The Pentateuch

 

Jason Blain

 

The author demonstrates that the Pentateuch, which forms the basis of Judaism and Christianity, and to a much lesser extent Islam, presents a degenerate and perverse theory of God and of humanity.  Instead of a loving God who cherishes his created humans as a human mother cherishes her children, it presents a God that wants nothing from mankind except obedience, worship, and burnt animal sacrifice.  He gives one tribe of humans an unlimited global license to live by military and social conquest, slaughter, theft, and slavery.  The Pentateuch’s foundational premise is that all human children are innately prone to disobey God the “Father”, and are therefore innately flawed--born innately evil and must redeem themselves by unquestioning obedience to priests and prophets.  It teaches that sex is dirty, that women are inferior to men, and that human life consists of following rigid rules whose violation is punishable by death.  The Pentateuch is, in fact, a blueprint for a militaristic, totalitarian society based on the conquest and exploitation of the rest of humanity.  It advocates tribal supremacism and explicitly condones mass murder and slavery. It advocates a moral double standard even for non-bloodline aliens living among the Israelites and following their basic laws.  It is patriarchal and profoundly misogynous.

 

In trying to understand the social problems and violence in the world, we must look at the documents and ideas that form the basis of our mentality and our society.  I believe that this problem is not one of genes—no human is born evil—it is a problem of ideas.  Most people who consider themselves Jews are certainly affected by these ideas, but so are Christians and even non-religious persons raised in Judeo-Christian societies.  Christians indeed have used the Old Testament to justify their colonial invasions, massacres, and enslavement of “Canaanites”—whether they be American Indians, Africans, or Arabs.

Let’s talk about the idea of God and of his relationship to man as presented in the Pentateuch (Jewish Torah), the scriptural basis of Judaism and the first five books of the Christian Old Testament.  Let us suppose that there does exist a single Supreme Being in some other dimension or place—a being that is not only extraterrestrial but extra-Cosmic.  This Supreme Being decides to create a Cosmos—the one we live in.  He either creates it so that life can evolve anywhere within it under appropriate circumstances, or he chooses the planet Earth out of all the billion billion available planets as the place in which he will create life.  Either way, let us say that he creates thinking human beings who are naturally bewildered by their physical, material situation and are necessarily driven to try to explain how they came to exist as they do.

Now why would this supremely intelligent, powerful being create a Cosmos that includes thinking, language-using creatures?  Was he lonely?  Did he want some creatures that he could communicate with?  Was he curious to see what knowledge our puny minds would achieve?  Was he bored with all the mindlessly obedient inhabitants of “heavenly paradise” and therefore created a creature that would challenge his dictums?  We are told that God created man “in his image”.  We can’t know what that means but it probably refers to our ultimate mental capacity and potential more than our physical appearance.  We read that God created man and woman in a state of ignorance and innocence so that he could test them.  He wanted to see whether we would obey a simple command:  not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.[i]  Now the story gets more complicated because we are told that there exists another intelligent God-like being called Satan.  He is a sort of alter-ego of God—a troublemaker whom God allows to exist for some reason—perhaps because God wants to see whether the humans will obey him or instead obey Satan.  Now if God is omniscient, then he already knows what Satan will do, and what the humans will do, and what the future will bring.  So we are really left wondering why God decided to create this Cosmos in the first place—unless he just wanted to watch the whole blood-curdling, wretched spectacle unfold—instead of just using his forethought and considering what would happen. 

 

So the humans were “tempted” by Satan to do something God forbade them to do—to obtain knowledge directly by eating of the Tree of Knowledge.  Message:  Humans should obey God and not independently seek knowledge or think for themselves.  What a strange creator who doesn’t want his humans to learn via the extraordinary brain he has given them!  Doesn’t every loving mother want her children to grow and learn and develop their potential to its fullest?  Adam and Eve chose knowledge, for which they are banished from the Garden of Eden and forced to learn how to survive and to bear all the difficulties of life.  We should have chosen, I guess, to remain comfortable, stupid, and totally dependent in the Garden.  After the expulsion, we find that humans constantly chose to do exactly what God tells them not to do—to the point that God decides to kill almost all human beings in a worldwide flood, sparing only one man, Noah, and his family.  One man and his family?  The only humans on Earth worth salvaging?

