Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/80

78 he departed to amuse himself with a Jewess whose husband had just perished.

He continued these conquests until, at his death, in 632, he was the master of nearly all Arabia and revered almost as a god. Yet, when Omar, his first lieutenant, captured Jerusalem in 636, he ensured the conquered Jews and Christians free exercise of their religion, and the security of their persons and their goods. But when the Crusaders took Jerusalem in 1099, they massacred all the Mohammedans, and burnt the Jews alive. It is estimated that 70,000 persons were put to death in less than a week to 'attest the superior morality of the Christian faith.

The successors of Mohammed, the Caliphs, in less than a century conquered Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Turkestan, Spain, Northern Africa, Sicily, and Southern France. Today, 160,000,000 are followers of Mohammed, a man who began as a humble religious leader, and ended as an adroit politician and powerful general; a man who hid during battles, who often broke faith with friend and foe alike, a charlatan and demagogue of general intellectual incompetency, and a victim of mental disease.

JESUS
When we come to consider the life of Jesus, a far different and more intricate problem is met with. None but the most illogical and purposely ignorant of religious apologists will admit that the life of Jesus has been misrepresented by his followers to suit their particular aims. Had the followers of the moralist Epictetus or the Rabbi Hillel written lives of these two teachers they would be quite similar to the reputed life of Jesus. The moral sentiments attributed to Christ in the Gospels were borrowed from the Jewish rabbis and the