"God-Building" in the Jew Run Soviet Union

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

God-Building

 

God-Building was an idea proposed by some prominent Marxists of the Soviet Union, but which was never adopted, and was suppressed by the official ideology. It was inspired by Ludwig Feuerbach's 'religion of humanity' and had some precedent in the French revolution with the 'cult of reason'. The idea consisted of the notion that in place of the abolition of religion, there ought to be a new religion created which did not recognize supernatural existence, but which worshipped humanity and retained many of the cultural aspects of organized religion.

Lunacharsky (..had a Jew-wife --CSR)
 
Anatoly Lunacharsky, one of the pre-revolution members of Lenin's party and the Commissar of Enlightenment after the revolution. He proposed a new religious sentiment which would be accommodating to the world-view of Communism by creating a new religion that was compatible with science and not based on any supernatural beliefs. He called it 'bogostroitel'stvo' (God-Building).

Lunacharsky claimed that while traditional religion was false and was used for the purposes of exploitation, it still cultivated emotion, moral values, desires and other aspects of life that were important to human society.[1] He believed that these aspects should be transformed into positive humanistic values of a new communist morality, instead of destroying religion outright when it served as the psychological and moral basis for millions of people. In his idea, God would gradually be replaced with a new vision of humanity, and through doing so socialism would achieve great success.

He and his supporters argued that Marxism was too mechanically deterministic with regard to human beings and that it alone would not be able to inspire masses of people. They considered that religion was needed by people to function.

Feuerbach's religion of humanity, on which this was inspired, held that God would be replaced by man as an object of worship. It did not mean that single individuals would be worshipped, but rather the entire potential of the human race and all its achievements would be the object of worship. Instead of projecting human values onto the heavens and submitting people to their own illusory creation, these values would be worshipped in humanity as a whole, which possessed them collectively. This religion would bring people to value themselves and to find common purpose, community and universal meaning in themselves as a collective.

Along with Feuerbach, they also received inspiration from Richard Avenarius' 'Naturfilisof', Ernst Mach's 'Empiriocriticism' as well as from Nietzsche.

They understood the term 'religion' to mean a link between human beings as individuals, as a link people between human beings and nations, and as a link between human beings and societies in the past as well as future. Lunacharsky wrote, 'For the sake of the great struggle for life... it is necessary for humanity to almost organically merge into an integral unity. Not a mechanical or chemical... but a psychic, consciously emotional linking-together... is in fact a religious emotion.'[2] He argued that atheism in itself is pessimistic, because life becomes meaningless, and that in order to solve this one needed to turn to the pleasure of a religion to give meaning. Atheism didn't provide people with the meaning in their lives that religion did and once religion was taken away, people would feel empty unless something was put in its place. In its place, Lunacharsky proposed they should place humanity as a transcendent entity.

Lunacharsky wished to change the commandment to love God above everything into, 'You must love and deify matter above everything else, [love and deify] the corporal nature or the life of your body as the primary cause of things, as existence without a beginning or end, which has been and forever will be.'[3] He wrote, 'God is humanity in its highest potential. But there is no humanity in the highest potential... Let us then love the potentials of mankind, our potentials, and represent them in a garland of glory in order to love them ever more.[3]

Lunacharsky saw Marxism as having religious components, including its faith in the inevitable victory of socialism, as well as its belief in science and material existence as producing all human relations. These elements could assist in the God-Building. Lunacharsky interpreted the events of the 1905 revolution as an expression of religious forces in the nation.[3] The religion to be created would worship the social ideal of socialism in its deification of humanity.

Lunacharsky and his supporters rejected the divinity of Christ, but they deeply respect him and re-interpreted him as a revolutionary leader and the world's first Communist. The new religion would have prayer that would be addressed to progress, humanity, the nation and human genius. Collective, rather than individual, prayer was stressed due to the wish to use the cult to support a common revolutionary action. This new religion would have temples and rituals, and theatre with symbolic plays to induce religious feelings.

Rejection

(Syphilis infected) Lenin was infuriated by the notion, and considered Lunacharsky's position to be extremely harmful, by supposedly transforming Marxism into a mild liberal reformism. He believed it obscured the fact that religion had been a tool of ideological exploitation, and that this idea was making a compromise with reactionary forces.
 