 

Now you have to admit that this story is becoming very strange.  Why did God create mankind if he knew that man’s ability to think and chose would naturally cause him to disobey God’s commandments and inevitably result to his extermination?  Why did he create most humans to be so naturally disobedient and “bad” that he would have to kill them all except Noah’s family?  What was the point of that exercise?  What is “good” for mankind after all?  To live in accordance with the nature God gave him and use his own mind, or only to mindlessly obey God’s arbitrary commandments—that run completely contrary to his nature?  What did God want from these humans?  Why didn’t he just leave them alone and let them live and learn independently?  Why did he tolerate Satan’s existence and his meddling with the human race?

 

Well, it all gets much, much worse.  The Pentateuch is blatantly racist!  The descendants of Ham, a son of Noah, are condemned to be slaves, simply because Ham happened to see Noah naked when Noah was drunk.[ii]  (Europeans later assuaged their guilt over their murder and enslavement of Indians and Africans by rationalizing that they were only descendents of Ham!)  All Semites are descendents of Noah’s son Shem.  The descendants of Ham (Caanan) are supposed to serve (be slaves to) the descendents of Shem, and the descendents of Japheth (Europeans and Asians?) are to be enlarged and dwell in the tents of Shem.  Choosing from the descendents of Shem, God decides to enter into a special relationship with one man, Abraham, and his descendants to whom he promises a certain region of the Earth—a place already filled with “lesser” people.  God then specifies the descendents of Jacob, Abraham’s grandson who stole his brother’s birthright, to be his “chosen people” and promises them that they will rule not only Canaan but eventually the entire world!  It’s all about bloodlines and race! 

 

Jehovah makes his chosen tribe suffer slavery in Egypt before bringing them to the “promised land”.  As they travel there, he is their constant companion—protecting them, feeding them; appearing as a cloud in the day and a column of fire at night.  Today we would say that they had an encounter with an extra-terrestrial being!  He gives them ten major commandments to follow in their relationships to one another, and innumerable lesser commandments about how they are to “worship” him.  He tells them to kill animals and burn them whenever they break his rules, which they do continuously and understandably because most of the rules are contrary to human nature and society.  He tells them that they must worship him in very specific ways within very strict guidelines and gives them plans for building the Ark of the Covenant and the tabernacle for his worship—where he will dwell among them.  (This is the Creator of the Cosmos?)  He gives the Israelites a long list of “unclean” foods that they are not to eat including rabbits, pigs, lobster, octopus, clams, snails, frogs, etc.[iii] All animals must be killed and butchered according to certain rules.  These food and other laws are obviously intended to make the Israelites feel special, to look upon people who do not follow such rules as unclean and inferior, and to practically prevent any social interaction or blood line “contamination” of the Israelites with non-Israelites.  (It is well known that these books were written during or after the Jews’ Babylonian captivity, centuries after the events of the Pentateuch took place, so it is no great stretch to conclude that the Levitical priests who wrote these books added all these rules specifically to prevent the assimilation of their fellow Jews, and to enable them to rule over and exploit their fellow Jews.)

 

Now we have to wonder, why would the Supreme Being who created this magnificent Cosmos and all life on this Earth want to play this perverse commandment/sin/sacrifice game with one small group of human beings?  Is he playing with a few humans as we might play with and try to train our own pets?  Why does the creator of everything want to be obeyed and worshipped at all?  Does he have an ego problem or other neurotic imbalance?  Why choose to experiment with just one man’s descendants and command them to kill and conquer other humans?  Why should he purposefully put this one group of humans into conflict with all the rest?  Why not reveal himself to and give his commandments to the entire human species?  Is he doing some kind of experiment?  Does he want to leave the rest of the species as a control group—to see what theories and religions they might develop without his special intervention and to see how they react to his chosen people?

 

Now let us look at the moral/social/political regime that God invents for his pet people.  Is it a wonderful celebration of nature and of human life?  Does it bring out the best in man in accordance with his nature?  Does it promote rationality, love, and the pursuit of truth?  Obviously not.  Does it promote peace and brotherhood among all human beings?  No.  Does God love and cherish his people as much as we naturally love and cherish our own children?  No.  This God is not interested in humans knowing anything beyond what he tells them, and he wants complete obedience and ritualistic worship on penalty of death, so he grossly fails the parenthood test as far as I’m concerned.  Let’s look a close look at the moral and social aspects of this eternal “covenant” that he makes with the Israelites.

