like feminism, the ordination of female clergy, and homosexuality have been concerned.

Southern Christianity holds firm to a male-dominated church situated in a male-dominated society, hyper-patriotism which is inextricably linked to traditional Christianity, hostility towards homosexuality and any divergence from traditional gender roles, opposition to sexual license and liberty, and the defense of traditional privileges for males, Christians, and at times even whites. All of this is gradually being incorporated into American Christianity generally, transforming not just American churches but also American culture and politics as well.

Austin Cline, “Christianity in the Confederate South: Southern Nationalism and Christianity”

After The Civil War

In The Slaveholdersʼ Dilemma (1992), and again in this most recent book, A Consuming Fire, Eugene Genovese shows that in the contemporary self–understanding of Southerners, their views of states rights, religion, and society were all mixed with slavery. The slave system provided the social context for how they thought about local political authority, economics, and their social and religious duties. Before the war the best of Southern thinkers and clergy of all denominations defended slavery on its moral, religious, and social merits. During the war white Christian Southerners regarded slavery, not states rights or military valor, as the fulcrum of divine judgment; and slavery became for them the key to explaining the failure of Southern arms.

Russell Hittinger, “A Confederate Theodicy,” a book review of A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South by Eugene D. Genovese, as appeared in First Things, No. 95 (August/September 1999), p. 67-72

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Methodist Ell Gertrude Clanton Thomas, a member of the planter elite in Augusta, Georgia, owned more than ninety slaves; the Civl War destroyed much of her wealth, and she and her husband were “reduced from a state of affluence to comparative poverty.” Until emancipation, she had not realized “how intimately my faith in revelations and my faith in the institution of slavery had been woven together… if the Bible was right then slavery must be—Slavery was done away with and my faith in Godʼs Holy Book was terribly shaken. For a time, I doubted God.”… Reluctantly she admitted, “Our cause was lost. Good men had had faith to be lost? I was bewildered—I felt all this and could not see Godʼs hand.”

Central to their [Southernerʼs] remarkably resilient worldview was the adamant conviction that God still favored the South and its churches. Slavery as an institution and secession were not sinful, though most admitted that some abuses had existed in the practice of slavery. Since northern denominations were hopelessly political and radical, the southern denominations had a duty to preserve the Gospel untainted. Furthermore, while northerners and freedpeople controlled much of the political and economic life of the South, southern evangelicals had to maintain their churches as bastions of regional identity.

Religious reconstruction was the process by which southern and northern, black and white Christians rebuilt the spiritual life of the south in the aftermath of the disruptions wrought by the Civil War. Each group, however, had a different vision of what was necessary and how best to accomplish this process. For white southern Christians, the task was primarily to restore the antebellum status quo in their religious lives. In the immediate aftermath of the war, they made their intentions clear as they tried as much as possible to restore the old order—political, social, and religious—and only grudgingly accepted change.

Daniel W. Stowell, Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863-1877 (Oxford University Press)

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After decades of denouncing the emancipation of the slaves many members of evangelical Southern Protestant denominations applauded the “magnificently constructed” walls of segregation that followed. As Rev. Clayton Sullivan recalls:

“Blacks were viewed as inferior. They rode at the back of the bus, went to separate schools, lived in shanties on the other side of town, and attended black churches (called ‘nigger churches’). Nor do I recall from my… youth hearing anyone question the justice or injustice of segregation… For a white Southerner to question segregation would have seemed as surprising as to question the existence of God.”
—Clayton Sullivan, Called to Preach, Condemned to Survive: The Education of Clayton Sullivan (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 141-42.

In the 1950s Rev. Clayton joined nonprejudiced seminarians at the Southern Baptist Louisville Seminary in wincing “…when Dr. W. A. Criswell [the famous Southern Baptist preacher] in Dallas spoke to the seminary students in Alumni Chapel and said, “Fellows, things are changing down home. You used to be able to say ‘chiggers.’ But now you have to say ‘cHEE-groes.’”
—Sullivan, p. 143

Two decades later, things had changed:

“The ‘impregnable walls of segregation’… were not, so it turned out, impregnable after all… [For instance] Mississippi now has the highest number of elected black officials of any state. Negroes patronize motels, restaurants and libraries. The public schools have integrated and blacks compose the backbone of the Ole Miss football team. The only institutions left segregated are churches, funeral homes, country clubs, and chapters of the Daughters of the Confederacy.”
—Sullivan, p. 154.

In the 1960s in Greenville, South Carolina the former tent-evangelist and fundamentalist founder of Bob Jones University, Bob Jones, Sr., cited the apostle Paulʼs statement in the book of Acts (17:26, KJV) in order to oppose interracial schooling and dating. Paul wrote, “And [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (emphasis added). Bob Jones, Sr., interpreted Paulʼs statement this way:

“If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty, because He made racial separation in order to preserve the [Jewish] race through whom He could send the Messiah and through whom He could send the Bible. God is the author of segregation. God is the author of Jewish separation and Gentile separation and Japanese separation. God made of one blood all nations, but He also drew the boundary lines between races… [compare Paulʼs statement, above-ED.] Slavery was not right… The colored people should have been left over in Africa, and we should have sent missionaries over there and got them converted. That is what we should have done. But we could not have converted them as fast that way; and God makes the wrath of men to praise Him… We had planned to build a school, just like Bob Jones University, here in the South for colored people… Where Christian colored people could get their education in ‘an atmosphere where their talents in music and speech and art and all could be preserved and handed down… We had that in mind until all this agitation started… [Yet how did ‘all this agitation’ really ‘start?’ With the enslavement of a people.-ED.] No nation has ever prospered or been blessed like the colored people in the South.”
—Bob Jones, Sr., Is Segregation Scriptural? (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University, 1960), p. 16,19,22,24-25,32.

So spoke Bob Jones, Sr., in an address delivered over radio station WMUU at Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina, April 17, 1960, transcribed and printed/as the pamphlet Is Segregation Scriptural? But that sermon is no longer seen on the shelves of the campus bookstore at Bob Jones University. Furthermore, a handful of black students now attend Bob Jones University each year. It seems that the university is gradually losing sight of its founderʼs original teachings, or, in the words of Bob Jones, Sr., they are going “against God Almighty!”

However in 1968 one Bob Jones University alumnus, Dr. Dennis Ronald MacDonald, recalls how he was attending a Bible conference on campus that year when the news arrived of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.ʼs assassination. The audience with few exceptions clapped and cheered on hearing that Bob Jones University would not be hanging its American flag at half-mast to honor Dr. King, who was viewed as an “apostate” for his “social Gospel” message.

Edward T. Babinski, “Fundamentalismʼs Grotesque Past,” Leaving the Fold: Testimonies of Former Fundamentalists (Prometheus Books, 1995)

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The South may have lost the Civil War, but By God, theyʼre still doing what they can to keep those damn “Nigras” in line. Blacks continue to receive the harshest sentences in court, including the death penalty. Blacks make up 41% of the total percentage of inmates living on death row in America yet blacks comprise a far lesser percentage of the nationʼs citizenry. 207 blacks received the death sentence last year for killing white people, while only 12 whites received that harsh sentence for killing blacks. Thatʼs “southern” justice for you. Everyone should be playing on the same level field in court, but let me know if you can find a playing field (other than a football field) where blacks are treated as equal.

D. A. Stacy, “U.S. Executions Reach 1000” [circa 2004?]

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By the mid-1960s, the legal status of segregation had been settled in Americaʼs courts and political chambers. But segregationʼs staunchest proponents continued to fight, insisting that integration was the leading edge of a social revolution bent on “overthrowing Godʼs established order.”

As conservative Christians reacted to what they regarded as perilous change, they pressed Nimrodʼs legend into service. One example is Corey Daniel of Dallas, a Baptist preacher who utilized the legend to depict integration as part of a demonic social scheme… Daniel combined race and disorder in his portrait of Nimrod, “the Negro leader of the Babelbuilders (Gen 10:6-10), whose name means ‘Rebel’”…

Like many Southern conservatives, Daniel associated the campaign for civil rights with socialism, internationalism, and revolutionary dictatorship. In fact, the alliance between integration and the loss of individual freedom is exceedingly close in Danielʼs mind. Using epithets such as “those first unholy one worlders” and “the United Nationsʼ modern tower of Babel,” Daniel applies Genesis 11 to popular anxieties about Americaʼs role in a changing world…

Like the Babel-builders, the UN seeks to integrate races and governments, “lest [they] be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Again like the architects of that ancient UN, the modern internationalists “are ignoring, when they are not actively blaspheming, the Lord Jesus Christ and His glorious gospel blood redemption.” Thus, in Danielʼs view, Nimrod is the patriarch of all schemes to consolidate in rebellion against God.

Stephen R. Haynes, Noahʼs Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery

Israel and Babylon's High Gods: Yahweh and Marduk

One cannot help but notice how people of the ancient Near East attempted to make their high god(s) sound more “supreme” than the rest. Below is a chart comparing accolades bestowed on Marduk (Mesopotamian) with those bestowed on Yahweh/El (Israelite):

He [Marduk] shall be “Lord of All the Gods”… No one among the gods shall [make himself equal] to him.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VI:141 and VII:14

Our God is above all gods… God of gods… Lord of lords.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 135:5 and 136:2, 3

Ancient Depiction of Yahweh, Israelʼs High God

Ancient Depiction of Marduk, Babylonʼs High God

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He [Marduk] established the holy heavens… Creator of the earth above the waters, establisher of things on high… who made the worldʼs regions… He created “places” and fashioned the netherworld.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:16, 83, 89, 135

[God] established the heavens… inscribed a circle on the face of the deep… made firm the skies above… marked out the foundations of the earth.
—Hebrew Bible, Proverbs 8:27–28

[God] stretched out the earth above the waters.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 136:6

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He [Marduk] patterned the days of the year… established the positions of Enlil and Ea [referring to the rotation of stars in the sky]… made the moon appear, entrusted (to him) the night… assigned to the crown jewel of nighttime to mark the day (of the month)… [Marduk] d[efined?] the celestial signs [for religious festivals]… the doorbolt of sunrise… the watches of night and day.
—Enuma Elish Tablet V:3, 5, 8, 12–13, 23, 44, 46

God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [the literal Hebrew means ‘religious festivals,’ as used elsewhere in the Pentateuch], and for days, and years… And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.
—Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1:14, 16–17

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He [Marduk] made mankind… creatures with the breath of life… creator of all people.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VI:33,129 & VII:89

God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
—Hebrew Bible, Genesis 2:7

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He [Marduk] shall be the shepherd of the [Mesopotamians], his creatures.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VI:107

The Lord is my shepherd.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 23:1

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Creation, destruction, absolution, punishment: Each shall be at his [Mardukʼs] command.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VI:131-32

The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity.
—Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 45:7

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His [Mardukʼs] word is truth, what he says is not changed, Not one god has annulled his utterance.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:151–52

Has [the Lord] said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?
—Hebrew Bible, Numbers 23:19

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Word of him [Marduk] shall endure, not to be forgotten.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:31–2

The word of our God shall stand forever.
—Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 40:8

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Let them ever speak of his [Mardukʼs] exaltation, let them sing his praises!
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:24

Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength; we will sing and praise your might.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 21:13

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His [Mardukʼs] beneficent roar shall thunder over the earth.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:120

But His [Godʼs] thunder… rumbles from his mouth… under the whole heaven, and his lightning to the ends of the earth.
—Hebrew Bible, Job 26:14 and 37:2-3

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[Marduk,] who crossed vast Tiamat [sea goddess] back and forth in his wrath, Spanning her like a bridge at the place of single combat.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:74

Thy way [God] was in the sea, and Thy paths in the mighty waters. He [God] tramples down the waves of the sea.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 77:19 and Job 9:8

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He [Marduk], profound of wisdom, ingenious in perception,
Whose heart is so deep that none of the gods can comprehend it.
—Enuma Elish Tablet VII:117–18

He [God] who does great things, unfathomable, and wondrous works.
—Hebrew Bible, Job 9:10

Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord.
—Hebrew Bible, Psalm 86:8

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The Mesopotamians, like the Egyptians, held high-god notions alongside crude polytheistic ones. For instance, consider this prayer exalting a Mesopotamian moon-god

Merciful, gracious father, who holds all the life of the land in your hand! Lord, your divinity is like the distant heaven, like the broad sea, full of fearfulness… whose deep mind no god penetrates… the source of all things, who sees and protects all creatures! Lord, who determines the destiny of heaven and earth, whose command no one can alter… In the heavens—who is high? You alone are high. On earth—who is high? You alone are high. [Helmer Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East, trans. John Sturdy (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973), p. 57]

In Babylon, Marduk, instead of the moon-god, attained top-god status. In a ritual for the New Year festival, Marduk was invoked in this fashion:

My lord is my god, my lord is my ruler, is there any lord apart from him? [Ringgren, p. 110]

And Nebuchadnezzar II prayed at his accession to Marduk:

Everlasting lord, master of all that exists, grant to the king, whom you love, and whose name you name, all that is pleasant to you. Keep him on the right way… You have created me and entrusted to me the dominion over all peoples. O lord, let me according to your grace, which you pour over them all, love your exalted might, and create in my heart fear of your divinity. [Ringgren, p. 67]

And in Enuma Elish Marduk is:

The trust of the land, city and people. The people shall praise him forever… At his name the gods shall tremble and quake… Who administers justice, uproots twisted testimony, In whose place falsehood and truth are distinguished… Who uprooted all enemies… snuffed out all wicked ones… his name shall be the truth! [Enuma Elish, Tablet VI:135–36, 146 and VII:39–40, 43, 45, 54]

The Damned Write the Damnedest Poems!

