Moses: Mass Murderer

The causes which have produced personal celebrity are numerous,

and diversified by a thousand indescribable shades in their modes of

operation. It also sometimes happens that the means of popular

exaltation and perpetual fame have been either of a passive or

uncontrollable nature. Such is the fact in the present case. Moses

and Mahomet were active villains, whose characters cannot be examined

without horror and detestation. They were both eminent murderers, and

their debaucheries have been signalized by acts of barbarous

brutality, of which the love-struck Solomon seems to be more

destitute. The military ferocities and immoral decrees of these two

"celestial" impostors, have placed upon their characters an indelible

stain, which the pretended sanctity of the priesthood can never wipe

away!

   Believers in Christianity, in reading the history and conduct of

Moses, ought to blush for his crimes, and spurn at his blasphemy in

attributing these crimes to the God whom he pretended to adore. He

issues orders for the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and

children, in a defenceless condition, making an exception only of

that part of the captives whose sexual predicament invited the

passions of man to indulge in the gratification of criminal desires.

(See Numbers chap. xxxi. verse 18, &c.)

   But this is only a single specimen of the murdering temper of

this meek man of God! From the time that he murdered the Egyptian and

hid him in the sand, till the moment in which he expired, and was

buried without any man knowing where he was buried, he exhibited

examples of legerdemain tricks, pretended familiarities with God,

scenes of debauchery and malignant slaughter of the human race, which

would disgrace the most cruel despot of ancient or modern times. For

the truth of this remark an appeal is made to the historic details

contained in the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

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