Bad Characters

To show fully the immoral character of Moses, it would be

necessary to quote almost every chapter in these "holy and inspired"

books. Believers in revealed religion, who still believe that Moses

was a pious and meek man, ought, once more, to pass in review the

conduct and transactions which the Bible has attributed to him.... If there be any member of the Christian church who can

believe that God and Moses ever united in the execution of those

barbarous decrees and immoral sentiments stated in these books, he

must be lost to all clear ideas of justice, and must have abandoned

every principle of humanity by which the life of man is to be

rendered comfortable and happy. The author of "The Age of Reason",

has placed these enormities in a striking point of light, and, with

his wonted acuteness of discernment, has presented, in the way of

Bishop Watson, difficulties which no Christian bishop will ever be

able to surmount. Murder and theft are crimes of so detestable a

nature, and so destructive to the best interests of society, that

they never can be sanctioned either by human or divine power. God and

Moses, in these books, are said to have sanctioned both; it follows,

therefore, that God and Moses are both bad characters, or else the

books are not true. The latter, however, is the fact, and the

character of the real God of Nature remains unimpeached.

 --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species