1. Poems about religion and/or leaving the fold
2. Poems about nature, life, love and death
3. Poems about science, evolution, creation, intelligent design
4. Poems about atheism
5. Poems and portions of poems by Mary Oliver, most are from her book, Evidence
6. Additional noteworthy poems

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Poems about religion and/or leaving the fold

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Chipmunk Crucifixion

No chipmunk had to be crucified
on a tiny cross of twigs
To save all the other chippies,
Had to have nails pounded
through his little paws,
Had to take upon himself
all the sins of all the chippies
that ever were or would be
and die in agony
So that after they died
all the chippies
could live again forever,
But only if they believed
in all the sayings and doings
of the chipmunk crucified
on the tiny cross of twigs.

Antler, Last Words

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Gore Adore

Thank you Jesus for letting me see you slain.
I adore your blood, I love your wounds,
and I wear your cross with ache and strain.
I love the slaughter, I adore the gore.
Please let me have some more.

Amen

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About Jesus

Iʼm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
My motherʼs a jew, my fatherʼs a bird.
With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree,
So hereʼs to disciples and Calvary.
If anyone thinks that I amnʼt divine
Heʼll get no free drinks when Iʼm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
Goodbye, now, goodbye. Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead.
Whatʼs bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivetʼs breezy… Goodbye, now, goodbye.

James Joyce (from Ullysses, 1922)

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Sacrifice

For God gave His only Son,
His only, His pride, His number one.
Forgive me if I pick a bone,
But wasnʼt it more like a loan?

Ed (worldling2)

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Some Thorny Questions About the Resurrection

Did He have to pee like a racehorse after three long days?

Did He think, man, when a guy gets wrapped for the tomb do they use ENOUGH linen and spices?

And on the road to Emmaus, had He, you know, borrowed a shirt and a pair of pants? Of all the hints and suggestions in the Gospels that Jesus may have had a few brothers, thatʼs the tiny hint that seems revealing to me, donʼt you think He mightʼve swung by His brothersʼ apartment and nicked a shirt and left a note: Dude, Iʼll make it up to you…

Brian Doyle (editor of Portland Magazine)

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Lamb of God

Behold, behold, The Lamb of God
As it skips and hops.
I know that soon The Lamb of God
Will be the Lamb of chops.

Spike Milligan

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Jesus dying
People frying,
Having faith
Can be so trying.

Edward T. Babinski

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Oh, Lord, Please Donʼt Burn Us

Oh Lord please donʼt burn us
donʼt kill or toast your flock
Donʼt put us on the barbecue
or simmer us in stock,
Donʼt bake or baste or boil us
or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please donʼt lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Donʼt fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please donʼt stick thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat”

Composed by Eric Idle and John Du Prez,
authored by Graham Chapman and John Cleese

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Bertrand de Born Smuggles a Letter Out of Hell

by D. Nurkse

Dearest, I am happy in the fire.

The lighting is spectacular,
snaking tongues, a rain of sparks,
and the moans of the damned thrill me.

There is no death here. Godʼs love
revives us at the brink of extinction.

The torments are cunningly varied
but there is not one that does not correspond
to a dream I wailed at as a child
before my mother heard and soothed me.

I was condemned for being the poet
who praises war, trop estau en patz.
So shadow destriers piss on me
and drag their shit-stained carapaisons
across my welts, and the infantry
who died at Beziers, young and callow,
pierce me with non-existent lances,

but suffering is just a story
I tell myself, as in the crib.
No fire can singe my mind
except our separation.

P.S. Dante passed here in a toga woven
of strangely fire-resistant merino
and I trusted him with this message.

I scored it on vellum with a live coal,
searing holes shaped like letters.

Darling, hold it to your hazel eyes,
and see my constancy, my will,
and through this play of gaps
see the world the living cannot notice
without a lens or a screen:

the oak forest, deep-shadowed in May,
our wedding village, white dressed stone,
Hautefort, the first defenses of Paradise.

D. Nurkse, Ploughshares, v. 34, no.1 (Spring 2008)

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Stanzas from a devout and well known Christian Hymn Writer, Isaac Watts

Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
A fiery tempest pour,
While we beneath thy sheltʼring wings
Thy just revenge adore.
[Book 1 Hymn 42]

There endless crowds of sinners lie,
And darkness makes their chains;
Tortured with keen despair they cry,
Yet wait for fiercer pains.
Not all their anguish and their blood
For their old guilt atones,
Nor the compassion of a God
Shall hearken to their groans.
[Book 2, Hymn 2]

Lord, I ascribe it to thy grace,
And not to chance as others do,
That I was born of Christian race,
And not a heathen, or a Jew.
[Divine and Moral Songs, Song 6, Praise for the Gospel]

[Speaking of Wattsʼ negative view of “the Jews,” he also wrote] See the fiery flying serpents, as the messengers of divine anger, to punish the rebellion of the Israelites in the wilderness: mark what multitudes in the camp of Israel received their mortal sting, and were given up to destruction and death . . . See Jerusalem, the city of God, all in flames [in 70 A.D.], and the whole land of Judea laid desolate, with deepest distress diffused and reigning among all the inhabitants of it: above a million of them were actually slaughtered and consumed by famine and sword, as a sacrifice to the anger of God, for their long provocations, and the cruel barbarous murder of his Son Jesus. [Excerpts from The World to Come or Discouces on the Joys or Sorrows of Departed Souls]

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The Expulsion

Adam was happy — now he had someone to blame
for everything: shipwrecks, Troy,
the gray face in the mirror.