Vladimir Lenin died from syphilis, new research claims
Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary and architect of the Soviet Union, died from syphilis caught from a Parisian prostitute and not from a stroke as has always been believed, new research has claimed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6406447 ... laims.html

Lenin's victory in the 1917 October revolution led to the rejection of this school of thought, except in the case of Bogdanov [6]

Lenin had extreme views on religion going back many years: 'Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles, and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labour of others are taught by religion to practise charity while on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in heaven. Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.'

Marx had rejected Feuerbach's idea of a religion of humanity as well, and this example served Lenin's argument. Lenin would not compromise with religion even in this form, and he felt that it would ultimately degenerate into a betrayal of the Bolshevik cause.

Lunacharsky's idea was adopted by a number of other leading Bolsheviks, including Maxim Gorky, and Alexander Bogdanov.

Lunacharsky had caved in after the revolution and he would change his views on Christ in later propaganda by calling Him a mythical personality and not an historic figure.

 Legacy of Lunacharsky

Lunacharsky's notion that religion was a complex phenomena with many aspects, stood in favourably contrast to the naive views of other Soviet leaders in the early days of the USSR who thought religion would disappear with the changing material conditions, under the Marxist presumption that religion and all ideology was simply a product of material conditions. Luncharsky's ideas concerning this complex nature of religious existence was later adopted by other Soviet leaders.

Lunacharsky advocated criticizing clergymen for failing to keep biblical teaching and other strategies that relied on understanding religion in greater depth. While he urged moderation (not on principle but out of pragmatic concerns) and this would be ignored, the simplistic views on religion as a mere class phenomena were discarded in favour of understanding it as a more complex phenomena.

Ideas related to God-building did emerge in the years following.

A Russian-Soviet writer and medical doctor, V. Veresaev, beginning in 1926 argued in favour of developing beautiful and standardised rituals for important occasions such as giving names to infants, weddings and funerals. He argued that the state already possessed many rituals (parades, demonstrations, etc.), but that they were 'depressingly untalented and miserable'.[10] He and many others argued that people were going to churches due to disappointment in the bureaucratic indifference and poor quality of Soviet state marriages or birth-registration. One Communist rural teacher who supported him claimed that he would not preach atheism to peasants because when one makes them atheists, one deprives them of all rituals along with the religion and give nothing to replace them with. A Komsomol activist who supported him, presented a case of a person whose wife had died, was buried through means of an emotionally cold and indifferent secular-communist ceremony, and the man, greatly depressed by it, consumed a full bottle of vodka while crying in tears. Lenin had claimed that religion was a kind of spiritual booze in that it acted like a drug for people, while this man had turned to booze in place of religion.[10]

Veresaev, however, was attacked by Marxist intellectuals and his ideas, like Lunacharsky's, were rejected. Veresaev warned that 'life would become a bore and man would turn into an empty container' as a result, and that these people who opposed him were 'stooping people with protruding foreheads, short-sighted eyes and thick spectacles' who didn't appreciate beauty and had no need for rituals in their lives.

Lunacharsky's idea of 'God-building' would not be revived in any major way, however, until the 1960s.

The Orthodox church saw this whole new religion in the category of the false prophets that Christ had predicted, and related it to Satanism. Soviet author, Laskovaia, pointed to a similarity in Lunacharsky's ideas with the 'Death of God' concept of western agnostic and atheistic theologians, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Bishop John A.T. Robinson.[9]

Revival of God-Building

In February 1962, the 'All-Union Conference on Scientific Propaganda' was held in Moscow. Among the ideas discussed it was suggested that 'Religious people should be educated in the principles of communist morality and ethics, religious customs and traditions are to be replaced by religious feasts and rituals to satisfy the aesthetic and emotional needs of believers'[13][14][15][16]

In 1965, as Khrushchev's attack on religion had appeared to produce no effective results, more suggestions began to appear in the Soviet press that pseudo-religious rites should be instituted that would create a mystical link between people and the promised Communist society of the future, glorified in the labour of the present.[9] The rites and services would be oriented to an utopian future promised by the Communist society. Events and days for glorifying Communism would be celebrated. Special temples with symbolic artistic ornaments would be built to glorify Communism as man's greatest achievement, with oratorios composed and performed in the temples.[9]

The ideas possessed some elements that were reminiscent of neo-paganism in Nazi Germany in the conception of idolizing the nation state, which was considered to be mighty, powerful and justified in whatever action it undertook.[17]

