Christian Science -- Controversial literature; Eddy, Mary Baker, 1821-1910
That reason was furnished me by the complacent and unfrightened
prophets four years ago, and it has been furnished me again to-day. If
conversions to new religions or to old ones were in any considerable
degree achieved through the intellect, the aforesaid reason would be
sound and sufficient, no doubt; the inquirer into Christian Science
might go away unconvinced and unconverted. But we all know that
conversions are seldom made in that way; that such a thing as a serious
and painstaking and fairly competent inquiry into the claims of a
religion or of a political dogma is a rare occurrence; and that the
vast mass of men and women are far from being capable of making such
an examination. They are not capable, for the reason that their minds,
howsoever good they may be, are not trained for such examinations. The
mind not trained for that work is no more competent to do it than
are lawyers and farmers competent to make successful clothes without
learning the tailor's trade. There are seventy-five million men and
women among us who do not know how to cut out and make a dress-suit, and
they would not think of trying; yet they all think they can competently
think out a political or religious scheme without any apprenticeship to
the business, and many of them believe they have actually worked that
miracle. But, indeed, the truth is, almost all the men and women of our
nation or of any other get their religion and their politics where they
get their astronomy--entirely at second hand. Being untrained, they are
no more able to intelligently examine a dogma or a policy than they are
to calculate an eclipse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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