Eve was happy — now he would always need her.
She walked on boldly, swaying her beautiful hips.

The serpent admired his emerald coat,
the Angel burst into flames
(heʼd never approved of them, and he was right).

Even God was secretly pleased: Let
History begin!

The dog had no regrets, trotting by Adamʼs side
self-importantly, glad to be rid
of the lion, the toad, the basilisk, the white-footed mouse,
who were also happy and forgot their names immediately.

Only the Tree of Knowledge stood forlorn,
its small hard bitter crab apples
glinting high up, in a twilight of black leaves.
How pleasant it had been, how unexpected
to have been, however briefly,
the center of attention.

Katha Pollitt (from The Mind-Body Problem, Random House, 2009)

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The Septuagint

The seventy-two elders
sequestered by Ptolemy
Philadelphus in chambers,
a cell for every scholar,
were told by the King of Egypt:
“Translate the books of Moshe [Moses],
your teacher, into Greek.”

Two days and ten weeks later
seventy-two translations
transcribed from memory
by grey-bearded rebbis
were word for word the same.
When you believe this legend,
you will know the Holy Spirit.

Timothy Murphy (a poem he wrote for Seree Cohen Zohar)

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Most Zealots are eager to tell us
That their God is bad-tempered and jealous.
They go on for hours
Describing His powers
With a zeal thatʼs excessively zealous.

R. S. Gwynn (a brief selection from Sects from A to Z)

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I donʼt want to start any blasphemous rumors,
But I think that Godʼs got a sick sense of humor,
And when I die I expect to find Him laughing.

Depeche Mode, “Blasphemous Rumors” [song]

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Our forefathers (thanks to good King James)
Talked funny, They had oddish names.
They fell in love, succumbed to lust,
And trampled strangers in the dust.
They suffered flood and fire and drought.
A few of them remained devout.
Their lives were jolly, vapid, grim,
According to Jehovahʼs whim.
How little things have changed since then!
Whose fault that is, God knows. Amen.”

Jeanne & William Steig, The Old Testament Made Easy

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People who do not live in Rome,
but pretend to,
are called Roman Catholics.
And they have a great many fathers,
who dress like ladies,
and do not have children.
This is so that a lady who gives birth to a boy,
without a father,
can call him God.

Edwin Brock, Paroxisms: A Guide to the Isms

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Free to Err

The secrets of the bible are sealed,
out of Godʼs love for men.
truths and enigmatic mystery,
tucked ʻtween the pages within.

a simple person like me is not fit to interpret
or even understand,
- the good lord wants it so, - suffering is right and just,
recall the fall and Godʼs curse on man.

iʼm not wise enough to know all truth,
donʼt pretend to understand,
but if Jesus paid the price, why then the collection plate
passed ʻround sunday to pay a preacher man?

simple believers are never worthy,
to explain Godʼs holy word
theyʼll tell you so, in a pious squint,
at least thatʼs so inside the church;

the service ends and the brethren leave,
heading separate ways,
bound to cross an unbeliever, theyʼre transformed,
giving expert witness by power of almighty grace:

“Believe in the Holy Ghost
and the only begotten Son,
through Jesus Christ ye shall be saved,
by the power of his sacred blood.

“Spare yourself from His infinite wrath
that shall fall as lightning on the unbeliever,
Just believe in the Bible as His inspired word,
faith alone in the blood of the redeemer.”

“Darwin may claim man came from ape,
but the truth is within this Holy book,
God formed man from the dust of the ground,
you must only take a look!”
“Read here for yourself, the book of Genesis,
oh how Darwin lied, kind begats kind!
- created them male and female -,
commanding, ‘Be fruitful, Multiply’.”

What is this? You who know all truth?,
from times and places you have never been,
of things you have not seen,
nor having any evidence?!
This book you call Holy, Sacred, Inspired, Truth,
claiming divine origin for its creation,
yet, I find your faith rather crude.

That book holds all secrets,
even the origins of life itself?
If life was formed from “simple dust”,
then why hasnʼt science discovered this yet?

You say science cannot be trusted,
and Darwin told a lie, you say man
and ape are un-related,
yet, look what Iʼm beholding with my eyes:

Wasnʼt it you sitting in yonder church,
with open mind to what preacher says “just believe”,
as they say, “monkey see monkey do”,
arenʼt you remarkably good at mimmicking!

You tell me here, that science books,
Darwin, Evolution, cannot be trusted by men,
yet 40,000 denominations,
all EVOLVED from one Christianity!

You say the Bible need not explain
the geological record or modern astronomy,
neither is there mention of chromosomes or telomeres,
the microscopic fabric of DNA.

If the Bible fails to render all truths,
why should I render my faith?
if your God and Bible are free to err,
then so am I, what to say?

Sharon Mooney

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Leaves

One by one, like leaves from a tree,
All my faiths have forsaken me;
But the stars above my head
Burn in white and delicate red,
And beneath my feet the earth
Brings the sturdy grass to birth.
I who was content to be
But a silken-singing tree,
But a rustle of delight
In the wistful heart of night—
I have lost the leaves that knew
Touch of rain and weight of dew.
Blinded by a leafy crown
I looked neither up nor down—
But the little leaves that die
Have left me room to see the sky;
Now for the first time I know
Stars above and earth below.

Sara Teasdale, Rivers to the Sea (1915)

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The Last Prayer I Uttered As A Christian

This morning, Lord, I come before You
A Holy Soldier at Your feet
It is I, Nobody Special
A Jar of Clay that You complete

Iʼve lived my life as a Believer
Extolled Your virtues, praised Your name
A Demon Hunter, Holy Soldier
Saved by Grace, my only claim

Iʼve lived by faith, my Creed persistent
A Living Sacrifice for You
But whereʼs the proof? Itʼs nonexistent
Imaginary will just not due

An Ultimatum is before me
Set by me by my free will
The Crucified or rationality
I want real truth to set me free

My mindʼs made up, I choose You not
Itʼs Evanescence of the faith
At Six Feet Deep Iʼll simply rot
The soulʼs not Payable On Death

I will not cry for Your Deliverance
When my time comes As I Lay Dying
Will love my neighbor and Die Happy
Will change the world or will die trying

A Barren Cross is a nice story
But so is Santa and Mother Goose
I believe not in eternal glory
Not by Christ, Allah nor Zeus

Iʼm not the Bride, and not the Stryper
I nailed You not to cross nor tree
I am no longer Your Disciple
From this day on, Iʼm JezuzFree

