Yet the admonishments continue that there is only one “God” and we only need cease questioning, cease seeking, cease giving rein to our eternal “why?” and “how?” and settle for the answer of “it just is” with regard to the existence and nature of the “one true god.”

From one of the usual trolls over at the Rocky Mountain News:

According to this logic, tornadoes and hurricanes are the result of a wrathful Judeo-Christian god.

However, a simple search of the Interwebs shows us that might not be such a simple assertion. There are over 100 gods of various cultures and religions that have been attributed with having power over the winds and storms, to include tornadoes and hurricanes.

How is it possible to validate (or invalidate) the claim of any of those 100+ gods/goddesses purported to have power to control the wind and storms? It isn’t. So why, therefore, is the attribution of power to a Judeo-Christian god any more or less valid than the attribution of powers to Aeolus or Su? Why is one object of attribution—the Judeo-Christian God, Aeolus, or Su—any more or less valid than any other one?

And we have to be able to validate the existence of the “one true god”? If we can’t validate or prove the “one true god,” how are we to tell the charlatans from the prophets? And if the “one true god” is inherently unknowable or beyond our comprehension, then how can anyone even begin to state the nature of that “one true god” or state that any one person knows the “one true god” better than any other?

Or are we missing the more apropos claim, wherein a claim to know the “one true god” is merely a proxy claim to assert one’s own “power” over others? Should we accept the premise—that someone may know the Judeo-Christian god (or know more of the Judeo-Christian god than others)—then we have to accept the conclusion that such knowledge imparts a greater degree of knowledge about the truth of the universe. By knowing intimately the “one true god,” one is then placed in a position of quasi-authority over others less-enlightened. By knowing the “one true god,” one is thus endowed with an insight into the morality of good and bad.

It is through this poisoned logic that priests, ministers, rabbis, imams, shamans, monks, and spiritual leaders of every stripe have asserted their authority over the dominion of human thought for millennia. It is by their badge of spiritual authority that they wish to lead others—and the thoughts of others.

The madman.— Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the marketplace, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!” —As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone away on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.”

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called into account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”