Divine Vindictive Vengeance
The highest delight of theology is the destruction of the beauty, order, and harmony of the universe. A world regularly existing from all eternity, and continuing so to exist through an endless futurity, would be, in the estimation of supernatural theology, an object of disgust. To nourish the superstitious pride and folly of man, it is necessary to derange, overturn, and destroy the splendid beauties and majestic grandeur of the vast empire of Nature. Not content with the scheme of prediction, whose fulfilment includ[ed] the ultimate dissolution of the earth, Superstition conceived it was necessary to retrace and discover in the history of past ages, an event equally distressing and terrific. For this purpose the story of the universal deluge was contrived, in which all the animals on the surface of the earth, a select number only excepted, fell a sacrifice to the vindictive vengeance of the Jewish God. --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral