Chapitre troisieme
Chapter Three
Chumantou. tu as dit d'abord que le Brindabonon etoit le lieu qu'habitoit l'être Supreme et que c'etoit un lieu ou tout etoit etemel.Si cela est vrai, pourquoy donc y voit on mourir les hommes comme partout ailleurs? tout est en effet eternel et immuable dans le lieu qu'habite l'être Suprême, mais il ne fit jamais de la terre le lieu de son sejour. tu as dit de plus, que la terre avoit pris la figure d'une vache. la terre est un element sans vie. a qui donc fera tu croire une pareille impertinence? et si elle l'eut prise, en effet, que seroient devenus ses habitans. il n'a fallu a l'être Suprême, qu'un acte de sa volonté pour créer le monde, il ne faut de même qu'un acte de sa volonté pour le reduire en cendres. luy en eut il donc fallu davantage pour faire perir une de ses créatures: C'est raisonner en insensé, que de luy faire prendre, pour cela, une figure sensible et de le faire incarner dans le sein de Doiboki. dieu est le maitre de qui tout depend et a qui tout obeït. il commande au vent et au soleil, il fait entendre sa voix aux êtres mêmes inanimes. il leur donne ses ordres et les fait exécuter; et tu nous le represente tremblant devant une de ses créatures, allant se cacher dans la maison d'un berger pour se mettre a couvert de sa fureur. Les occupations que tu luy donne ne sont pas plus dignes de luy. tu luy fais passer sa premiere jeunesse ou enfance a garder des vaches et a voler du lait. Comment ne rougis tu pas de donner des inclinations si honteuses a celuy que tu regarde comme l'être suprême et une occupation si indigne de luy. enlever par force la femme d'autruy, passa toujours dans le monde pour une infamie, et tu fais commettre cette infamie a celuy que tu adore comme ton dieu. Dieu est plein d'horreur pour le vice; il en est le vengeur et tu ne le fais paroitre sur la terre, que pour y donner des exemples de libertinage et de prostitution. Dieu n'a crée que la vertu. ce n'est qu'en elle qu'il met ses complaisances, il s'en est déclaré le protecteur, et tu le represente avec des inclinations toutes vicieuses, qu'il porte jusqu'aux plus infames desordres, jusqu'å l'abomination. mais pourquoy m'arrêter a parler raison et a instruire un miserable qui n'a jamais connu ce que c'est que la vertu. ce seroit une tache a un homme vertueux d'avoir deux femmes et tu en donne jusqu'a seize mille a celuy que tu appelle l'être Suprême le Para Bramma. chacun se fait un devoir de respecter le mariage et de le celebrer de la maniere ordonnée par les Vedans, mais ton Chrixnou ne sçut user que de force et de violence et ne respecta jamais aucune loy. L'être Suprême est éternel et n'eut jamais ny corps ny figure: il n'eut jamais de principe, comme il n'aura jamais de fin, et tu dis, homme insensé, qu'il est né sur la terre et a été élevé dans la maison d'un berger. enfin, celuy, que les hommes vertueux ne possedent que par leurs desirs, sans pouvoir atteindre jusqu'a luy, tandis qu'ils sont sur la terre. ce dieu qui ne peut rien desirer hors de luy même, parce qu'il n'est pas de vraie perfection hors de luy, est, s'il faut t'en croire, tout livré a une troupe de femmes et ne montre d'inclination, que pour le vice et la dissolution. Si on voit des deffauts dans le reste des hommes, on y voit quelque vertu; mais dans ton Chrixnou on ne voit rien de bon, tout est crime dans luy: tout est abomination. en un mot ce Chrixnou est le plus grand des pecheurs. il a rassemblé, dans luy, tous les vices et les a tous portes a leur comble. prodiguer le nom de Dieu a une creature, est toujours un crime, mais le prostituer a un homme infame tout pétri de peches, est un crime au dessus de tous les crimes, un crime qui ne se pardonne jamais.
