This was not only typical of the statements which many of the Soviet-converted Canadians admitted making, but they verified their complete devotion to such ideas by deliberately engaging in subversive activities against their own country.
The Secret Weapon of Communism
Now what do we deduct from this? Simply that these people were home-grown materialists! As Igor Gouzenko pointed out, there is a defect in your culture when your own people can grow up in your midst without gaining on appreciation of the difference between freedom and slavery, between idealism and atheism, between faith and doubt, or between order and chaos.
Somehow we failed to provide these people with the necessary ammunition to protect them in that critical moment when they were contacted by the agents of a foreign ideology. And we should be quick to recognize that if our culture and system of education is producing materialists, then this is the greatest secret weapon the Communists possess!
This means that we can spend two billion dollars developing the atomic bomb and the Communists can sit back and wait until we have succeeded. Then, they can drain off the information from some of our top security personnel. In fact, that is exactly what they did.
The greatest mistake that is being made in the free world today is the fact that we are mixing iron and clay. We are fighting for freedom but allowing some of our boys and girls to grow up believing in things which turn out to be basic Communistic concepts. Materialism is not Americanism but Communism. Every time we produce a boy or girl who is trained to believe that the universe is the product of accumulated accident, that human beings are only graduate beasts, that there is no such thing as innate right or wrong or that deep spiritual convictions are old-fashioned and unnecessary, then we have caused a casualty among our own ranks in the field of ideological warfare.
Without his ever knowing it, a young American is thereby trained to be a potential Red ally. This is indeed the great secret weapon of Communism.
Home-Made Materialism
Now where does an American boy or girl pick up the teachings of materialism? I think I can answer part of that question from a personal experience in an American institution of learning.
I was in my second year—a sophomore—and was taking my first course in philosophy. One morning the Professor said: “Now you young people are sufficiently mature so that your minds should be cleansed from the barnacles of superstition which probably accumulated during your youth. When you were children you were told about Santa Claus. Now you know the truth about Santa Claus. When you were children you were told about the stork. Now you know the truth about that.” He then stated that he was about to clarify our thinking in another field which had been cluttered up with childhood fairy tales. “Today,” he said, “I will tell you where the ideas about God came from and also about religion.” All of us sat back to absorb the gems of knowledge we were about to receive.
“Now in the beginning,” said the professor, “men worshipped things which they created with their own hands. It was called idolatry. Later, men imagined that there were a great many unseen gods—a god of war, a god of love, a god of rain, etc., and all these gods required sacrifices in order to keep them happy. Otherwise they showed forth their wrath. Therefore they were frequently called gods of vengeance.”
The professor then stated that the Bible is an excellent history of the evolution of religion. He said that it is clear from Bible study that the practice of idolatry prevailed among ancient peoples and that the Hebrews finally rose above it to worship Jehovah as a God of Vengeance. He said the people of Israel made sacrifices to Jehovah to keep him happy.
“Then,” he said, “Jesus came along and declared that God was a God of Love possessing the attributes of all the Platonic ultimates. Jesus taught that God was kind, just and forgiving. He taught the higher concepts of the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Golden Rule.”
“Now,” he continued, “This is the God men worship today, A God of Love as taught by Jesus. And it is good to go to church and worship this concept of God because it elevates the mind and stimulates the higher senses.”
“But,” he continued emphatically, “I want you young people to remember this: The idea of God is exactly like other human creations—like a great symphony someone has written, or a great poem; you don’t have to fear God, because we made him up!”
The professor finished by saying, “There is nothing watching over you—answering your prayers, or directing the human race toward some divine destiny. You young people are on your own.”
As the lecture concluded, I looked around at my fellow classmates. On the faces of some there seemed to be an expression of considerable relief. It was as though they were saying “Well, what do you know? Nobody’s watching me after all! So that’s what God is—something we made up—like a great symphony….”
Conversation Between a Student and a Professor
After the class I went to the professor and said, “Doctor, have you ever had an opportunity to read the Old Testament?”
“Well,” chuckled the professor, “only parts of it. I never had time to read all of it. But I studied the history and philosophy of the Bible under a well known authority.”
The following conversation then took place between the student and the professor. The student told the professor that when he read the Bible he did not find the story in it which the professor said was there. The professor looked puzzled, “What do you mean? What story isn’t there?”
“Well,” said the student, “the story that religion started out as idolatry, evolved to the worshiping of a God of Vengeance, and then culminated in the worshiping of a God of Love—as taught by Jesus.”
“Tell me,” asked the professor, “what did you find in the Bible?
The student said that as far as he was able to determine the nature and identity of God had been taught to men from the very beginning. He said he thought the Bible taught that God had raised up prophets and special witnesses from earliest times and these were each given a scientific experience so that they would know for themselves the nature of God and be able to teach it to the people.
Then he continued, “The second thing I understood the Bible taught is that in the beginning God revealed a pattern for happy living which we call religion. He taught us not to steal, not to lie, not to cheat, to serve our fellow men, to remain morally clean.
“Finally,” he concluded, “I thought the Bible said idolatry and heathen religious practices were set up to compete with revealed religion because a large percentage of the people refused to subscribe to the things God had revealed. I thought it said manmade religion came long after God had revealed His will to man and that idolatry was a substitute and degenerate form of worship sponsored by men who reveled in the violation of God’s commandments.”
The professor looked down at his desk for a moment and then said: “I am afraid you are a little naive. Religion was not revealed, it evolved. Certainly you will have to admit that Jehovah was a typical ‘God of Vengeance’ who made the people offers sacrifices to keep him happy.”