The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser;
a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infancy in his ways can
become desensitized to their horror. A naif blessed with the
perspective of innocence has a clearer perception. Winston
Churchill's son Randolph somehow contrived to remain ignorant of
scripture until Evelyn Waugh and a brother officer, in a vain
attempt to keep Churchill quiet when they were posted together
during the war, bet him he couldn't read the entire Bible in a fortnight:
'Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never
read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading
quotations aloud "I say I bet you didn't know this came in the
Bible . . . " or merely slapping his side & chortling "God, isn't God
a shit!"'16 Thomas Jefferson - better read - was of a similar
opinion: 'The Christian God is a being of terrific character - cruel,
vindictive, capricious and unjust.'