The new proponents of this God-Building scheme did not go as far as Lunacharsky and tried to avoid blatantly challenging Lenin's earlier rebuke. The theoretical discussion produced little of what it proposed, but it did lead the way to the introduction of special rituals being created in certain official events. For example, in 1966, an 'All-Union Day of the Agricultural Worker' was set up and based on rituals connected with St John the Baptist's Day. The new ceremonies were meant to help call people to the 'social, political, and ideological unity of society under socialism.[18] In the Ukraine it was called the Holiday of the Hammer and Sickle, which is described:

'On an early December morning tractor drivers [from the surrounding region] converge in Zhitomir. At the entry to the city they are met by the representatives of the city factories who report to them on the progress of the socialist competition and invite the drivers to their factories, where the peasants and the workers engage in heart-searching and business like discussions. Then a parade of agrarian technology takes place at the Lenin Square. Solemnly, accompanied by an orchestra, the best workers and peasants receive their prizes and diplomas. Then all of them make public production-quota pledges for the forthcoming year at the city theatre.[18][19]

Special rites and ceremonies were devised in the 60s to celebrate the granting of passports on the sixteenth birthday (the passport was used to control every movement, act and job of Soviet citizens). Another rite was created for initiation into the ranks of workers and peasants. As early as the late 50s, the state had also been making more ceremonious civil marriages, name-giving ceremonies for babies and funerals, in order to compete with the church.

In the (JEW RUN)  western Ukraine, clubs of militant atheists in the post-Khrushchev years created new secular rites to replace church-related rites.[17]

Paganism re-emerged in areas that the church had been eliminated from, and this was used in the arguments of those who argued in favour of God-building and the need for people to have religion.

Official Soviet propaganda proclaimed much success in these rites tearing people away from the church, however, this may not have been truthful. Official figures that showed declines in baptisms or church marriages, may have reflected more people asking pastors to do such things secretly rather than an actual decline after the introduction of improved secular rites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God-Building    

[Michael K.]

Dear CSR,

I see the significance of this item of research.  In combination with the information provided in these following threads, we have the blueprint and flow chart for the formation of the Judeo-Zionist "Beast" religion in "possum" Russia:

viewtopic.php?f=41&t=15000

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14805

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15051

The militant atheists' objections to all religions are all valid when applied to the vain and delusional attempt by some men to synthesize a custom god to suit purely human objectives.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Thanks for posting those Michael... there is a lot of material that relates.. I'm always brought back to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.  It seems the "Old Believers" were repackaged under Bolshevism with massive propaganda. This is a rich vein to mine for details on the "revolution".  There's the hidden, Masonic-Jewish hand, and the above the table sloganeering "Atheistic"-"Idealistic"-"Revolutionary"... reality to all of this.   Very interesting material there.  Cromwell of course was Jew financed from the Netherlands...

e.g.,

The conceptual eschatologism of the European nations came through several phases of development. At first it had the catholic and scholastic expression, parallelly with which the purely mystical doctrines were also developed, like the conception of the "Third Kingdom" by Joahim de Flor. The question was that the Roman-German world will complete the "gospelization" of barbarians and heretics (including orthodox Christians!) and the "paradise on Earth" will come, aspects of which seemed more or less analogue to the universal domination of Vatican, but only brought to the absolute state. In sixteenth century the European eschatologism was expressed in Reformation, and later found its final formula in Anglo-Saxon protestant doctrine of "lost tribes". That doctrine considers Anglo-Saxon nations as ethic descendants if 10 lost tribes of Israel, having had not returned, according to Bible history, from the Babylonian captivity. Therefore, the genuine Jews, Israelites, "chosen nation" are Anglo-Saxons, the "golden corn" of Roman-German world, who should at the end of times establish the domination over all other nations of Earth. In this extreme doctrine, formulated in seventeenth century by the adherents of Oliver Cromwell, all the logic of European ethic history is concentrated in a concise form, West's ethic and cultural universalism of claims to the world dominance is clearly and undoubtedly affirmed.

Dostoyevsky and the Problem of God

Elissa Kiskaddon (of Swedish Cowboy Poet fame -CSR)


"Nothing is more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience. But nothing is a greater cause of suffering."
The Brothers Karamazov, 1880.