JezuzFree

---

I Believed

There is a grave deep and wide
The death of innocence lies inside
Itʼs full of things I once believed
Dreams of a child, so naive
Tales of faires in the night
Sneaking in before day light
A tooth for a dime and then to part
Yes,I believed with all my heart

And Santa Claus knows everything
The stuff youʼd like for him to bring
His watchful eyes, see all I do
Youʼd best beware heʼs watching you
To see if youʼve been bad or good
And minded your folks like you should
Oh I believed right from the start
Yes, I believed with all my heart

And there was god up in the sky
Youʼd go to see him when you die
His watchful eyes see all you do
Youʼd best beware heʼs watching you
He hears the things you say and more
Wait…have I heard this tale before?
Oh I believed right from the start
Yes, I believed with all my heart

But then one night I played the sleuth
To see the fairy take the tooth
But the hand under the pillow was mommas hand
It was so hard to understand
They always said I shouldnʼt lie
How could they ..I wondered why
To know the truth tore me apart
Cause I believed with all my heart

Then kids at school made fun of me
And said St Nick was make believe
I said your wrong you just donʼt know
Itʼs true …my daddy told me so
But when I asked he took a pause
Then said there is no Santa Claus
And to know he lied tore me apart
Cause I believed with all my heart

But the worst was yet to come you know
For though the bible told me so
I found it too was just a lie
There was no god up in the sky
The death of my faith came that day
All my beliefs had gone away
And to know the truth tore me apart
Cause I believed with all my heart
Yes, I believed..with all my heart

Rebecca Sayre

---

Salvation

To convince me
that Iʼm guilty
is not difficult —
I hear that still small voice
of empathy
that encourages me to work
for the good of my pack
and the continuation of my species.
Yes, Iʼve lied,
Iʼve been selfish.
Lay it on thick now:
as I reflect on my humanity,
set up your arbitrary mark
and I just might begin to believe
that Iʼve missed it.
I seek the worldʼs wisdom,
I have priorities that donʼt include
paying homage to invisible absentees,
I touch myself while thinking of
my neighbor —
I am human, naked,
and for this I suddenly feel ashamed.
Your silver-tongued diatribe
has me cursing my allegorical ancestors
for refusing to live
in blind obedience.
Just like them, Iʼve reached out for knowledge
and for this, I, too, should be cursed.
My emotions raw from the whip of guilt,
I seek solace as you play my heartstrings.
What could be more touching
than Maryʼs little lamb,
slaughtered;
an innocent man, condemned to die,
for crimes youʼve pinned on me?
I canʼt stop to think
about the logic
(or lack thereof)
in your Ultimate Lawgiver being unable to change
His Ultimate Laws
(or, for that matter, failing to live by them Himself);
thinking is what got me into this mess to begin with.
No longer wise in my own eyes,
I accept your allegation that innocent blood
is on my hands, and that the only way to wash it off
is to bathe in it.
Iʼll believe anything — and believe I do —
to lift my spirit from this miry clay
(Iʼll pretend I didnʼt see you earlier, pouring your holy water
on the solid ground beneath my feet).
And so it goes, that my guilt becomes love
and adoration:
when a psyche is battered and bruised this much,
most anything looks like healing.
Vicariously you accept these gifts
and you know that soon youʼll have me
on my knees,
eating sacrament out of the palm of your hand.
While looking forward to a never-ending reward
doled out by a nepotistic tyrant,
Iʼll devote my life in service
to filling your deep pockets.
Iʼll curse my earthly body,
dying to myself daily,
while the terrestrial beings
go on learning, and living.

Chantal Patton

---

Seek the Truth And It Will Set You Free
[A poem for theists—ETB]

Dare to question, dare to test things,
Dare to seek, search unconfined,
Godʼs embodied in your question
Already God had you in mind.

Dare to question, dare to feel doubt
Dare to take the path you chose
Godʼs is already deep inside you
Closer than you dare suppose.

Dare to question, dare to say no to
Far too simple, glib replies,
Dare to wait and dare to waver,
God will still be at your side

Dare to question, bold and fearless,
God will still believe in you
Life in you is Godʼs own purpose,
Already, God has you in view.

Dare to question, doubt and wonder,
You are loved, by God retrieved
You are longed for, seen, discovered,
Free to live and to believe

Tor Littmark

---

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Poems about nature, life, love and death

---

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A Creed

There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

Edwin Markham

---

“A Fellow Man”

I have no prayers or charms of faith
If God there be, Heʼll know my weight

If God be nought, Iʼll still do good
And practice justice as I should

We should not seek reward to do
What decency expects us to

Should Heaven be a kingly court
Iʼll go elsewhere to prove my worth

Donʼt get me wrong – Iʼve sought belief
But lust for faith brought no relief

Mere logic leaves me where I stand
I am not blest, nor am I damned

I seek to do what good I can
I am your friend, a fellow man

---

The Meaning of Existence

Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.
Even this fool of a body
lives it in part, and would
have full dignity within it
but for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.

Les Murray (from Poems the Size of Photographs, 2002)

---

Whoever knows only how to help himself, and with words—thereʼs no helping him. Not in the short run and not in the long.

Ingeborg Bachmann, a few lines from her poem, Wahrlich

---

The Stranger from Beyond the Sky

The handsome stranger cast his eye
On Shirley-girl and gave a sigh.
“Oh talk a while,” he said, “with I.”
She liked his noble knobby dome.
They dinnered at the Hippodrome.
She fell for him, she brought him home.
“Oh, mother see this guy of mine,”
She said. “Heʼs from a noble line.
His I.Q. soars to 9-9-9.”
But what the mother said was, “Yoik!
I doubt me, girl, that it will woik.
It strikes me that he is a joik.
“It isnʼt just his extra eye,
Or that he lives beyond the sky,
Or has more toes than you or I,
“Or whale bone teeth. But itʼs a shock
When from his brow the cuckoo cock
Pops out and carols, ‘Eight Oʼclock.’
“Oh give him dear, I beg, the boot.
You no more need this alien brute
Than fishes need a parachute.”
Said Shirley, “Stranger, itʼs been keen.
I loved your mouthful of baleen.
And now I beg you Leave the Scene.”
He wept a tear. The tear was green.

