Christopher Hitchens - The Portable Atheist - Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

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 Belisama, and Axona, and Vintios, and Taranuous, and Sulis, and Cocidius, and Adsmerius, and Dumiatis, and Caletos, and Moccus, and Ollovidius, and Albiorix, and Leucitius, and Vitucadrus, and Ogmios, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshiped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose—all gods of the first class, not dilettanti. 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, wizards, archdeacons, evangelists, haruspices, 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 were 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. Worse, the very tombs in which they lie are lost, and so even a respectful stranger is debarred from paying them the slightest and politest homage.

What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile valley? What has become of:

Resheph — Baal

Anath — Astarte

Ashtoreth — Hadad

El — Addu

Nergal — Nebo

Ninib — Shalem

Dagon — Sharrab

Melek — Yau

Ahijah — Isis

Amon-Re — Osiris

Ptah — Sebek

Anubis — Molech

All these were once 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 Jahveh himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:

Bilé — Gwydion

Lêr — Manawyddan

Arianrod — Nuada Argetlam

Morrigu — Tagd

Govannon — Goibniu

Gunfled — Odin

Sokk-mimi — Llaw Gyffes

Memetona — Lleu

Dagda — Ogma

Kerridwen — Mider

Pwyll — Rigantona

Ogyrvan — Marzin

Dea Dia — Mars

Ceros — Jupiter

Vaticanus — Cunina

Edulia — Potina

Adeona — Statilinus

Iuno Lucina — Diana of Ephesus

Saturn — Robigus

Furrina — Pluto

Vediovis — Ops

Consus — editrina

Cronos — Vesta

Enki — Tilmun

Engurra — Zer-panitu

Belus — Merodach

Dimmer — U-ki

Mu-ul-lil — Dauke

Ubargisi — Gasan-abzu

Ubilulu — Elum

Gasan-lil — U-Tin-dir ki

U-dimmer-an-kia — Marduk

Enurestu — Nin-lil-la

U-sab-sib — Nin

U-Mersi — Persephone

Tammuz — Istar

Venus — Lagas

Bau — U-urugal

Mulu-hursang — Sirtumu

Anu — Ea

Beltis — Nirig

Nusku — Nebo

Ni-zu — Samas

Sahi — Ma-banba-anna

Aa — En-Mersi

Allatu — Amurru

Sin — Assur

AbilAddu — Aku

Apsu — Beltu

Dagan — Dumu-zi-abzu

Elali — Kuski-banda

Isum — Kaawanu

Mami — Nin-azu

Nin-man — Lugal-Amarada

Zaraqu — Qarradu

Suqamunu — Ura-gala

Zagaga — Ueras

You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: you will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity—gods of civilized peoples—worshipped and believed in by millions. All were theoretically omnipotent, omniscient, and immortal. And all are dead.

Richard Wollheim once described Sigmund Freud’s work as an essay “in the deafness of the mind” and, whatever we may now think about the father of modern psychology, it is impossible not to regard his insights into the unconscious as seminal and revolutionary. Fascinated by totem and taboo and by the manacles that the mind forges for itself, Freud here subjects religious belief to a calm and even quite sympathetic—if pitying—diagnosis.

I think we have prepared the way sufficiently for an answer to both these questions. It will be found if we turn our attention to the psychical origin of religious ideas. These which are given out as teachings are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest, and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishes. As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection—for protection through love—which was provided by the father; and the recognition that this helplessness lasts throughout life made it necessary to cling to the existence of a father, but this time a more powerful one. Thus the benevolent rule of a divine Providence allays our fear of the dangers of life; the establishment of a moral world-order ensures the fulfillment of the demands of justice, which have so often remained unfulfilled in human civilization; and the prolongation of earthly existence in a future life provides the local and temporal framework in which these wish-fulfillments shall take place. Answers to the riddles that tempt the curiosity of man, such as how the universe began or what the relation is between body and mind, are developed in conformity with the underlying assumptions of this system. It is an enormous relief to the individual psyche if the conflicts of its childhood arising from the father-complex—conflicts which it has never wholly overcome—are removed from it and brought to a solution which is universally accepted.

When I say that these things are all illusions, I must define the meaning of the word. An illusion is not the same thing as an error; nor is it necessarily an error. Aristotle’s belief that vermin are developed out of dung (a belief to which ignorant people still cling) was an error; so was the belief of a former generation of doctors that tabes dorsalis is the result of sexual excess. It would be incorrect to call these errors illusions. On the other hand, it was an illusion of Columbus’s that he had discovered a new sea-route to the Indies. The part played by his wish in this error is very clear. One may describe as an illusion the assertion made by certain nationalists that the Indo-Germanic race is the only one capable of civilization; or the belief, which was only destroyed by psycho-analysis, that children are creatures without sexuality. What is characteristic of illusions is that they are derived from human wishes. In this respect they come near to psychiatric delusions. But they differ from them, too, apart from the more complicated structure of delusions. In the case of delusions, we emphasize as essential their being in contradiction with reality. Illusions need not necessarily be false—that is to say unrealizable or in contradiction to reality. For instance, a middleclass girl may have the illusion that a prince will come and marry her. This is possible; and a few such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less likely. Whether one classifies this belief as an illusion or as something analogous to a delusion will depend on one’s personal attitude. Examples of illusions which have proved true are not easy to find, but the illusion of the alchemists that all metals can be turned into gold might be one of them. The wish to have a great deal of gold, as much gold as possible, has, it is true, been a good deal damped by our present-day knowledge of the determinants of wealth, but chemistry no longer regards the transmutation of metals into gold as impossible. Thus we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so we disregard its relations to reality, just as the illusion itself sets no store by verification.