In contemplating the creation of the novel The Idiot, Dostoyevsky wrote in a letter to A.N. Maikov that he hoped to focus the work around a question "with which I have been tormented, consciously or unconsciously all my life--that is, the existence of God."1 Dostoyevsky's personal struggle with the question of faith, and also his own experience with trying doubts as a believer, are manifested in the characters he writes. A large number of Dostoyevsky's books are written within the framework of a Christian doctrine, juxtaposing characterizations of believers and non-believers, enforcing the ultimate good and reason that follow from possessing a faith. Dostoyevsky also describes however, the mental suffering and questioning inherent in the step of realizing the "truth" of Jesus Christ. Berdyaev, in a discussion on Dostoyevsky's mission, states that "he did not have to solve the divine problem as does the pagan, but the problem of mankind,which is the problem of the spiritual man, the Christian."2

Indeed, Dostoyevsky was raised in a religious home, "I descended from a pious Russian family . . . We, in our family, have known the gospel almost ever since our earliest childhood . . . Every visit to the Kremlin and the Moscow cathedral was, to me, something solemn." 3 He was certainly well acquainted with the contents of the Bible, as his devoted mother used only the Old and New Testament to teach her children to read and write. Dostoyevsky also recalled his favorite nurse in the context of the prayer she taught him, "I place all my hope in Thee, Mother of God preserve me under Thy protection." 4 Such a strong female association in his early childhood perhaps influenced Dostoyevsky's later writing, enabling him to write only females into roles that were true and wholly pious, evidenced by Sonya from Crime and Punishment. Moreover, these childhood associations seem to have strongly imprinted upon his mind, "This book [the book of Job] Anna [his wife], it's strange -- is one of the first which made an impression on me in life, I was just then only a little boy."5

While a large portion of Dostoyevsky's nurturing seems to have occurred in a Christian nest, he was also exposed to the harsh qualities possessed by man. His father was, though reverent, a drunk, and was later murdered by serfs on account of his inhumane treatment.6

This rougher sphere of his upbringing manifested itself in Dostoyevsky's early adulthood. He became involved in a group known as the "Russian Utopian Socialists," influenced by Belinsky, a well known literary critic. The partnership formed by the two presumably shook Dostoyevsky's faith, as his revered mentor found that "as a socialist, he had to destroy Christianity in the first place. He knew that the revolution must necessarily begin with atheism."7 Later, though, Dostoyevsky broke off from the specific branch of the movement, forming the Durov circle. He was arrested for "the circulation of a private letter full of insolent expressions against the Orthodox Church."8 Evidently, he had forgotten his mother's teachings.



While in prison (where the only book allowed was The Bible) it appears Dostoyevsky began to reemerge as a believer, writing in a letter to Mrs. N.D. Fonvizin:

    I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly and more perfect than the Savior;...If anyone could prove to me that Christ is outside the truth, and if the truth really did exclude Christ, I should prefer to stay with Christ and not the truth.9

Yet, the Dostoyevsky scholar Mochulsky, pounces on this declaration,

    For him Christ was only the most beautiful 'sympathetic' and perfect of men. He even allowed that the One who said of himself: 'I am the Truth,' can be found to exist outside the truth; this premise is blasphemous to every believer. Here is the direction in which Dostoyevsky's convictions were regenerated,10

What is important however, is the actual regeneration of the faith which is evident and steadfast in novels such as The Brothers Karamazov, Devils, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment. Another important consideration is that this spiritual rebirth took place within the confines of a Siberian prison, where Dostoyevsky was amassing a large storage of information on the capacity for evil in men. That Dostoyevsky was able to cultivate a belief within such a hostile environment demonstrates the strength of his conviction.

For Dostoyevsky then, the problem of God became not the recognition of the truth, but the elimination of associated doubt. The primary source of doubt which plagued Dostoyevsky was his struggle to reconcile the suffering evident in the world and the notion of a loving God.

Dostoyevsky expressed this conflict in Ivan Karamazov, "It's not God I don't accept, understand this, I do not accept the world, that He created, this world of God's, and cannot agree with it."11 The Brothers Karamazov, the novel in which Dostoyevsky deals most explicitly with the questioning of God, was planned in a manner which "pitted faith versus atheism."12 Faith was primarily identified in the "active love" Alyosha displayed towards his brothers, but fundamentally Zosima served as a prototype, through which Dostoyevsky felt he could "compel people to admit that a pure ideal Christianity is not an abstraction, but a vivid reality, possibly near at hand, and that Christianity is the sole refuge of the Russian land from all its evils."13 Both Alyosha and Zosima were imminently more successful in serving as an example of the ideal goodness found in religious men than Dostoyevsky's prior attempts. For instance, Prince Myshkin in The Idiot, ended up being primarily that, an idiot characterized more by ignorant simplicity than a base goodness founded in a strong Christian faith.