R. A. Lafferty

---

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains — but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Sara Teasdale

---

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see whatʼs really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we canʼt escape,
Yet canʼt accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

---

Thermodynamics of Immortality

When I die, scatter my ashes to the wind to settle
on a forest floor where earthworms buffet

through rich humus, where I pass from intestines
as nutrients taken by acorns, sprout, stretch

toward sunlight, year after year, inch my way to a branch
steeped with cicada eggs so I fall to the ground

and burrow, eat sap for seventeen years,
burst forth for two frenzied days seeking a mate,

when a burnt-ember cardinal snatches me, red
and cackling, catching warm air pockets from the pavement

until winter moves in; I huddle on a branch, fall asleep,
thud to the cold ground, dissolve slowly

into the icy creek, flow like mercury,
weave over stones around roots under branches, turn warm,

briny, pull into a spiny starfish, pump
into slow feet, and crawl again.

Kelley Swain (from the book, Darwinʼs Microscope, which contains other brilliant pieces)

---

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Poems about science, evolution, creation, intelligent design

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What is Man?

Not a superman who stumbles,
but an ape with makeshift manners
in whose nickel-plated jungles
roam mechanical bananas.

William Tenn (famously funny sci-fi writer)

---

Creation

for the discoverer of the Grotte de Lascaux, Marcel Ravidat, 1923-1995

On all the living walls
of this dim cave,
soot and ochre, acts of will,
come down to us to say:

This is who we were.
We foraged here in an age of ice,
and, warmed by the fur of wolves,
felt the pride of predators
going for game.
Here we painted the strength of bulls,
the grace of deer, turned life into art,
and left this testimony on our walls.
Explorers of the future, see how,
when our dreams reach forward,
your wonder reaches back, and we embrace.
When we are long since dust,
and false prophets come,
then donʼt forget that we were your creators.
So build your days
on what you know is real, and remember
that nothing will keep your lives alive
but art - the black and ochre visions
you draw inside your cave
will honor your lost tribe,
when explorers in some far future
marvel at the paintings on your walls.

Philip Appleman, New and Selected Poems, 1956-1996

---

Thanksgiving

O let us give thanks for the glorious spasm
that spurted atoms on an endless quest
for the far edge of everything, letʼs
praise the ancient heave and buckle,
the burn, blister, and boil
that birthed our blue-green planet,
be grateful for the lucky spark
that seasoned our primal soup,
and honor the ultimate sacrifice
of the creeping pioneers
who dragged us up onto dry land.
Letʼs be thankful for the heroism
of all those fallen fathers
who bequeathed to us these novelties,
our clever arms and legs,
thankful too for the company
of moles and manatees, sloths and seals,
horses and hedgehogs - and thankful for
the monkeys, gibbons, and gorillas
who once upon a time set off
on gambles of their own, aping our long,
long hunger, vines
choking trees to reach the sun,
predators lurking at water holes.
Now, somewhere out there, the atoms race on,
still searching for the edge of everything,
but here, snug in our tundra and grassland,
our forest and savanna, let us thank
the furry ancestors who brought us
along this way, and now stay at our side
as we press on to some great adventure
just beyond our dreams.

Philip Appleman

---

Paradox

Not truth, nor certainty. These I forswore
In my novitiate, as young men called
To holy orders must abjure the world.
‘If…,then…,’ this only I assert;
And my successes are but pretty chains
Linking twin doubts, for it is vain to ask
If what I postulate be justified,
Or what I prove possess the stamp of fact.

Yet bridges stand, and men no longer crawl
In two dimension. And such triumphs stem
In no small measure from the power this game,
Played with the thrice-attentuated shades
Of things, has over their originals.
How frail the wand, but how profound the spell!

Clarence R. Wylie Jr.

---

Fear of God

Galileo was chided by the God-fearing for observing that the solar system is Copernican, not Ptolemaic. And yet… the wanderers did and do move about the sun.

Newton was chided by the God-fearing for describing all motions with mathematics, not with divine will. And yet…measurements in mechanics could and can be predicted with precision through calculation.

Lavoisier was chided by the God-fearing for explaining chemistry as quantative reactions, not as miracles or magic. And yet…substances did and do appear and disappear with predictable regularity in labs everywhere.

Darwin was chided by the God-fearing for showing the diversity of life resulting from ecological factors and adaption to them, not from theistic interventions. And yet…life had and has a single structure and has changed and does change forms in time.

Einstein was chided by the God-fearing for demonstrating the democracy of observers, not the absolute Godʼs-eye view. And yet…space and time have changed and do change from frame of reference to frame of reference, and the laws of nature have been and are the same for all frames.

Perhaps the God-fearing are right to fear God. If God is the source of reality, they have been fighting or ignoring Godʼs facts for four hundred years!

Ronnie J. Hastings, Ph.D. (1983)

---

At first men try with magic charm
To fertilize the earth,
To keep their flocks and herds from harm
And bring new young to birth.

Then to capricious gods they turn
To save from fire or flood,
Their smoking sacrifices burn
On altars red with blood.

Next bold philosopher and sage
A settled plan decree,
And prove by thought or sacred page
What Nature ought to be.

But Nature smiles – a Sphinx-like smile –
Watching their little day,
She waits in patience for a while
Their plans dissolve away.

Then come those humbler men of heart
With no completed scheme,
Content to play a modest part,
To test, observe and dream.

Till out of chaos come in sight
Clear fragments of a Whole;
Man, learning Natureʼs way aright,
Obeying, can control.

The great Design now glows afar;
But yet its changing Scenes
Reveal not what the Pieces are
Nor what the Puzzle means.

And Nature smiles – still unconfessed
The secret thought she thinks –
Inscrutable she guards unguessed
The Riddle of the Sphinx.

William Cecil Dampier (published in “A History of Science and Its Relations with Philosophy and Religion”)

---

So Far, So Good

From Labrador to Coral Sea
Our lives were stunted, bleak, unfree.
We shared our huts with rats and fleas
And lost our children to disease.
(Our holy men would sigh and nod
and tell us, “Thatʼs the will of God.”)
But then, with steam, vaccines and votes,
Our fortunes rose like tide-raised boats.
Weʼd more to eat; drew breath more years;
Dethroned (or worse) our tsars, emirs;
Sent men and mirrors as our eyes
To search the black galactic skies;
And in our cells, till then unseen,
We found our Fates, our djinns: our genes.
The worldʼs still cruel, thatʼs understood,
But once was worse. So far so good.

James C. Davis (from the Epilogue to The Human Story: Our History, From The Stone Age To today by James C. Davis, James Cushman Davis)

---

Fiddling

Evolution doesnʼt make things new from scratch.
It takes a lot of work to find something that works
and then it fiddles with it and makes variations on it
forever.
We
are a result of that fiddling.
Consciousness
is a result of that fiddling.