 

The first thing we notice is that this regime is a vicious control regime based on rigid rules and physical punishments, with almost all infractions punishable by death.  That’s right—death for breaking the rules.  I daresay that no actual social regime has ever been more unnatural, murderous, and cruel than the society outlined in the Pentateuch.  Let’s start with the most reasonable part, the “Ten Commandments” from Exodus 20.  It is clear from their context that these commandments apply only to Israelite-Israelite relationships, and not at all to the Israelites relationships to aliens whom they will murder, rape, and enslave.  Some of these internal rules seem quite appropriate for any human society, since people cannot live together in peace at all if they unrestrictedly kill, steal, and lie.  The fact that people have to be “commanded” to treat each other with minimal respect says volumes about the negative view of mankind proffered here.  Children don’t need to be commanded to honor their parents—they will naturally do so if their parents have given them the love and support that they need.  If the parents are tyrants, however, they will need the threat of God’s wrath to induce their children “honor” them.  In addition, four of the Ten Commandments require that humans recognize and worship only this God and show special respect to Him—all infractions of which are punishable by death.  We must ask, Why?  Why must they be commanded to worship him in certain ways and be punished by death if they don’t?  Wouldn’t humans naturally admire the true Creator of the Cosmos—if they actually encountered Him?  Is not this Yahweh some kind of evil anti-Deity?

 

This “God” doesn’t stop with those ten commandments.  In fact, the Pentateuch includes hundreds of commandments (613 according to orthodox Jews), most of them punishable by death.  This God and his mediating priests control human beings by fear!  God tells them that he will kill anyone who touches Mount Sinai[iv] or the ark of the covenant.  Any man who has sex with another man should be killed.[v]  (Talk about homophobia!)  Any human who has sex with an animal should be killed.[vi]  Why is this God so obsessed with human sexual conduct?  Not only is sexual intercourse outside male-female marriage punishable by death, even permissible marital sex is unclean!  After having sex, both the man and woman must wash immediately and are still considered unclean for the rest of the day.[vii]  Talk about giving human beings an inferiority complex!  How better to control a person than to inform him/her from the earliest age that sex is “dirty” and surrounded by a bunch of do’s and don’ts punishable by death!  Without all these perverse messages, humans might grow up loving their bodies and themselves and wanting to make love only with persons that they love as much as themselves!  If humans are taught instead that sex is a perversion unless performed exactly when and how God says, then this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they become perverts!  Some “loving” God, this one!

 

The Pentateuch is profoundly anti-female.  The fact that it was Eve who succumbed to temptation in the garden of Eden and caused Adam to sin is well-known and abused.  In a similar instance, when Aaron and Miriam complained about Moses, it was Miriam who was punished with leprosy, not Aaron![viii]  The Israelites were a patriarchal society that viewed women as lesser human beings, somewhere between men and livestock.  Though there were many instances where leading Israelite men slept with prostitutes, there is no commandment against this nor any condemnation of it, as long as the prostitute is not an Israelite.  Virginity is required of wives but not of husbands, which is physically impossible unless there is a group of whores who never can marry!  Any girl who willingly has sex with a man outside of marriage should be killed.  If a man accuses his wife of adultery, she has to undergo a bizarre test reminiscent of, and probably productive of the Salem witchcraft tests.[ix]  No similar test is mentioned for a man accused of adultery by his wife!  The punishment for a man who rapes a virgin is not death, he simply has to pay the father a fine and then marry her![x]  However, if a man marries a woman and then can prove that she was not a virgin as she claimed (no blood on the sheets), then the wife should be killed![xi]  Talk about a sexual double standard!  There are also many rules that make women subservient to and less valuable than men.  A father may nullify any vows made by a daughter (young woman) living within his house or any made by his wife.[xii]  A woman is unclean and not to be touched for an entire week after her menstrual bleeding begins.[xiii]  A woman is unclean for seven days after delivering a son, but for 14 days after delivering a daughter.[xiv]  The value of a male compared to a female is set at a ratio of 5:3.[xv]

 