The faith displayed chiefly in Alyosha is countered by Ivan's intellectual denouncement of God. Yet, as Mochulsky explains, Ivan's approach and defense of atheism "lies in that he renounces God out of love for mankind, comes forward against the Creator in the role of the advocate of all suffering creation."14 The clash in opinion of these two Karamazov brothers is representative of the struggle found in the human soul, "The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of men."15 Ivan attempts to snare Alyosha on two points, the suffering of innocents and the conception of freedom, essentially free will.

The suffering of children is most irrational and unjust to Ivan, and also to Alyosha's mind. Ivan delivers a monologue in which he relates horrid examples of the torture of children, probing Alyosha to reconcile such abuse with his loving God. Ivan refocuses the argument in an effort to appeal to Alyosha's immense kindness:

    Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature...and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on this condition?16

Alyosha counters, defending his beliefs with the example of Christ-who suffered a excruciating crucifixion for the sake of man. Extrapolating on this idea, Alyosha explains that 'each is responsible for all.' Any guilt, and consequently any suffering should be common to every believer, as we are all guilty of Adam and Eve's original sin. Gibson extends Alyosha's comments with further interpretation, "and if we felt that responsibility keenly enough we could abolish suffering -- for the future."17
In response to Alyosha's justification Dostoyevsky writes what has been heralded as his most profound piece of writing, Ivan's "poem" concerning The Grand Inquisitor. Within this discussion of free will the reader hits on another problem of God, one of the major tenets of scholarly atheism. Ivan blames Christ for man's downfall and disbelief in an astonishing path of reasoning:

For the secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for . . . Instead of taking men's freedom from them, Thou didst make it greater than ever! Didst Thou forget that man prefers peace, and even death, to the freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil? . . . So that, in truth, thou didst Thyself lay the foundation for the destruction of Thy kingdom, and no one is more to blame for it.18

Berdyaev, in an explanation of Dostoyevsky's intense focus on freedom points out that, "for him the justification both of God and of man must be looked for in freedom..."19 This freedom is further defined:

The lesser freedom was the beginning, freedom to choose the good, which supports the possibility of sin; the greater freedom was the ending, freedom in God, in the bosom of God...The dignity of man and the dignity of faith require the recognition of two freedoms, freedom to choose the truth and freedom in the truth...But free goodness, which alone is true, entails the liberty of evil. That is the tragedy of that Dostoyevsky saw and studied, and it contains the mystery of Christianity.20

And consequently it revokes Ivan's argument, for if evil necessitates freedom, than it is through humans that evil and suffering occurs, and therefore God can not be blamed. Freedom is also required however, so that we are allowed to fully appreciate God's love by choosing it. You can not have a world, both free and good, human imperfection will not allow for it. As Berdyaev finishes, "The world is full of wickedness and miserly precisely because it is based on freedom -- yet that freedom constitutes the whole dignity of man and his world."21

However, within the frame of the text Dostoyevsky answers the great paradox of free-will not with debate, but with the actions of Alyosha. Gibson agrees, explaining, "The answer is to go forward from theory to practice: and Dostoyevsky distinguished in the end between the yearning love which does nothing and submits, and the active love which has the power to save."22 The success of Alyosha's working love is seen in his interactions with Kolya, a boy of about fourteen years, and with his classmates. Before the young and fiercely loyal Ilyusha dies, Alyosha enables a reconciliation between the failing boy and his school "hero" Kolya. While this act in itself displays great love, Dostoyevsky examines the situation more deeply, showing a fundamental change in Kolya's perspective as a direct result of Alyosha's influence. Upon first meeting the "monk of the world" Kolya challenges, "You must admit that the Christian religion , for instance, has only been of use to the rich and the powerful to keep the lower classes in slavery..."23 And yet, at Ilyusha's funeral he exclaims, "Oh, if I, too, could sacrifice myself some day for the truth!"24 echoing Christ's action and demonstrating clearly that Alyosha's active love has saved him, and that this love does answer God's call for Christians to be responsible and consequently guilty for the sins of the world.

