Mark Twain's Diatribe
“...a
God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to
make bad ones;
who could have made every one of them happy, yet never
made a single happy one;
who made them prize their bitter life, yet
stingily cut it short;
who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned,
yet required his other children to earn it;
who gave his angels painless
lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies
of mind and body;
who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy,
and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by
seventy times seven, and invented hell;
who mouths morals to other
people, and has none himself;
who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them
all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the
responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it
where it belongs, upon himself;
and finally, with altogether divine
obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!” --Mark Twain--