The God Complex

I think I have the Progressive/Socialist/Communist movement figured out, and the answer is God. Surprised? Read on.

Humans have an instinctive desire to believe in something bigger than themselves—something all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, that can make everything right when nothing seems to go right. Ask any anthropologist or archaeologist, and he or she will tell you that pretty much every culture in the history or humankind has had a set of beliefs regarding a god or gods. We westerners are most familiar, of course, with the ancient Greek and Roman gods, but every civilization from the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians to modern-day tribesmen hidden deep in the Amazon jungle have complex and deeply-held religious beliefs. Heck, even comic book super heroes are god characters. Think about it: Superman, Batman, Spiderman and their comic book comrades all have super powers that they use to fix the wrongs in the world that we mere mortals cannot fix. There’s no difference between that and any other religious belief. It is understood (by most) that these comic book super heroes are fictional, but in a minute we’ll see how some think people that ALL religious deities are fictional.

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Now, there could be several explanations for this instinctive desire to believe in an all-powerful being. It could be that humans just can’t comprehend all of the evil that exists in this chaotic world, and the only way we can survive emotionally when we experience terrible things is to believe that somewhere “out there” is a being who is in control of things and who will eventually make things right. On the other hand (and I will be up front here and tell you that this is what I believe), it could be that this instinct was planted in our souls by God Himself as a way to help His children turn to Him and have faith in Him even though we can’t see Him. So how does this relate to the Progressive/Socialist/Communist movement? (I’ll just call these people “liberals” from here on out.) I figured it out when I read a book called, “The God that Failed.” The book was published in 1949. I’ll let the publisher explain what the book is about:

The God That Failed is a classic work and crucial document of the Cold War that brings together essays by six of the most important writers of the twentieth century on their conversion to and subsequent disillusionment with communism... André Gide (France), Richard Wright (the United States), Ignazio Silone (Italy), Stephen Spender (England), Arthur Koestler (Germany), and Louis Fischer, an American foreign correspondent, all tell how their search for the betterment of humanity led them to communism, and the personal agony and revulsion which then caused them to reject it.

Essentially this book was a mea culpa from these intellectuals, who were trying to explain to those who held them in high regard how they could have been so easily duped by this evil political philosophy. What was apparent throughout this book was this: once these intellectuals decided that they were too smart to believe in God, there was an emptiness in their souls that they were desperate to fill. Communism promised to fill that emptiness. The State, being all-powerful, could make everything right. Communism promised egalitarianism (everybody would be truly equal). There would be no rich and no poor, no homeless, nobody without a job or food or any of the basic necessities of life. The oceans would recede and the planet would begin to heal. (That last part actually came much later, thanks to the current communist-in-chief.) And it would all be accomplished thanks to an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing State. Unfortunately, what these men actually found when they travelled to Russia and other communist countries and saw this political philosophy in action turned their stomachs. As the non-liberals among us know, socialism and communism are and always will be utter failures. As Winston Churchill said, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” An all-powerful government never can fix the ills of the world. Governments are composed of humans and humans are imperfect; therefore all governments are imperfect. Making a government more powerful simply makes it more imperfect. Everywhere a communist government has been tried, it has failed—and at great pain to the citizens of that country. Liberals in academia and the media today often point to Chinese communism as an exception to this rule, but Chinese communism has only survived to the degree that the government has adopted capitalist policies, allowing their people a modicum of freedom—the freedom to be unequal. You’d think that we would have learned this by now. You’d think that communism would have been left, as Ronald Reagan hoped, on the ash heap of history. But just 20 years after the Soviet Union imploded, the United Stated reelected a man whose views are as in line with communist doctrine as any U.S. President in our history. How is it that after winning the Cold War against a communist dictatorship, the people of the United States have fulfilled the words of Proverbs 26:11 of the Old Testament: “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly”? How? It all goes back to God. People, even liberals, need to believe that something or someone “out there” can make everything right when things aren’t right and life isn’t fair. However, liberals have largely rejected God, as evidenced by many of the policies and positions they adopt: pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, evolutionism over creationism/intelligent design, constant attacks by the Left on religion in general and specific religions, among others. Now that the liberals have walked away from the true and living God, they are searching for replacements, just as the authors of my book searched. And just like those authors, they have found their God in government. For a liberal, government is God. If you can just make government big enough and strong enough and powerful enough, it can be all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wise, and can fix everything that’s wrong with the world. This belief in government as God has even reached the point where some people see governmental figureheads as gods. Jamie Foxx, speaking recently at the Soul Train Awards, called Barack Obama, “Our Lord and Savior.” So it makes sense why liberals would want more and more government, even though history clearly shows that bigger government solves nothing, and in fact leads to tyranny, suffering, and loss of freedom. It’s tough to convince a person that his or her God is false, and true religious zealots (and modern liberals are TRUE religious zealots), will do just about anything to support and sustain their religion and their god. There is a lesson in this for those of us who hate tyranny and will fight with all we have against it. We cannot abandon the true and living God, or we leave ourselves open to the same fate as these sad and pathetic liberals. (Remember, a man who doesn’t stand for something will fall for anything.) And we must also realize that this is a Holy War: we are fighting against zealots who will stop at nothing to win. We must be willing to do the same. We must use every tool at our disposal to stop these zealots and their false god—an all-powerful government. We must fight them everywhere we see them. We must refuse to give in to them. Winston Churchill said, when speaking of the coming war with Nazi Germany, “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” We must be willing to do the same. We must become politically active, seeking to elect those who will join us in this battle. If necessary, we must follow the examples set by Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and even the Founding Fathers of this nation. Ronald Reagan said that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction; let that not happen in this generation, and let us never fall before a false god!