Religion - Thy Name is Superstition
Written: 1912
Primitive man must have been an unhappy and perplexed individual. He was surrounded
by natural forces that manifested themselves both to his detriment and benefit. Thunder
pealed and lightning flashed, splitting the rock and the patriarch of the forest, and killing
his companion of the chase. Flood, fire and earthquake gave their added testimony to the
existence of an evil-disposed power, always near, never seen, whose awful omnipotence
was beyond mortal conception. He naturally ascribed these terrors to some powerful,
malignant individual, in human shape (for he could conceive of no other, man, then, as
now, making God in his own image) who took delight in causing sorrow and distress. He
was the “evil one”, who needed to be appeased by bribes of good things to eat, and plenty
of them. Primitive man’s idea of heavenly ecstasy being to gorge himself to repletion, he
unconsciously endowed the figment of his brain with tastes that he himself possessed,
and his conception of the attributes of his deity was necessarily drawn from the source of
all his ideas – his own immediate environment. What he considered good was surely
desirable to his God.
Other forces manifested themselves in an opposite direction. The warmth of the sun, the
fruitfulness of the earth, the cooling breeze, the rain refreshing the parched earth, and
numberless other agreeable effects could only be the results of the activity of an opposite
nature to that of the evil one. The deity had to be thanked, and when a period of storm
and famine gave way to one of mildness and plenty, what more natural than to ascribe it
to the victory of the Good One over the Evil One? One was to be prayed to for success in
the chase or in war, and for protection against the Evil One, while the latter had to be
appeased by the sacrifice of the most precious of his primitive wealth, in order that he
might be kept in good temper. Thus arose the ideas of God and the Devil, founded on
man’s ignorance of the laws that govern the forces of nature.
Every step taken by man along the pathway of knowledge has increased his skepticism as
to the existence of a supernatural devil, who was responsible for the unhappiness caused
by flood, drouth, famine, fire, earthquake or sickness. He has learnt, in a large and
consequently increasing measure, to control many of these forces that were wont to strike
him with terror and dire forebodings when they ran amuck - or at least to foretell their
coming, and by preparation to minimize the effects. The science of meteorology tells him
when to expect floods and drouths. By strengthening the banks of the rivers he minimizes
the ravages of the former; by building reservoirs and dams he stores up the water in time
of plenty to provide against the time of scarcity, or uses it to turn the desert into a garden.
The science of seismology is rapidly becoming an exact one. It has discovered the weak
spots in the earth’s crust, and has explained the causes of earthquakes by a perfectly
natural pulling and straining of the strata in the process of adjustment, and for the activity
of volcanoes and their causes it has an understandable explanation.
Flood and fire and lightning have been chained and controlled, and made to perform in
man’s service, and the ancient tale that they were the manifestations of an evil
supernatural power let loose to punish man for his transgressions, or in malignant spite, is
smiled at and reserved as a tale to frighten little children into being good. The veil that
hid the unknown has been torn aside, and the terrors that were inspired by the very
existence of the unknown have been brushed aside with it.
In the same way he has discarded the idea of a beneficent supernatural deity who was his
friend and protector, and the enemy of the Evil One. Observation of the effects of his
own activity on the materials supplied him by nature has shown him that many of the
results are superior to what he had previously considered the gifts of a good spirit. With
the growth of his knowledge and understanding of natural laws he can perform wonders
of creation, that, in spite of the Bible, “add cubits to his stature”, and multiply his
strength a thousand-fold. By pressing a button he can provide or deny light to millions of
his kind. By pulling a lever he can set in motion mighty machines, his own creation, that
perform the work of a host. Time and distance he has annihilated, continents and oceans
are made to serve his ends, the empire of the air has surrendered to his assaults, and the
heavens he scans with his telescope, searching their innermost recesses, classifying,
tabulating, weighing the planets, following them in their paths, predicting their coming
and going, in perfect understanding of the laws that govern them in their movements.
And in all he finds no God superior to himself. He has found that all things, animate and
inanimate, excepting only himself, are the blind subjects of natural forces. He alone is
able to look these mighty natural powers in the face, and bend them to his will. He has
discovered that the universe is eternal, yielding implicit obedience to inexorable cosmic
laws of birth, growth, and decay, operating in an eternal cycle of change, in utter
disregard of puny humanity. The light of scientific research has been turned on the dark
places, and God and the Devil are rolling their blankets.
Supernatural religion has lost its hold on the masses. Priest and parson see their influence
waning, and the ruling class are correspondingly uneasy at the growing independence of
thought among their subjects. The “divine right” of kings of all descriptions, whether
they be of dynasty, or of mine, rail and soil, is being seen in its proper light as but the
might of the strong to oppress the weak. The spell of creeds and litanies is vanishing, and
the disinherited are getting ready to measure their might against that of the Lord’s
anointed. The Churches, handmaidens of the rulers, are behaving like hens that have
hatched out ducklings, beating the air and waking the echoes with their cacklings of
reproachful distress at the unnatural perversity of their erstwhile docile wards, now
manifesting an intention to strike out for themselves. Militias of Christ, Oxford and other
forward movements are financed by the wealthy to combat the growing tendency to
independence of thought amongst the hitherto thoughtless – but all in vain.
To compensate for the vanishing efficacy of the superstitious chloroform, the rulers are
strengthening their brutal forces of repression, preparing for the day when their right to
rule and rob will be definitely challenged by their victims. Cadet corps, boy scouts, and
militia are being held up to the young and thoughtless element of the working class as
holy and patriotic institutions for the preservation and protection of the God-ordained
dispensation of capital and human slavery.
“The Dog Barks, But the Moon Sails On.”
Human society moves in obedience to laws as inflexible as those that govern the
movements of the planets. Capitalist production has unchained the forces of nature and
broken the chains of mental enslavement. Cause and effect obtain as unceasingly and
unerringly in the brains of the human race and in human institutions as it does in the
heavens. The modern working class is fast beginning to realize that the titanic forces of
modern machinery are the product of its brain and hand, responsive to its slightest touch,
and that knowledge has engendered in its collective brain a growing confidence in its
collective power and irresistible might. It no longer looks to heavens of brass for a
supernatural savior, or to the class above it for a Moses to lead it out of the house of
bondage, but is becoming conscious of the strength that resides within itself. It is growing
in the knowledge that “he who would be free, must himself strike the blow”, and it’s
equipping itself for the task that lies before it – to put the finishing touches to man’s age-long struggle with nature for the means to satisfy his physical needs, by wresting the
marvelous machines of modern wealth production from the hands of the few, and placing
them in the hands of the whole of society.
Then, with superstition and slavery behind it, its feet for the first time planted on the soil
of freedom, humanity will pass through the gates of a new dawn, and enter upon a period
of achievement, for which the toilsome passage through the jungles of evolution, from
cave to steel mill, has been the cruel but necessary apprenticeship.
J. H. BURROUGH