Chumantou. You said first that the Brindabonon was the place where the Supreme being lived, and that it was a place where everything was eternal. If this is true, why then do we see men die there as everywhere else? Everything is indeed eternal and unchanging in the place where the Supreme Being dwells, but he never made the earth the place of his sojourn. You said, moreover, that the earth took the figure of a cow. The earth is a lifeless element. Who will you make believe such impertinence? And if it had taken it, in fact, what would have become of its inhabitants? The Supreme being only needed an act of his will to create the world, just as an act of his will is needed to reduce it to ashes. So it took him more to kill one of his creatures. It is reasoning madly to make him take for that a sensitive figure, and to make him incarnate in the bosom of Doiboki. God is the master on whom everything depends and to whom everything obeys. He commands the wind and the sun. He makes his voice heard even in inanimate beings. He gives them his orders, and has them carried out. And you represent him to us trembling in front of one of his creatures, going to hide in the house of a shepherd to cover himself with his fury? The occupations you give him are not worthy of him. You make him spend his early youth or childhood keeping cows and stealing milk. How do you not blush to give such shameful inclinations to him whom you regard as the supreme being, an occupation so unworthy of him? To abduct by force the wife of another, always passing in the world for infamy, and you make him commit this infamy, the one whom you adore as your god? God is horrified by vice. He is its avenger, and you only make it appear on earth to give examples of licentiousness and prostitution. God created only virtue. It is only in virtue that he puts his complacency. He declared himself its protector, and you represent him with all vicious inclinations, which he carries even to the most infamous disorders, even to abomination. But why should I stop speaking reason and instructing a miserable man who has never known what virtue is? It would be a task for a virtuous man to have two wives, and you give up to sixteen thousand to him whom you call the Supreme Being, the Para Bramma. Everyone makes a point of respecting marriage, and celebrating it in the manner ordered by the Vedans, but your Chrixnu knew how to use only force and violence, and never respected any loy. The Supreme Being is eternal, and never had a body or figure in it. He never had a principle, as he will never have an end, and you, foolish man, say that he was born on earth, and has been brought up in a shepherd's house. Finally, that which virtuous men possess only through their desires, without being able to reach so far while they are on earth, this god who can desire nothing outside of himself, because there is no real perfection outside of him, is, if you are to believe it, all given over to a troop of women, and shows signs of inclination only for vice and dissolution. If we see faults in the rest of men, we see some virtue in them; but in your Chrixnou one sees nothing good, all is crime in it; all is abomination. In short, this Chrixnou is the greatest of sinners. He has gathered all the vices there, and brought them all to their height. To lavish the name of God on a creature is always a crime, but to prostitute it to an infamous man steeped in sins is a crime above all crimes, a crime which is never forgiven.
For example, when I read about the flood, as a kid, I didn't think about the fact that God killed everyone because he was angry, just drowned them all, because he thought they were all bad. Which you have to assume included a lot of kids, and unborn fetuses. Which I guess was okay with God....
Okay, I knew the Bible had nutty stories, but I thought they'd be wedged in amongst an ocean of inspiration and history. But instead, the stories just got darker and even more convoluted.
This Old Testament God makes the grizzliest tests of people's loyalty. Like when he asks Abraham to murder his son, Isaac. As a kid, we were taught to admire it. I caught my breath reading it. We were taught to admire it?
What kind of sadistic test of loyalty is that, to ask someone to kill his or her own child? And isn't the proper answer, "No! I will not kill my child, or any child, even if it means eternal punishment in hell!"?...
[T]hen, I found out that Abraham is not the only person willing to murder his own child for God. They're all over the place in the Bible.
For example, in the book of Judges, this guy named Jephtheh tells God that if he can win this battle, he will kill the first person who greets him when he comes home as a burnt offering. And who is the first person he sees? His only child, his beloved daughter, who runs up to him playing with tambourines and singing. "Hi daddy... what?"