Talk about totalitarianism!  A persistently disobedient child should be killed.[xvi]  Any witch, sorceress, or medium, or anyone who worships or sacrifices to any other God should be killed.[xvii]  Anyone who doesn’t perform a sacrifice just right should be killed.  Anyone who does any work on the Sabbath should be killed.  Anyone who shows contempt for a priest or judge should be killed.[xviii]  Anyone who challenges the authority of the leaders or disobeys the leaders should be killed, indeed God himself kills Korah when he dissents from and denounces the dictatorship of Moses and Aaron and demands that the 250 council members have a greater say in the decisions affecting their lives.[xix]  Imagine it—killed for demanding greater democracy!  This is the foundation of Western Judeo-Christian democracies!  Perhaps we can begin to grasp why our democracies are actually just a cover for a ruling oligarchy!

 

Upon examination, we find here a blueprint for a cruel, rigid, patriarchal, oppressive, fear- and guilt-ridden totalitarian society.  Every person within it lives in constant fear of transgressing anyone of the hundreds of commandments and thereby earning a barbaric, automatic death sentence.  Imagine the fear in this society when virtually everyone knows they deserve death!  Thinking about and judging reality by oneself will get one killed!  Anyone could accuse another person of a capital crime at any time—and they would probably be right!  Two witnesses are enough to determine guilt.  This fear and guilt certainly make them more amenable to the control of the leaders personally chosen by God!  Any persons who should the fatal disease of thinking for themselves could be “outed” and killed by invoking any number of “laws” they had broken or could have broken.  No effective resistance to the leadership could ever develop.  This authoritarian system would be virtually impossible to reform or overthrow from within! 

 

Now even though it squashed all dissent by execution, how could such a sick, dysfunctional society go on existing?  Wouldn’t the unfortunate victim-members want to escape at all costs?  Why would human beings continually submit to this horrible totalitarian regime?  There would have to be some obvious advantages of membership in the tribe to outweigh these advantages—and of course it would help if the rules were not strictly enforced but would be invoked only when the rulers decided to make an example of someone.  In such a society, a guilt-ridden hypocrisy would be the normal mentality.  So what were the advantages to being an Israelite?  This brings us to the question of the society’s relationship with outsiders.  What about the non-Israelites?  How are they to be treated according to the Pentateuch?  Well, we find that even before the captivity in Egypt, Jacob’s sons deceived the Hivites by promising to become their allies.  They told the Hivite men that they must be circumcised.  When the Hivite men were recovering from their circumcision, Jacob’s sons killed all the men, enslaved their women and children, and stole all their possessions as booty.  They claimed to be justified in committing these heinous crimes because one Hivite man raped one of their daughters.[xx]  However, the Hivite man had offered to both pay the fine and marry the girl, just as later Levitical law commanded!  Thus was established a principal of disproportionate retaliation based upon racism—but it gets much uglier.  After leaving Egypt and coming into Canaan, God commands the Israelites to kill all non-Israelites within the Promised Land, steal their land, houses, and livestock, and destroy all their sacred sites.  God tells them to make no covenants with them.[xxi]  Why do all these different people in Canaan deserve complete extermination?  Once, God claims it is because of their “wickedness”, but we have to wonder.  Were they really so wicked or were they just living in the wrong place?  Were they going around slaughtering entire tribes and stealing everything in sight as the Israelites were doing?  I doubt it.  Did they really deserve to be destroyed just because they were “wicked”?  Or were they just too rich and living in the wrong place?  Is this not God-sanctioned ethnic cleansing and genocide—right here in our most sacred texts!  Could this explain the persistent patter of genocidal atrocities against outsiders or brown people committed by Jews and Christians ever since?

 

Notice that the Israelites’ genocidal license is not even limited to the Promised Land!  God also tells them that they have the right to kill or enslave any people living outside of the Promised Land![xxii]  God tells them that when they conquer any people, they may keep the attractive women, or sometimes just the virgins, as their wives.[xxiii]  Furthermore, God institutes a moral double standard for the Israelites in their relationships with the non-Israelites who live among them and observe their laws.  Gentiles can be sold as slaves but not Israelites.[xxiv]  Gentiles should be charged interest on loans, but not fellow Israelites.[xxv]  God tells the Israelites to love their neighbor as themselves, but by “neighbor” he clearly means only other Israelites.[xxvi]  In one passage only, Israelites are told to not mistreat the aliens living among them, indeed that they should love them as they love themselves.[xxvii]  However, what force does this lone humanistic admonition of love towards a small subset of aliens have when the double standard has been firmly established and all aliens who don’t follow their rules and don’t live among them are free game for theft, killing, enslavement and every form of mischief?  It is, in the final analysis, a case of “us” against “them”, and “they” are to be treated well only if “they” serve “our” purposes!  If not, anything goes.