While Dostoyevsky examines his religious doubts, funneling his struggle into the voices of his characters, it is clear that his final resolve lies in a strong conviction of the presence of God. By noting the situation he leaves his characters in at the completion of his works it is apparent that the "good" or likable characters are aligned with God, and the "evil" personalities rebel against the Almighty. The Brothers Karamazov ends with Alyosha, Mitya, and Kolya all as believers, all of whom we feel compassion towards, while the sly and sinister Smerdyakov commits suicide, the strongest act of rebellion against God. Kirillov and Nikolai in Devils also take their own lives, and are also the most reprehensible characters within the work. Dostoyevsky distinctly pairs his heroes with a strong faith in God and his villains with atheism (and socialism), suggesting the conclusion which he would like to draw.

Also expressed in his texts are some of the minor snares which trap Dostoyesky's, and consequently his character's, minds, such as the superman theory, the example of unjust Christians, the excesses of churches, the triumph of sin and the call for a absolute and genuine dedication to the "light".
In a letter to N.L. Ozmidov, in 1878, Dostoyevsky writes:


    Now assume there is no God or immortality of the soul. Now tell me, why should I live righteously and do good deeds if I am to die entirely on earth?...And if that is so, why shouldn't I (as long as I can rely on my cleverness and agility to avoid being caught by the law) cut another man's throat , rob, and steal...25

This superman theory, initially established in Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment is a result of doubt expressed in the very existence of God, combined with immense pride. The theory allows Raskolnikov, without instigation, to murder two women and potentially an unborn child. As a higher being, he should be allowed to take the life of those less meaningful and essential. Using the same justification Kirillov issues a form of challenge to God, and in preparing to take his life explains, "If God exists, then everything is His will, and I can do nothing of my own apart from His will. If there's no God, then everything is my will, and I'm bound to express my will."26 This amazing arrogance stems from Kirillov's absolute absence of faith in Christ, containing instead only a faith in himself,

    "If you shoot yourself, you'll become God, isn't that right?"
    "Yes, I'll become God."27


This theory however, is refuted by Dostoyevsky in his plot development. Raskolnikov is unable to live with himself after the murder takes place. While his warped logic may allow some form of reasoning for his heinous act, he is fundamentally unable to erase his sense of wrong and right. Initially he attempts to continue life, enjoying his clever trick, and concluding from his experiment that he is a superman. Yet, humble Sonya takes apart Raskolnikov's intellect by reducing him to the base level of his soul, and it is here that he recognizes he is guilty, he has committed and evil act and he needs forgiveness. Dostoyevsky dissolves the superman theory by condemning the involved characters to mental suffering until they recognize the truth and light of Christianity.

Another troublesome notion suggested in Dostoyevsky's works which has the potential to weaken one's faith is the example of unjust Christians. Scenarios slip into the texts which shake the foundation of belief. For instance, Adelaida Ivanovna, "left the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovich with a destitute divinity student, leaving Mitya, a child of three years old, in her husband's hands."28 Immediately we are called to question -- a divinity student ran away with another's wife, also a young mother? Dostoyevsky pushes this inconsistency further by developing characters such Rakitin in The Brothers Karamazov. Rakitin, a monk, works more strongly against God than the atheists within the novel. In Alyosha's time of great sorrow, after his elder has died, Rakitin responds by presenting and encouraging Alyosha to be tempted by food, drink, and Grushenka. Additionally, Rakitin is known to be continually stirring up trouble and gossip, a milder Iago. "Evil" and ingenuine Christians presumably cause Dostoyevsky problems, as he writes them into his novels, in an attempt to consider and silence them.

Moreover, such obstacles for Dostoyevsky are not confined to religious persons, but extend to the entity of the church itself (especially the Roman Catholic church) and its excesses. There is a continual critique of the established monk lifestyle, and its leniency towards treats such as jam. Fyodor Pavlovich when he barges in on the Father Superior's meal delivers a long tirade, condemning the entire organization of the institution,

    No, saintly monk, you try being virtuous in the world, do good to society, without shutting yourself up in a monastery at other people's expense, and without expecting a reward up aloft for it--you'll find that battle a bit harder . . . Look at the bottles the fathers have brought out . . . And who has provided it all? The Russian peasant . . 29

Once Dostoyevsky has established a knowledge of the truth within his characters, the next problem of God arises -- maintaining that truth, and not falling away.

Absolute conviction is called for, as seen in Tikhon's confession from Devils. Nikolai, presented as a horrific character who has sexually abused a young girl is not an atheist. That would be preferable. Instead, "just as before both feelings [good and evil] are always too trivial and never very powerful."30 By being indifferent to good and evil Nikolai is dismissing the importance of the question of God. Atheists are preferable in the sense that the existence of God is enough of a question for them to consider and determine their belief.