And does God say, "No, don't kill your only child as a burnt offering to me!" Or even, "Jephtheh, who did you expect to be the first person to greet you when you came home?"
No, it appears the most important point of this story is that Jephtheh allows his beautiful daughter to go off into the woods for two months to mourn her virginity (I kept thinking, "Run! Run!") before she comes back and he kills her... by lighting her on fire.
Even if you leave aside the creepy sacrifice-your-own-offspring stories, the laws of the Old Testament were really hard to take. Leviticus and Deuteronomy are filled with archaic, just hard to imagine laws. Like if a man has sex with an animal, both the man and the animal should be killed. Which I could almost understand for the man, but the animal? Because the animal was a willing participant? Because now the animal's had the taste of human sex and won't be satisfied without it?
Or my personal favorite law in the Bible: in Deuteronomy, it says if you're a woman, married to a man, who gets into a fight with another man, and you try to help him out by grabbing onto the genitals of his opponent, the Bible says you immediately have to have your hand chopped off.
-- Letting Go of God, by Julia Sweeney
Biach. dites moy quels sont les differens pechés qu'on peut commettre?
Biach. Tell me what are the different sins we can commit?
Chumantou. Les plus considerables sont ceux qui regardent Dieu même ou son culte, c'est aussi de ceux la que je vais t'instruire. on doit avoir une heure marquée pour offrir a dieu le sacrifice et on doit toujours le faire au son des instrumens. manquer a une de ces [deux] choses, est un peché, on doit avoir un respect infini pour le lieu qui a été destiné pour servir de temple a la divinité. ainsi on ne doit point s'y entretenir d'affaire, ny de negoce, et s'il est necessaire d'y dire quelque chose, on doit le faire a voix basse et en peu de mots. on n'y doit point faire du bruit. on ne doit point y manger, ny même y cracher. on doit même porter le respect jusqu'å descendre de palanquin, quand on passe devant quelque temple et marcher a pied, jusqu'a ce qu'on ait passé au dela. on doit se faire un devoir de l'orner de la maniere la plus riche et la plus propre qu'il est possible et toujours préferablement a sa propre maison et on ne doit point y entrer et y paroitre, si on n'est soy même decemment et modestement vetu. on doit aussi y conserver jour et nuit de la lumiere. manquer a quelque chose de tout cela, est un peché. parler avec mépris d'une maison consacrée a dieu, ou la faire abbatre, en est un bien plus considerable. le plus grand de tous, est de regarder comme dieu et rendre les honneurs divins a tout autre qu'a luy. voila le crime que tu as commis tant de fois et que tu as fait commettre a tant de millions d'hommes, lorsque tu leur as enseigné d'offrir leurs sacrifices au Salagrame, aux pierres, aux statues, &c. du reste dans le sacrifice qu'on offre a dieu, on ne doit point luy offrir des choses a manger, dieu ne mange point et n'a nul besoin de nos richesses. on ne doit également bruler, dans son temple, que des parfums et des choses odori-ferantes. enfin on doit etre penétré de respect et d'une Sainte joye, quand on entend prononcer le nom de Dieu, ou célébrer ses louanges. rire, dans ces occasions, ou témoigner en faire peu de cas, marque dans celuy qui le fait beaucoup d'irreligion et d'impieté. presumer des misericordes de dieu, et se livrer au crime dans l'esperance que dieu se montrera toujours facile a nous pardonner et qu'il ne nous en coutera pour cela que de prononcer son nom et de l'invoquer, est un peché que Dieu pardonne rarement. aprés dieu, rien ne nous doit être plus sacré et n'est plus respectable pour nous que nos peres et nos meres. leur manquer dans le besoin, et ne pas les secourir, doit être mis au rang des plus grands pechés. on y doit joindre la cruauté exercée sur les enfans et sur des innocens.
Chumantou. The most important are those who look at God himself or his worship. It is also of those that I am going to instruct you. One must have a designated hour to offer the sacrifice to God, and one must always do it to the sound of instruments. To lack one of these [two] things is a sin. One must have an infinite respect for the place which was intended to serve as a temple to the divinity. Thus one should not discuss business there, nor trade, and if it is necessary to say something there, one should do it in a low voice and in a few words. One should not make noise there. One must not eat there, not even spit there. We must even show respect and get off a palanquin when we pass in front of some temple, and walk on foot until we have passed beyond it. One must make it a point to adorn it in the richest and cleanest way possible. It should always be preferable to one's own house. One must not enter and appear there if one is not decently and modestly dressed. One must also keep light there day and night. To miss any of these things is a sin. To not speak with contempt of a house consecrated to God, or to have it brought down, is even more important. The greatest of all sins is to regard as a god, and to render divine honors, to anyone other than him. This is the crime which you have committed so many times and which you have made so many millions of men commit, when you taught them to offer their sacrifices to Salagrame, to stones, to statues, & c. Moreover, in the sacrifice that we offer to God, we must not offer him things to eat. God does not eat, and has no need of our wealth. One should also burn in his temple only perfumes and odoriferous things. Finally, one should be filled with respect and a Holy Joy when one hears the name of God pronounced, or his praises celebrated. To laugh on these occasions, or to testify to disregard them, marks so much irreligion and impiety in him who does this. To presume the mercies of God, and to indulge in crime in the hope that God will always be easy to forgive us, and that it will cost us only to pronounce his name and to invoke him, is a sin that God rarely forgives. Nothing should be more sacred to us than God, and he is more respectable for us than our fathers and our mothers. If our parents are in need, if we don't help them, this must be placed among the greatest of sins. We must add to this the cruelty exercised on children and innocent people.
Biach. Je suis encore plus coupable que vous ne pensez, mais j'ai envie de devenir meilleur, et aprés m'avoir fait le detail des crimes, dont je me suis rendu coupable, apprenez moy comment je puis m'en delivrer et en obtenir le pardon?
Biach. I am even more guilty than you think, but I want to become better. And after having given me the details of the crimes of which I have been guilty, teach me how I can get rid of them and be sorry?
Chumantou. La premiere chose que tu dois faire, c'est d'y renoncer, mais sincerement: tu dois renoncer, de plus et pardessus tout, au culte de la fausse divinité, a toutes sortes de sacrifices sanglants et non sanglants. tu renoncera aussi, et cela pour toujours, a toutes les pratiques auxquelles tu t'es assujettis jusqu'icy qui ne sont elles mêmes que des sources de nouveaux pechés, et t'étant bien persuade qu'il n'est que Dieu seul qui puisse te pardonner tes pechés, tu te prosternera devant luy et tu luy dira [avec] tout le respect et toute l'attention dont tu es capable: être par vous même et qui subsistez avant tous les tems, dieu de qui tout a reçu vie et qui soutenez tout, vous êtes nôtre unique refuge, notre unique appuy. vous servir et vous connoitre fait la premiere obligation de l'homme et fait en même terns son bonheur, c'est dans vous qu'il trouve la source du vrai bien, le soulagement a ses peines; et vous êtes le seul qui pouvez remedier a ses miseres et a ses maux. dieu qui connoissez tout, vous voyez le nombre infini de crimes dont je me suis rendu coupable. mais laissez vous toucher a ma douleur, Je viens prosterné a vos pieds vous en demander pardon et implorer votre secours pour n'y plus retomber. Je suis indigne de votre misericorde, parce que mes pechés sont sans nombre; mais, tout, jusqu'a votre grandeur même s'interresse pour moy; et en effet, elle n'eclate pas moins que vôtre misericorde, dans le pardon que vous nous accordez. voila la priere que tu dois faire a dieu pour obtenir le pardon de tes pechés, mais, ce n'est pas assez d'avoir quittez le peché et d'en avoir obtenu le pardon, il