A forgotten thinker...
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.
I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty...
I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.
I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech...
-H. L. Mencken
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Where is the graveyard of dead gods?
- by H.L. Mencken
Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And who of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - 50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the
Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father;
his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an
apparently innocent flirtation that she carried out with the sun. When he frowned,
his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed
whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood.
But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once
the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of Richmond P. Hobson,
Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.
Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatilpoca.
Tezcatilpoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.
Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who
knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quitzalcoatl is? Or Xiehtecuthli?
Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of
Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitles? Where are their bones?
Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and
unheard-of Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their
residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of
the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that
of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jackass? There was a
time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest
Irishman laughs at them.
But they have company in oblivion: the Hell of dead gods is as crowded
as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and
Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsalluta, and Deva, and
Belisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty
gods in their day, worshipped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able
to bind and loose - all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations
to build vast temples to them - temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.
The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests,
bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake.
Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels; villages were burned,
women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they
all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence.
What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley?
What has become of:
Resheph Baal
Anath Astarte
Ashtoreth Hadad
Nebo Dagon
Melek Yau
Ahijah Amon-Re
Isis Osiris
Ptah Molech?
All there were gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned
with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand
years ago, with Yahweh Himself; the worst of them stood far higher than
Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:
Arianrod Nuada Argetlam
Morrigu Tagd
Govannon Goibniu
Gunfled Odin
Dagda Ogma
Ogryvan Marzin
Dea Dia Mara
Iuno Lucina Diana of Ephesus
Saturn Robigus
Furrina Pluto
Cronos Vesta
Engurra Zer-panitu
Belus Merodach
Ubilulu Elum
U-dimmer-an-kia Marduk
U-sab-sib Nin
U-Mersi Persephone
Tammuz Istar
Venus Lagas
Beltis Nirig
Nusku En-Mersi
Aa Assur
Sin Beltu
Apsu Kuski-banda
Elali Nin-azu
Mami Qarradu
Zaraqu Ueras
Zagaga
Ask the rector to lend you any good book on comparative religion; you will
find them all listed. They were gods of the highest dignity - gods of civilized
peoples - worshipped and believed in by millions. All were omnipotent, omniscient
and immortal.
And all are dead.