Additionally, an inaccurate faith, based on the wrong premises is clearly problematic. As the Almighty has presented his people with such a large quantity of miracles, these displays, Dostoyevsky shows, can found people's belief and turn their creed into a form of entertainment. In The Brothers Karamazov the tenet that God only exists if you believe in him is established in Father Zosima's healings, "aroused by the expectation of the miracle of healing and the implicit belief that it would come to pass; and it did come to pass."31 Furthermore, because the elder's body begins to decay following his death, (instead of remaining pure) heavy criticism falls on the monastery, and many people lose faith, because they were dependent on the presence of a miracle.

Finally, the last problem of God suggested by Dostoyevsky is the continual urge to and consequent act of sin. Mitya confesses, "Though I may be following the devil, I am thy son, O Lord."32 Here, the danger lies only in maintaining the perspective that God is the Father, whom we should be subservient to, though we may blunder at times.

While Dostoyevsky's works clearly and thoroughly deal with the struggle of recognizing the existence of God and maintaining that belief, his ultimate conclusion is unquestionable -- though as humans we may try to rationalize God, stirring up supposed inconsistencies, as believers we will be recieved in our trifling ignorance with grace. The resurrection of Ilyusha in the hope of his schoolmates closes The Brothers Karamazov and is an appropriate profession of the faith Dostoyevsky has in Christ's resurrection. At points, the brilliant logical debates Dostoyevsky writes seem to suggest the author is losing his conviction. However, the actions and power of active love dismiss any doubt concerning the foundation of Dostoyevsky's faith. We, as readers of Dostoyevsky, and witnesses of his debates, are placed in the position of approaching faith with logic and reasoning, as does The Grand Inquisitor. However, to truly realize Dostoyevsky's intent, we must remember and respond to his portrayal of Christ,


    He [the Grand Inquisitor] saw that the Prisoner [Christ] had listened intently and quietly all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer.33





1 Dirscherl, Denis S.J. Dostoevsky and the Catholic Church. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986. 59.
2 Berdyaev, Nicholas. Dostoievsky. Translated by Donald Attwater. New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1934. 24.
3 Dirscherl, 43.
4 Dirscherl, 43.
5 Dirscherl, 43.
6 Dirscherl, 44.
7 Dirscherl, 47.
8 Dirscherl, 48.
9 Dirscherl, 52.
10 Dirscherl, 53.
11 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. V, 3.
12 Dirscherl, 112.
13 Gibson, Alexander Boyce. The Religion of Dostoevsky. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973. 169.
14 Mochulsky, Konstantin, "The Brothers Karamazov." In: Dostoyevky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Constance Garnett. Edited and revised by Ralph E. Matlaw. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976. 785.
15 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. III, 3.
16 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. III, 4.
17 Gibson, 179.
18 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. III, 5.
19 Berdyaev, 67.
20 Berdyaev, 68-69.
21 Berdyaev, 85.
22 Gibson, 176.
23 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. X, 6.
24 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov,. Epilogue, 3.
25 Dostoyevsky, Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Ed. Frank and Goldstein. U.S.A. : Rutgers University, 1987. 446.
26 Dostoyevsky, Devils. III, 6.
27 Dostoyevsky, Devils. III, 6.
28 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. I, 1.
29 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. II, 8.
30 Dostoyevsky, Devils. III, 8.
31 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. II, 3.
32 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. III, 3.
33 Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. V. 5.




Bibliography


A. Primary Sources:

Dostoyevky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Translated by Constance Garnett. Edited and revised by Ralph E. Matlaw. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1976.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Devils. Translated by Michael R. Katz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Selected Letters of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Edited by Frank and Goldstein. U.S.A.: Rutgers State University, 1987.


B. Secondary Sources:

Berdyaev, Nicholas. Dostoievsky. Translated by Donald Attwater. New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1934.

Dirscherl, Denis, S.J. Dostoevsky and the Catholic Church. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986.

Gibson, Alexander Boyce. The Religion of Dostoevsky. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973.


http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/ ... /God.shtml

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

BTW, I'm drinking a glass of "Russian Standard" right now...

[Michael K.]

Dear CSR,

A good read, above.  I loved it.  

The perfect answer to the vain exercises of our troubled brothers on the other subject...

The writing was a little bitchy, but the wisdom of the master writer of old Russia shines through it like the sun.