Part 9 (2/2)
The sun is, in a very literal and real sense, the creator-G.o.d in whom this world lives, moves and has its being; and he is the saviour-G.o.d who was born of a virgin nebula, and every winter descends into h.e.l.l and rises from the dead (the southern solstice) by a new birth and ascends into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the father (the sky) at the northern solstice, and finally he is the illuminator G.o.d who lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
And the apostles who preached the gospel of the redemption of the world are the twelve signs of the zodiac through which the sun apparently pa.s.ses in its annual ascension to the summer solstice and descension to the winter solstice.
Nor is this all: ”the Lamb of G.o.d that taketh away the sins of the world” is the sign of the zodiac, Aries (sheep, ram) through which the sun pa.s.ses towards the end of March, when all the saviour-G.o.ds annually died and rose again. The rising symbolizes the return of the sun towards the northern solstice from the southern one, upon which return seed-time and harvest are dependent, without which the world would perish, not indeed by sin but by starvation.
Jehovah is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of the owning, master cla.s.s of the Jews.
Jesus is the sun-myth rewritten to fit in with the ideals and hopes of the owning master cla.s.s of the Christians.
The Christian G.o.d, Jesus, is an improvement upon the Jewish G.o.d, Jehovah, because of the division of labor. The task of the owning master cla.s.s is a twofold one, the robbing of the weak owners by the strong ones in wars, and the robbing of the slaves by the masters which under the capitalist system is done in surplus profits.
Jehovah serves Christians as the G.o.d of war. In his name they wage wars, either as groups within a nation having different commercial interests, as in the case of the Civil War of the United States, or as nations against nations with different commercial interests, as in the case of the Revolutionary war of the Colonies with England, or the World War of the Allied countries with the Central ones.
Jesus serves Christians as the G.o.d of slavery. When they have successfully waged a war of conquest, as the Pilgrim Fathers did against the Indians of America, or when they have appropriated all the means and machines of production, as the capitalists have everywhere, they reconcile the propertyless to a terrestrial h.e.l.l of toil, want, sorrow and slavery by preaching the Jesuine gospel of hope for a celestial heaven of eternal rest, joy, plenty and freedom.
”Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum.”
In remaking the Jewish G.o.d to suit their purposes of robbing and enslaving, the Christian owning master cla.s.s provided for a further division of his work by creating the Holy Ghost, who devotes himself to the giving of new revelations of the will of Jehovah and interpreting the earlier ones as they are recorded in the bible.
It is generally supposed that the masters are the strong people of the world, but they are not. Labor is really the giant, the Samson, and it would be impossible for the pigmy, capital, to rob him, but for his lack of knowledge. The Holy Ghost sees to it that the slave cla.s.s is kept in ignorance.
The English-German, or if you prefer, the German-English war has been an eye-opener to the giant, labor, and capital is ruined unless he can get him to sleep again.
Capital knows that Marx was right in characterizing the orthodox interpretations of religion, including the Christian one, and especially it, as a sleeping potion.
The churches were the dormitories in which the slaves slept through the night of the dark ages of traditionalism, but the light of the age of scientism is breaking upon the world and most of the slaves have left the churches and are now beyond the reach of their care-takers, the preachers.
When I wrote the Level Plan for Church Union, I believed that the coming together of the churches would prove to be a blessing to the world, but I am now persuaded that it would be a curse, because the league of churches would co-operate with the league of nations in its robbing and enslaving schemes, the churches doing the lying and the nations the coercing.
We are living in the age of scientism and, in the case of its true sons and daughters, only scientifically demonstrated facts count in any argumentation.
From the scientific point of view it is seen that there is but one universal Kingdom of Life, Nature. This kingdom may be divided into three, perhaps four, states const.i.tuting the United States of Life: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human.
Beginning with the highest, each of these states, except the lowest, is dependent upon the next lower. The only independent autonomous state in the kingdom is the mineral. This is the greatest both as to its extent and importance. It is the common source of every supply of all the states of life, and the seat of each of their governments.
All theologians and some metaphysicians postulate a fifth state of life, the divine, placing it above the rest as their source.
Comte, who preceded Marx as a social philosopher, and who is the founder of modern socialism of the reformatory type, as Marx is of the revolutionary one, had this to say about the theologians, metaphysicians and scientists, and he was right:
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