Brand-Name Gods
Brand-name Gods are products of our imagination, desiring what we desire, despising what we despise, and sanctioning our lust for power while condemning that same lust in our enemies:
YHVH commands genocide against the Seven Nations of Canaan (Deuteronomy 7) because the Israelites wanted to occupy their land.
Allah commands Muslims to “kill the unbeliever wherever you find them” (Qur’an 2:191) because the Muslims wanted to remove the competition.
Krishna tells Arjuna, “If you kill without attachment, regardless how many you kill, your action carries no evil” (Bhagavad Gita 18:17) because the Pandavas kings wanted to eliminate their Kauravas rivals.
God eternally damns “those who did not know God and those who did not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:5–9) because the apostle Paul wanted to keep his Christians in line.
Brand-name Gods are always in the service to those who hold the brand’s copyright.
When once a certain class of people has been placed by the temporal and spiritual authorities outside the ranks of those whose life has value, then nothing comes more naturally to men than murder.
SIMONE WEIL, Selected Essays, 1934–1943