God Arises
Challenge of Modern Knowledge
~ 23 ~
The concept of God has reached the limits of
its usefulness: it cannot evolve further. Man to
carry the burden of religion created
supernatural powers. From diffuse magic
mana
to personal spirits; from spirits to gods;
from gods to God—so crudely speaking, the
evolution has gone. The particular phase of
that evolution which concerns us is that of
God. In one period of our Western civilization
the gods were necessary fictions, useful
hypotheses by which to live.
7
The Communist philosophy too holds religion to be
a historical hoax. Since Communism studies history
exclusively in the light of economics, to it, all
historical factors were offshoots of the economic
situation. It holds that it was the feudal and
capitalistic systems, prevailing in the past, that had
led to the birth of religion. Now that these outdated
systems are dying a natural death, religions should
also be treated as dead along with it. As Engels puts
it, moral concepts, in the last analysis, are the
product of contemporary economic conditions.
Human history is the history of class wars, in which
the ruling classes have been exploiting the
