rdered in His name. Is it not so?

Will you, then, compare the Heavenly Father with a father among men? Is
there any earthly father who would allow his children to suffer as God
allows Man to suffer? If a man had knowledge and power to prevent or
to abolish war and ignorance and hunger and disease; if a man had the
knowledge and the power to abolish human error and human suffering and
human wrong and did not do it, we should call him an inhuman monster, a
cruel fiend. Is it not so?

But God has knowledge and power, and we are asked to regard Him as a
Heavenly Father, and a God of infinite wisdom, and infinite mercy, and
infinite love.

The Christians used to tell us, and some still tell us, that this
Heavenly Father of infinite love and mercy would doom the creatures He
had made to Hell--for their _sins_. That, having created us imperfect,
He would punish our imperfections with everlasting torture in a lake
of everlasting fire. They used to tell us that this good God allowed a
Devil to come on earth and tempt man to his ruin. They used to say this
Devil would win more souls than Christ could win: that there should be
"more goats than sheep."

To escape from these horrible theories, the Christians (some of them)
have thrown over the doctrines of Hell and the Devil.

But without a Devil how can we maintain a belief in a God of love and
kindness? With a good God, and a bad God (or Devil), one might get
along; for then the good might be ascribed to God, and the evil to the
Devil. And that is what the old Persians did in their doctrine of Ormuzd
and Ahrimann. But with no Devil the belief in a merciful and loving
Heavenly Father becomes impossible.

If God blesses, who curses? If God saves, who damns? If God helps, who
harms?

This belief in a "Heavenly Father," like the belief in the perfection of
the Bible, drives its votaries into weird and wonderful positions. For
example, a Christian wrote to me about an animal called the aye-aye. He
said:

There is a little animal called an aye-aye. This animal has
two hands. Each hand has five fingers. The peculiar thing
about these hands is that the middle finger is elongated a great
deal--it is about twice as long as the others. This is to enable
it to scoop a special sort of insect out of special cracks in
the special trees it frequents. Now, how did the finger begin
to elongate? A little lengthening would be absolutely no good,