today in affecting our
philosophy of life and happiness.
Then came the Redemption, still borrowing from the current conception of the
sacrificial lamb, which went still farther back to the idea of a God Who desired the
smell of roast meat and could not forgive for nothing. From this Redemption, at one
stroke a means was found by which all sins could be forgiven, and a way was found
for perfection again. The most curious aspect of Christian thought is the idea of
perfection. As this happened during the decay of the ancient worlds, a tendency grew
up to emphasize the afterlife, and the question of salvation supplanted the question
of happiness or simple living itself. The notion was how to get away from this world
alive, a world which was apparently sinking into corruption and chaos and doomed.
Hence the overwhelming importance attached to immortality. This represents a
contradiction of the original Genesis story that God did not want man to live forever.
The Genesis story of the reason why Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of
Eden was not that they had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge, as is popularly conceived,
but the fear lest they should disobey a second time and eat of the Tree of Life and
live forever:
And the Lord God said. Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil:
and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and
live for ever:
CD It is a happy fact that with the progress of modern thought, the Devil is the
first to be thrown overboard. I believe that of a hundred liberal Christians today
who -still believe in God in some form or other, not more than five believe in a real
Devil, except in a figurative sense. Also the belief in a real Hell is disappearing
before the belief in a real Heaven.
Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground
from whence he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims,
and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
The Tree of Knowledge seemed to be somewhere in the center of the garden, but the
Tree of Life was near the eastern entrance, where for all we know, cherubims are still
stationed to guard the approach by men.
All in all, there is still a belief in total depravity, that enjoyment of this life
is sin and wickedness, that to be uncomfortable is to be virtuous, and that on the
whole man cannot save himself except by a greater power outside. The doctrine of sin
is still the basic assumption of Christianity as generally practiced today, and
Christian missionaries trying to make converts generally start out by impressing upon
the party to be converted a consciousness of sin and of the wickedness of human nature◆本◆作◆品◆由◆◆網◆提◆供◆下◆載◆與◆在◆線◆閱◆讀◆
(which is, of course, the sine qua non for the need of the ready-made remedy which
the missionary has up his sleeve). All in all, you can't make a man a Christian unless
you first make him believe he is a sinner. Some one has said rather cruelly, "Religion
in our country has so narrowed down to the contemplation of sin that a respectable
man does not any longer dare to show his face in the church.'
The Greek pagan world was a different world by itself and therefore their conception
of man was also quite different. What strikes me most is that the Greeks made their
gods like men, while the Christians desired to make men like the gods. That Olympian
company is certainly a jovial, amorous, loving, lying, quarreling and vow-breaking,
petulant lot; hunt-loving, chariot-riding and javelin-throwing like the Greeks
themselves a marrying lot, too, and having unbelievably many illegitimate children.
So far as the difference between gods and men is concerned, the gods merely had divine
powers of hurling thunderbolts in heaven and raising vegetation on earth, were
immortal, and drank nectar instead of wine the fruits were pretty much the same. One
feels one can