Godawful Poem by Mary Champion

I gave up on religion as a child.
It simply was not good enough.
None of them were good enough.
The gods on offer were so unbending-
too demanding of we frail men.
Too brutal,
too unjust,
so lacking in empathy that you wondered -
wondered what cruel forces might have formed them.
Surely only a chronically insecure childhood
could induce such darkness in a soul.

Now I am beginning to feel sorry for God.
Maybe he feels lost, alienated, unloved -
like those kids who join gangs and traffic drugs.

As Marx said -
and I agree: -
Religion is the opium of the masses.

God is the Drug Lord
and the priests are his lieutenants.

Glimmer of hope -
the Spanish Inquisition were his enforcers -
but they got disbanded.
Thank God!