So now we —
late bright fiddlers on the scene —
find ourselves in the midst
of a timed test,
to see if we can fiddle more consciously,
intensely, brilliantly aware of
how
we are fiddling.

But first, it seems, sadly,
we must fiddle drunk while burning
our own earth empire,
barely aware
of what we are doing.

Deep inside our collective noise,
I hear the greatest music teacher,
Natural Selection,
reminding us, sternly,
to get serious soon
and practice, practice, practice
fiddling consciously,
awake, sober, wise…

Because as Evolution
comes awake,
we become its playing.
And if it rolls back to sleep
weʼll be gone.

Tom Atlee

---

Evolution

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Palaeozoic time,
And side by side, on the ebbing tide,
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved,
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift,
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of Time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we cought our breath from the womb of death,
And crept into light again.

We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead manʼs hand:
We coiled at ease ʻneath the dripping trees,
Or trailed through the mud and sand,
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet,
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more:
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The æons came and the æons fled,
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day,
And the night of death was past.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights;
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms,
In the hush of the moonless nights.
And oh, what beautiful years were these,
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled, and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech!

Thus life by life, and love by love,
We passed through the cycles strange;
And breath by breath, and death by death,
We followed the chain of change;
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing sod
The shadows broke, and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch bull,
And tusked like the great Cave Bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet,
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the nights fell oʼer the plain,
And the moon hung red oʼer the river bed,
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge,
And shaped it with brutish craft:
I broke a shank from the woodland dank,
And fitted it, head to haft.
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn,
Where the Mammoth came to drink:
Through brawn and bone I drave the stone,
And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonless wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin:
From west and east to the crimson feast
The clan came trooping in.
Oʼer joint and gristle and padded hoof,
We fought and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl, with many a growl,
We talked the marvel oʼer.

I carved that fight on a reindeer bone,
With rude and hairy hand:
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall,
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood, and the right of might,
Ere human laws were drawn,
And the Age of Sin did not begin
Till our brutal tusks were gone.

And that was a million years ago,
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here tonight, in the mellow light,
We sit at Delmonicoʼs.
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair as dark as jet:
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet –

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay,
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags:
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones,
And deep in the Coralline crags.
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain:
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?

God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds,
And furnished them wings to fly:
He sowed our spawn in the worldʼs dim dawn,
And I know that it shall not die;
Though cities have sprung above the graves
Where the crook-boned men made war,
And the ox-wain creeks oʼer the buried caves,
Where the mummied Mammoths are.

For we know that the clod, by the grace of God,
Will quicken with voice and breath;
And we know that Love, with gentle hand,
Will beckon from death to death.
And so, as we linger at luncheon here,
Over many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.

Langdon Smith

---

Itʼs a Long Way from Amphioxus

Oh a fish-like thing appeared among the annelids one day
It hadnʼt any parapods nor setae to display
It hadnʼt any eyes or jaws or ventral nervous chord,
But it had a lot of gill slits and it had a notochord.

CHORUS:

Itʼs a long way from Amphioxus
Itʼs a long way to us,
Itʼs a long way from Amphioxus
To the meanest human cuss.
Well, itʼs good-bye to fins and gill slits,
And itʼs welcome lungs and hair,
Itʼs a long, long way from Amphioxus
But we all came from there.

It wasnʼt much to look at and it scarce knew how to swim,
And Nerius was very sure it hadnʼt come from him
The molluscs wouldnʼt own it and the arthropods got sore,
So the poor thing had to burrow in the sand along the shore.

(CHORUS)

He burrowed in the sand before a crab did nip his tail,
And he said, “Gill slits and myotomes are all to noavail,
Iʼve grown some metoplural folds and sport an oral hood,
But all these fine new characters donʼt do me any good.”

(CHORUS)

He sulked a while down in the sand without a bit of pep,
Then he stiffened up his notochord and said “Iʼll beat ʻem yet,
Let ʻem laugh and show their ignorance I donʼt mind their jeers,
Just wait until they see me in 100 million years!”

(CHORUS)

My notochord shall change into a chain of vertebrae,
And as fins my metoplural folds shall agitate the sea;
My tiny dorsal nervous chords shall be a mighty brain,
And the vertebrae shall dominate the animal domain.”

---

Our Intelligent Designer

Our Intelligent Designer,
Who art in the unspecified-good-place,
Unknown be Thy name.
Thy flagella spin, Thy mousetraps snap,
On Earth, as it is in the
Unspecified-good-place.
Give us each day our unchecked apologetic.
And forgive us our invidious comparisons,
As we smite those iniquitous Darwinists
With rhetoric.
And lead us not into encounters with people
Who ask us to state our theory,
But deliver us from biologists
Who know what weʼre up to.
For Thine is the irreducible complexity,
And the wiggly parts of bacterial bottoms,
And the inapplicable theorems,
Now and forever.
Amen.

Wesley Elsberry (on The Pandaʼs Thumb blog)

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IDʼs ID

by Tom McIver

ID, ID, burning bright,
Rescue us from Darwinʼs fright,
Beastly origin of our race,
Evolutionʼs dread embrace.

But what science or what art
Frames immortal hand, eye, heart?
Can we force religionʼs claim,
Dare pronounce His very name?

Yahweh, Zeus, or Allah, then?
Yaldaboath, Urizen?
Raël’s ET DNA?
Hosts of deities at play?

Ask the Ichneumonidae
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Who created Heavʼn and Hell,
Human creativity?

IDʼs ID burning bright
Through obscuring fog and night,
Whether wielding Wedge or prism
ID is: Creationism.

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Design

The poet, Robert Frost once wrote a little gem, titled, “Design,” in which he described a “fat, dimpled spider” sitting on a flower, having just finished devouring a moth, “itʼs dead wings carried like a paper kite.” Frost pointed out that this “snow-drop spider” was of the same white hue as the flower it sat upon, so it could lie in wait without being detected. The flowerʼs sweet scent attracted moths to dine at the very place where the moths then became the dinner of the camouflaged spider. Frost asked:

What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?—
If design govern in a thing so small.

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Oh Rose, thou art sick;
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Hath found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark, secret love,
Doth thy life destroy.

