WAR ON RELIGION

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3314, 25 June 1931, Page 2

WAR ON RELIGION

Fear of a widespread denial of the deity, so that "by the year 1936 Europe will have no less than twenty million atheists," is perhaps excusable among German churchmen, with whom the subject seems to be a topic for alarmed conversation.

The Moscow oligarchy unquestionably is doing its best to destroy belief in God among those under its thumb or within reach of its influence; and Central Europe lies next to Soviet Kussia; and, so The Germania reports, " there are 600,000 members of the various 'free-thinking ' organisations in Germany alone. Much invocation of the 'spirit that denies' undeniably goes on, also, in many other parts of the continent." But whether there will be twenty million atheists in Europe five years hence, oV two million, or two hundred thousand, or twenty, depends very much upon how you define the word " atheism." It is not synonymouse with ' agnostic " or " infidel." Strictly speaking, "atheism" is a positive denial of the existence of any deity. Loose, secondary definitions of the -word may be found in the dictionaries, but they are a concession to inexact, sloppy, or bigoted thinking.

It is highly doubtful whether more than a handful of genuine atheists live in any generation. Many people think that they are atheists until they get into trouble of some sort; but that is a different matter.

To be an atheist a person must be a thorough-going materialist, and he must discard even the idea of a remote, governing cause. Not all the adherents of the old "mechanical" theory of the universe went that far. To become an actual atheist a person must first divest himself of all superstition and all sense of the supernaturally mysterious, and that is one of the most difficult tasks to which the average human being can set his mind and will. If he is to succeed fie must suppress a deep, natural instinct. Rejection of a particular creed or of some particular form of religion is not atheism; neither is refusal to receive some particular sacred book or tradition. Whoever in the watches of the night finds himself unable to say that there is no higher power than created man is far from atheism.

It is quite possible that the Red propaganda of " godlessness" may pull in many recruits in Europe during the years immediately ahead. Unquestionably there is a big reaction from the emotional exaltation that many experienced during the war period and immediately afterwards. Perhaps the Communists may even meet with some success in their attacks on Judiasm and Mohammedanism. On that account there is reason for fighting their activities vigorously. General irreligion is likely to mean general demoralisation.

* Man needs some sort of faith to live by if he is going to keep himself above the beasts. The Communists themselves acknowledge that by making an idol of an embalmed body and promoting the cult of Leninism. They say they are honouring the memory of a hero; but hero worship is closely allied to god worship, and frequently a hero story is an ancestor of a deity story. Conceptions of God widen with the increasing kmnvleclge..,of man, and particularly with meal's increasing •understanding of the' r size of the universe. Consequently in a progressive era the ideas of one century about K-r, have little .- ,n the next it, does not endea of God, for remain? still a always will.

Like love and the sea, religion has its tides. Sometimes the ebbe is extreme; the flood, however, always follows. The person, or government, or people that try to stop the in-coming waters suffer the regular fate of those that undertake to dispute the right of way of an irresistible force.