faut, de plus, prendre des sentimens de vertu, or, ríen n'est plus propre pour cela que de se faire instruire des grandeurs de dieu et de s'en bien penetrer, des que tu sauras donc, qu'on offre dans quelqu'endroit le sacrifice a Dieu et qu'on s'y occupe a chanter ses louanges, tu dois y accourir avec empressement, te meler parmy eux et faire de ce saint exercice ta principale occupation. mais surtout tu dois renoncer au cuite de toute autre divinité et en particulier a celles que tu as adoré jusqu'ici. ne reconnoitre qu'un dieu, n'adorer que luy, mettre dans luy seul toute sa confiance, c'est travailler efficacement a son salut et s'assurer une éternité de bonheur. mais imiter ces hommes insensés, qui se font des dieux selon leurs passions et qui leur offrent des victimes pour obtenir d'eux de quoy satisfaire leur concupiscence et leur cupidité, c'est travailler inutilement, c'est assurer sa perte et sa condamnation. Je t'ay appris ce qu'il faut faire pour obtenir le pardon de tes pechés; je finis en t'exhortant de te lier d'amitié avec tout ce qu'il y a d'hommes vraiment vertueux, c'est en les frequentant que tu sentiras naitre insensiblement dans ton coeur l'amour de la vertu y croître de jour en jour et s'y fortifier. que s'il te reste encore quelques mauvaises habitudes, ils t'ap-prendront comment tu dois t'y prendre pour les vaincre et t'en delivrer. Si je me suis étendu un peu au long la dessus, c'est qu'un homme vertueux ne goute point de plaisir plus sensible que de parler de la vertu.
Chumantou. The first thing you must do is renounce it, but sincerely. You must renounce, above all, the worship of the false divinity, and all kinds of bloody and not bloody sacrifices. You will also renounce, and this forever, all the practices to which you have been subject until now which are themselves only sources of new sins, and be convinced that it is only God who may forgive you for your sins. You will bow down to him and you will say to him, [with] all the respect and all the attention of which you are capable: You yourself who subsists before all times, the god from whom everything has received life, and who supports everything, you are our only refuge, our only support. Serving you and knowing you is man's first obligation, and at the same time makes him happy. It is in you that he finds the source of true good, and relief from his sorrows. You are the only one who can remedy his misfortunes and ills. God, you who know everything, see the infinite number of crimes of which I am guilty. But let my pain touch you. I come prostrate at your feet to ask your forgiveness, and implore your help so I will not fall back. I am unworthy of your mercy because my sins are without number. But everything, even your greatness, is interested in me. And indeed, it bursts no less than your mercy, in the forgiveness which you grant us. This is the prayer that you must make to God to obtain forgiveness for your sins. But it is not enough to have left the sin and to have obtained forgiveness. It is necessary, moreover, to take feelings of virtue. Now, nothing is more suitable for that than to be instructed in the greatness of God and to be fully aware of it. As soon as you know, therefore, that the sacrifice is offered to God in some place, and that they are occupied with singing his praises, you must run there with eagerness, mingle with them, and make this holy exercise your main occupation. But above all you must renounce the worshiping of any other divinity, and in particular those that you have worshiped until now. To recognize only one god, to worship only him, to put all your trust in him alone, is to work effectively for your salvation and to ensure an eternity of happiness. But to imitate these foolish men who make gods for themselves according to their passions, and who offer them victims to obtain from them what will satisfy their concupiscence and their cupidity, is to work in vain, and assure your destruction and condemnation. I taught you what to do to obtain forgiveness for your sins. I end by urging you to befriend all really virtuous men. By frequenting with them you will feel, imperceptibly born in your heart, the love of virtue growing there day by day, and fortify itself therein. And if you still have some bad habits left, they will teach you how you should go about conquering and getting rid of them. If I have stretched out a little above it, it is because a virtuous man does not taste more appreciable pleasure than to speak of virtue.