Theocratic Aid To Kingdom Publishers

Lesson 87

PRESENT EASTERN RELIGIONS (Part 2)

During the march of the centuries the "spiritual heavens" of this present world (Satan and the demon powers) have had to resort to generating new and revised forms of "heathen" religions in the East. In time the old religions became effete, lost their grip over the people, and disintegrated into numerous sects. The newly created reli-

gions, even as the old ones, were designed to keep the peoples chained to darkness, fear, and superstition.

A further study of Eastern religions includes that of Buddhism. Only 6 out of every 100 persons on earth are Buddhists. Buddhism is the outgrowth of a protestant Hindu movement in eastern India about the time Cyrus and his uncle Darius overthrew Babylon in 539 B.C. This protestant movement was known as the period of "The Great Enlightenment". Its founder Gautama, the Buddha, meaning awakened or enlightened (by the demons, of course), rejected the authority of the Vedas, part of the Hindu Scriptures, and destroyed caste distinction, but retained the theory of the transmigration of the soul. Buddha also taught that the way out of transmigration, or the attainment of nirvana, was not by the torment of desire, but by temperance and morality.

In time his teaching was modified by Hinduism, and the images of Buddha and of other Buddhists came to be worshiped by the Buddhists. In this form Buddhism spread throughout India and into Tibet, China, Burma, Japan, Mongolia, Siam, and other parts of Asia and the isles of the Pacific. Wherever it went it was modified by the native religions, as by Taoism in China, and by Shinto in Japan. In India it finally merged with Hinduism and today there are almost no Buddhists in India. Myriads of gods are worshiped by Buddhists, innumerable temples are built by them, and the Tibetan Buddhists even have a pope, entitled the Dalai Lama, at Lhasa. The Dalai Lama, in whom it is claimed the soul of Buddha is incarnated, heads a large hierarchy of priests exercising autocratic rulership similar to the structure of the Roman Hierarchy centering around the pope at Vatican City.

One person, almost, out of every 100 is a Shintoist. Shinto is the religion of the Japanese. Shinto is a complete national religion identifying the emperor, who is both pope and Caesar, with the gods. He is the divine head of the state and is regarded and worshiped as a "Visible

God". Shintoists worship animals, plants, sun, moon, thunder, wind, earth, rocks, etc., and living and dead persons. Shinto includes phallic rites. Shinto and Buddhism were united in Japan about A.D. 550, but were separated by law in 1871. In addition to being Shintoists or Buddhists, the Japanese are also Confucians.

Mohammedanism is the name which many apply to the religion which 11 out of every 100 persons on earth practice. Mohammedanism is the last of the great systems of religion to be organized. It had its beginning early in the seventh century of our era. Those who practice it call themselves Moslems, and they call their religion Islam. Islam (an Arabic word which literally means submission) is similar to Judaism (the Jews' religion) and the religion of "Christendom". The Moslem territory extends from the Atlantic coast of northern Africa to the western part of India, but Moslems are to be found elsewhere. There are 20,000 of them in North America. Many are Moslems in name only.

Mohammed was the instrument used by the "spiritual heavens" of this world to found this new form of religion. About A.D. 610 Mohammed announced himself as the Apostle of Allah and presented himself as a prophet to the Arabian peoples. He was an illiterate Arabian who learned something about Judaism and so-called "Christianity", and then under the influence of the demons (he claims to have had several spiritual revelations) he taught a different way to worship the demons. At first he commanded all his followers to pray with their faces turned toward Jerusalem as the holy city, but later he substituted Mecca for Jerusalem. At Mecca the Arabians before Mohammed's day had worshiped a black meteorite in a cube-like shelter called the Kaaba. Today the Moslems consider Mecca the most holy city on earth; Medinah ranks second, and Jerusalem third.

The chief teaching of Islam is: "No god but Allah." Moslems do not believe in a "trinity". They believe Moham-

med is the messenger and last and greatest of the seven prophets sent by Allah (God); the previous six in their order being Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and Jesus. Islam teaches the doctrine of the "immortality of the soul" in that the good will live eventually in bliss in one of the seven heavens, each heaven being ruled by one of the seven prophets. The seventh and highest heaven, presided over by Mohammed, is the ultimate destiny of all good Mohammedans. As for all the bad souls, such will be confined in a place of torment after death. The Koran is the sacred book of Islam.

Five times a day all Moslems are required to pray with their faces toward Mecca. At times of prayer they spread individual prayer rugs on the ground, wash their hands and feet, kneel and touch their forehead to the ground. All Moslems must pay a religious tax. They must fast for a month every year, but the fasting is to be done only from dawn until sunset; from sunset until dawn they need not fast. Every Moslem who can afford it is supposed to make one pilgrimage to Mecca in his lifetime. Moslems borrowed the rosary from the Hindus and introduced it to Catholicism. The Moslem rosary has ninety-nine beads, one for every name of "God".

As Islam has spread far and wide it has been influenced by the religions of the countries it has invaded, as, for instance, in Spain and in the Balkan countries. Islam today is divided into many sects.

All other heathen Eastern religions are so small that out of every 100 persons on earth there would be less than 1 belonging to any one of them. They all worship the demons. Thus Satan during his period of rule as "the god of this world" has brought forth every conceivable form of religion, false worship, worship of demons, deified humans, saints, animals, sex, the stars; in fact, the worship of anything under heaven except the true worship of Almighty God. But in his extremities to make good his defying of

Jehovah God he fails to ultimately win the issue of universal domination.