IRRELIGION IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20521, 24 March 1930, Page 9

IRRELIGION IN RUSSIA.

STATUE TO MATERIALIST. CORRUPTING THE YOUNG. Times Cable. EONDON, March 21. The Riga correspondent of the Times says the unveiling of a statue of " Democritus/ the first anti-God materialist," was the principal feature of the second plenary conference of the Anti-God Society at Moscow. Yaroslavsky announced that the membership had increased from 1,000,000 last year to 2,500,000. An anti-religious university for little children had been opened at Leningrad, with 155 pioneer child students.

Democritus was a native of Abdera, in Thrace, which was proverbial in Ancient Greeco for the stupidity of its inhabitants. He was its most distinguished citizen. Little is definitely known of his life. He was probably born about 470 8.C., and was rather older than Socrates. Being rich he was able* to travel, and studied in Egypt and elsewhere. He returned to his home later, and died at a ripe old age. He had an important influence on late Greek thought. He taught that everything can be explained by a mechanical system, in which there is no room for the idea of a providence or an intelligent cause working to an end. He thought the soul—which like everything else, in his view, consisted of atoms —perished with the body. He did not believe in the gods, or a deity.