William Blake

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Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation

Since that first morning when I crawled
into the world, a naked grubby thing,
and found the world unkind,
my dearest faith has been that this
is but a trial: I shall be changed.
In my imaginings I have already spent
my brooding winter underground,
unfolded silky powdered wings, and climbed
into the air, free as a puff of cloud
to sail over the steaming fields,
slighting anywhere I pleased,
thrusting into deep tubular flowers.

It is not so: there may be nectar
in those cups, but not for me.
All day, all night, I carry on my back
embedded in my flesh, two rows
of little white cocoons,
so neatly stacked
they look like eggs in a crate.
And I am eaten half away.

If I can gather strength enough
Iʼll try to burrow under a stone
and spin myself a purse
in which to sleep away the cold;
though when the sun kisses the earth
again, I know I wonʼt be there.
Instead, out of my chrysalis
will break, like robbers from a tomb,
a swarm of parasitic flies,
leaving my wasted husk behind.

Sir, you with the red snippers
in your hand, hovering over me,
casting your shadow, I greet you,
whether you come as an angel of death
or of mercy. But tell me,
before you choose to slice me in two:
Who can understand the ways
of the Great Worm in the Sky?

Stanley Kunitz

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“A Mouse that prayed for Allahʼs aid
Blasphemed when no such aid befell;
A Cat, who feasted on the mouse,
Thought Allah managed vastly well.”

Saki, “For the Duration of the War” 1915

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I think that I shall never see
A God so cruel
heʼd make a Flea!

A Flea whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against my dogʼs
hot itching breast.

A Flea that looks for dogs all day
And jumps three feet
to land its prey.

My dog (who may in summer wear
ten nests of Fleas
deep in his hairs)

Upon his bosom they have lain,
He intimately lives
with pain!

Brave doubts are born in fools like me:
There is no god
whoʼd make a Flea!

Rosemary E. Morgan (1965)

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Poems about atheism

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Heaven

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their watʼry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!

One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.

We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! — Death eddies near —
Not here the appointed End, not here!

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,

Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.

Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;

Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.

And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

Rupert Brooke, 1913

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Atheist

Iʼm not supposed to tell you Iʼm an atheist.
You might be concerned I have no moral compass,
no certainty concerning the finer points of the universe.
Better to dress it up and affect Taoist,
Plump it up and claim agnostic—gush
Gosh, wouldnʼt it be nice to know?
Make of God such a windy abstraction
one might as well pray to the wind,
but please donʼt say that word.
Sorry. I love life, Earth
its glorious habitat, sailing
through space, teeming with intelligent
faithful killing each other to confirm
which speaks for God. In silence I am
still mindful of our course,
our vessel,
the frailty of the crew,
its rare and precious cargo.

Dennis Danvers

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To look out upon the astounding universe
with eye unblinking and a face unblanched;
to ignore no truth and fear no fact;
to be ready to re-cast opinion in the crucible of experience;
to forgive without demanding apology;
to keep affection in spite of misunderstanding;
to set our thought upon the things of value
and spend our strength in the fulfilling of noble purposes;
to reverence the reverences of others
rather than what they revere;
to be alert to Natureʼs pageantry of beauty,
though we dwell amid the cityʼs clamor;
to get the most out of Life
and give the most we can;
to be guided in our conduct by the angel of Intelligence
and not by the gaunt spectre of Fear;
to approach our last hour with the calm of a philosopher and the gentleness of a saint,
and to leave the world enriched by a treasury of kindly deeds and a memory of love;
this is our Aspiration,
this is our Ideal.

from Words of Aspiration
Arthur W. Slaten, 1927

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Free Will and Suffering

Humankind longs for belief
in a god of comfort
to ease their grief
and provide relief
when times are difficult.

Yet a problem remains:
this belief does not
take away all pains.
So, human brains
devised the “free will” concept

to explain why the god they made
sits invisible and silent
in the face of pain,
and suffering remains
in spite of prayers to remove it.

God gets praises from throngs
when times are blissful,
but when things go wrong
the blame belongs
to human “free will”?!

All of this mythology —
the god, the free will,
the apologies —
isnʼt good for the human psyche
when viewed as literal.

Chantal Patton

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Life

Where is the dice
Which decides my destiny?
Where is the dice
That controls my life?

I say, there is no dice,
Dice is an illusion,
Life does not need a dice,
It only adds to the confusion…

What is life anyways?
Why do we have life?
Did god create life? then who created god?
Are these even right questions to ask? probably not…

Is life really that special?
I think its all biology and chemistry,
Is there life elsewhere?
That is the real mystery…

The universe is an old and humongous lab,
Rare things like life are inevitable and bound to happen,
Life is just a flow energy,
Life doesnt need a supreme being or a creation…

We were all dead for billions of years,
Then we are born and live for few years…
We will all be dead for I dont know how many years,
Life is just a blink, in the cosmic scale of years…

So whats the moral of this poem?
Life is a journey,
Life is beautiful.
Life is purposeless,
And life is YOU.

Ripu DaMan Jain (Facebook, 2012)

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Poems and portions of poems by Mary Oliver, most are from her book, Evidence

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Prayer

May I never not be frisky,
May I never not be risque.

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
and give them to the ocean,

leap in the froth of the waves,
still loving movement,

still ready, beyond all else,
to dance for the world.

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Almost a Conversation

I have not really, not yet, talked with otter
about his life.

He has so many teeth, he has trouble
with vowels.

Wherefore our understanding
is all body expression—

he swims like the sleekest fish,
he dives and exhales and lifts a trail of bubbles.
Little by little he trusts my eyes
and my curious body sitting on the shore.

Sometimes he comes close.
I admire his whiskers
and his dark fur which I would rather die than wear.

He has no words, still what he tells about his life
is clear.
He does not own a computer.
He imagines the river will last forever.
He does not envy the dry house I live in.
He does not wonder who or what it is that I worship.
He wonders, morning after morning, that the river
is so cold and fresh and alive, and still
I donʼt jump in.

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I Want To Write Something So Simply

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read it
you keep feeling it
and though it might be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think -
no, you will realize -
that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your own heart
had been saying.

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Mysteries, Yes

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment. . .

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Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

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We Shake With Joy

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two
housed as they are in the same body.

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Additional noteworthy poems

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The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if theyʼre a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi (translation by Coleman Barks)

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Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye

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Still Water

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us, that they may see, it may be, their own images, and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.

W.B. Yeats

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Bivalves

The pearl
Is a disease of the oyster.
A poem
Is a disease of the spirit
Caused by the irritation
Of a granule of Truth
Fallen into that soft gray bivalve
We call the mind.

Christopher Morley