 

The Pentateuch is the effective constitution of a tribal cult designed for conquest and plunder.  The tribe is to exist perpetually by killing other people and stealing their land, houses, and livestock.  Those outsiders that it doesn’t kill, it enslaves.  Those it doesn’t enslave, it exploits with total indifference according to a moral double standard.  The Pentateuch thereby intentionally negates the natural brotherhood of man and creates a “chosen people” who live in a society based on oppression, war and coercion instead of love and cooperation.  It poisons the natural potential for love and cooperation among all human beings as equals.  It commands tribalism, genocide, war, slavery, and racial discrimination.  It is the negation of all human values, connections, and affections.  Now why did God want THIS?  Why did he want some human beings to kill and enslave others?  Why does he want these humans to live in a state of perpetual fear and war?  Wouldn’t “SATAN” be the more appropriate name for this “God”? 

 

You don’t have to be a philosopher, in fact you mustn’t be an academic philosopher, in order to understand the effects that the Pentateuch must have, has had, and is having on all societies that revere it.  Mankind cannot and will not progress one iota until we recognize the depravity of the Pentateuch and reject it decisively.  Yes, this would require, and would bring about a revolution in human affairs unlike any we have ever seen.

 

References:


[i] Genesis 2: 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

[ii] Genesis 9: 24When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25he said,

"Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers." 26He also said, "Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.B 27May God extend the territory of JaphethC; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be hisD slave." [ii]

[iii] Leviticus 11

[iv] Exodus 19: 12Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, `Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. [iv]

[v] Leviticus 20:13 ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.  They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.’ 

[vi] Exodus 22:19"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death.”

[vii] Leviticus 15:16 ‘When a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his whole body with water, and he will be unclean till evening. 17Any clothing or leather that has semen on it must be washed with water, and it will be unclean till evening. 18When a man lies with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.’

[viii] Numbers 12:10When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam--leprous,A like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; 11and he said to Moses, "Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. [viii]

[ix] Numbers 5:19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you.

[x] Deuteronomy 28:28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver.  He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

[xi] Deuteronomy 22:20If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found, (if the parents do not have the bloody sheet from the deflowering) 21she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.

[xii] Numbers 30: 5 But if her father forbids her when he hears about it, none of her vows or the pledges by which she obligated herself will stand; the LORD will release her because her father has forbidden her. 12But if her husband nullifies them when he hears about them, then none of the vows or pledges that came from her lips will stand.

[xiii] Leviticus 15: 19 And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even. 

[xiv] Leviticus 12:2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. 5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.

[xv] 27:1The LORD said to Moses, 2"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: `If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate persons to the LORD by giving equivalent values, 3set the value of a male between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the sanctuary shekel; 4and if it is a female, set her value at thirty shekels.

[xvi] Deuteronomy 2118If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death.  You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. 

[xvii] Exodus 22:18"Do not allow a sorceress to live. 20"Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the LORD must be destroyed.

[xviii] Deuteronomy 17:12The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel. 13All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.

[xix] Numbers 16: 3They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's assembly?"  31As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions.

[xx] Genesis 34

[xxi] Exodus 34:12  Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:

[xxii] Deuteronomy 20:10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. 15This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. 16However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the LORD your God has commanded you.

[xxiii] Deuteronomy 21:10When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives, 11if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.

Numbers 31:17Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.  32The plunder remaining from the spoils that the soldiers took was 675,000 sheep, 3372,000 cattle, 3461,000 donkeys 35and 32,000 women who had never slept with a man.

[xxiv] Leviticus 25: 42Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves.

[xxv] Deuteronomy 23:19 Do not charge your brother interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. 20You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a brother Israelite, so that the LORD your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess.

[xxvi] Leviticus 19:18" `Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.  I am the LORD. 

[xxvii] Leviticus 19:33 `When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.  Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.