What is religion? - Part 6 (1954)

From the February 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 5.

Prayer gives some people relief, just as does swearing to others. Some prefer chain smoking or drinking to the point of getting drunk as the best means of drowning their sorrows. Apart from self-relief, prayers give to those who say them, an assurance which they seek. From this aspect it would appear to be somewhat similar to wishful thinking. Prayer may act psychologically like auto-suggestion, especially if it is applied to some aid which one requires for oneself,  as distinct from prayers for others, or prayers for better weather, etc.

As would be expected the priests were not slow to capitalise prayers and make a profession of saying them for others. The Catholic priests have been active at the game for centuries and have persuaded many a poor man to give his savings, as well as the rich to give large sums of money to the church, i.e., the institution or business of the priests. The saying of mass for the soul after death continued the good work paid for in advance by the living, or by his or her relatives. The priests are supposed to be especially good at saying prayers, writing them and reading them, and often learn Latin (the chief language of God) for that purpose. How God knows all the different languages and can understand millions of prayers uttered at the same time from dozens of different lands is one of those mysteries about which we hear nothing.

One would have thought that in a modern civilised community, run on mass production lines and the latest ideas of capitalism, machines would have been invented to say prayers by the million, by the pressing of a button. Especially would this be valuable during wartime, when prayer machines could work day and night asking for divine assistance for victory, or don't the ruling class believe in the usefulness of evoking God’s assistance at such a critical time?

When nations go to war they all claim that God is on their side; in the last war the Russians did not hesitate to call out the priests who had been in cold storage for some years. In the first World War the Germans made a great point of “Gott mit uns” but apparently after being so badly let down were very hesitant in evoking God’s assistance in the second war. No doubt the Christian clergy of the allies would jubilantly declare "that is why they lost.” The old dictum is still true, that "God is on the side of the big battalions” (or with the strongest armies), or u trust in God and keep your powder dry.” Since capitalism came into existence these later precepts have come to be the ones which have been followed very carefully, while too much reliance on God to help is thought to be bad military strategy.

“God heard the embittered nations pray and shout 

God this, God that, and God the other thing,

‘ Good God,’ said God, 'I’ve got my work cut out’.”

If, as the Christians tell us, God knows everything, then prayer is merely telling God what God already knows. In which case it is a sheer waste of time on the part of those who offer them, as well as a distracting force to God. On the other hand if they are trying to persuade God to do something which he has no intentions of doing, then prayer is wicked, because it attempts to alter God’s infallible intentions. They can’t have it both ways.

Horace Jarvis

 

(To be continued.)