The Inspired Books
Most religions have their literature which is their source of all knowledge and wisdom, and their declaration of principles. The claim is always the same that this inspired book, work, or collection of' writings, is holy, immaculate, infallible, beyond reproach, and the only truth—in fact it is God’s word. Naturally the followers of one book will tell you that all the other books claiming to be inspired are quite false.
The book with which we are mostly concerned is the Bible, and although written between 1700 and 2700 years ago, this antiquated book of the dead has still a profound influence upon the living, as those who have had occasion to go to court know, and many who wanted a divorce have experienced, apart from the role it plays in general education of children, references in the press and on the radio, and its effects upon society. No Bible, then no Jesus, no miracles, no after life, no prayers, and all the rest of it. Our present ideas of Christianity spring from the Bible. If that is not the word of God, if it is not infallible, if it is not perfect and free from contradiction, then its value is limited as with other books, and this means that it could not have been inspired. We shall deal with the Bible in more detail in another article.
Other religions have similar books or writings. The Mohammedans have their Koran which according to Mohammed was given to him already completed and perfect, by an angel who swooped down from the clouds while Mohammed was strolling in his garden. There is the Zend Avesta of Zoroastrianism, the Vedas of the Hindus, the classical writings of Confucius may also be included, and many of the lesser religions have their Bibles.
None of these books can have any claim to have been written by a god or gods. All of them are clearly the writings of uninspired men, and all of them are full of contradictions, errors, absurdities, and the accepted ideas of the times in which they were written. Surely we are entitled to expect that inspired writings should contain ideas at least a little in advance of their time.
As many of the ruling class (as well as many of the working class) accept in the nominal Christian countries the Bible, we ought to examine it carefully, and if it is holy, wonderful, immaculate, and infallible we shall not fail to discover it. If on the other hand we find that it is full of mistakes, and contradictions, then the whole of the Christian fabric which7 is built upon the Bible as its premises, is like a house built on sand.
In the pamphlet “Socialism and Religion” published by the Party in 1911, and reprinted in 1925 and for many years now out of print, on page nine we find, “The fundamental idea of religion is a belief in the persistence of life after death.” It is true that belief in life after death does constitute one of the fundamentals of religion, but not the only one.
Man does not want to die, not even members of the working class with all the privations to which they are subjected. As far as we know primitive man did not want to die, save in exceptional circumstances. When primitive man dreamt that his lost companions were still living, as far as he could ascertain, for he saw them again, spoke to them again, hunted and fished with them once more (in his dreams that was—but he did not know he was dreaming). What more natural thing was it for him to assume than that he had another life, another self, somewhere else “on the astral plane, or in the third dimension,” as some crack-pots would say. It was always a question of mystery of death and of dreams, and naturally he linked them together. Ghosts were everywhere, nightmares were a regular occurrence and most disturbing. The anger of gods was being constantly aroused, religion was in the making in an environment full of superstition and ignorance.
Why then is it that so many people believe in life after death in these days, when we have learnt so much about the origin of religion? We might as well answer that we have learnt a lot about capitalism, but millions are still deluded by it Those who accept the "afterlife belief” today, whether in the ancient Christian form, or the more modem spiritualists’ form of survival, do so because of their explicit belief in the Bible and the existence of God or gods which dominate nature and rule the universe. All our earlier knowledge of survival if it can so be called knowledge, came from the Bible direct, except that which was disseminated by priests who in their turn got it from the Bible. Therefore if we want to follow the matter to its logical conclusion we must consider this profoundly important book from which arises the ideas of life after death.
The Bible certainly promises life after death, in several places, in fact that is the purpose of believing and the reward for believing. The Bible also tells us that it is “all up” with the grave. Ecclesiastes Ch. 9 verse 5 for instance “For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten." This reads strangely alongside the many better known verses such as "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; He that believeth not shall be damned.” The latter offers both a reward for believing and a punishment for not believing, so you can take your choice, but don’t say you have not been warned! We shall deal with the Bible in more detail later on, meanwhile most of us living under capitalism find it hard enough to survive before death, leave alone afterwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment