THE CREDO OF G.B.S.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 143, 19 June 1922, Page 8

THE CREDO OF G.B.S.

:kkist a living influence. ul't disbelief in the church. (Fi ■::■ Our Owu Correspondent.) LONDON, April 29. We arc still sifting our beliefs; ne« thought, spiritualism, and the various "fancy religions" that Tommy Atkins talks about are all thinking hard and asking themselves what they really do believe. More than that, they like other people to take an interest in the subject. G.B.S. has just been interviewed on the subject and as Shavian thought cannot but be regarded as carrying weight; we reproduce here some of the qdestionnaire and his replies. Asked why he disbelieves in the church because it has "failed grossly in the courage of its profession," and yet believes in the Labour party, which haß equally missed its opportunity, he says: "The church has failed infamously. . . . the Church of England is only a society of gentlemen amateurs, half of them pretending to be properly trained and disciplined priests, and the other half pretending that the-i' are breezy public schoolboys with no parsonic nonsense about them. . . The church is what the parsons make it. . . The same thing is true of the Labour party. It, also, is what the Labour men make it. But the truths it stands for remain none the less true." Asked: What effect do you think it would have on the country if every church were shut and every parson unfrocked? Mr. Shaw replied: "A very salutary effect indeed. It would soon provoke an irresistible demand for tho reestablishment of the church, which could then start again without the superstitions that make it so impossible to-day. At present the church has to make itself cheap in all sorts of ways to induce people to attend its services; and the cheaper it makes itself the less the people attend. . . So many would find that they had been deprived of a necessity of life that the want would have to be supplied;. and there would presently be more churches than ever, and fuller ones." Asked if he believed that there must be "somebody behind the something," he replies: "No; I believe there is something behind the somebody. . . to put the body behind the thing that made it is to reverse the order of nature." As to a first cause, he says: "A first cause is a contradiction in terms, because in causation every cause must have a cause; and, therefore, there can no more be a first cause than a first inch in a circle. "All life is a se"4?s of accidents,'* he replies to a ouestion as to whether the universe made itself and whether the world is a pure accident, "but when you find most of them pointing all one way you may guess that there is something behind them thnt is not accidental." As to whether, given enough data, we could account for everything, he says: "No. We have data enough, from the Alps to the electrons, to account for everything fifty times over; but we have not the brains to interpret them." Do you think Christ is still a living influence in the present day? was the final question: "Yes," was the reply, "but there are, as he expected there would be, a good many very un-Christlike people trading under His name, for instance, St. Paul."