Is Life Worth Living Without Immortality?: A Lecture Delivered Before the Independent Religious Society, ChicagoMangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Religion
Is Life Worth Living Without Immortality?: A Lecture Delivered Before the Independent Religious Society, Chicago
Mangasarian, M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch)
Immortality; Rationalism
world can never reconcile us to a policy that required the commission
of crimes whose stench rises to our nostrils. What is wrong can never be
made right.
You remember that to illustrate the thought of Professor James, I spoke
of my visit to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where, in the vivisection
hall, I saw the physicians operating on live rabbits. Professor James
thinks that if the rabbit could see everything, it might say to the
physician, "Thy will be done." But the rabbit might also say this: "It
is well to advance science and civilization; and if it is a part of the
_scheme_ to make me contribute to it by my sufferings, I am resigned;
but what about the character of the _schemer_ who must torture to death
some of his creatures--slaughter with excruciating pain a portion of his
family--in order to make secure the lives of the rest?" The existence of
evil in a world created by a perfect God is the rock upon which all
religions go to pieces. If God can prevent misery and crime, but prefers
to work through them, he is to be feared; if he cannot help himself,
then he is to be pitied. Who would not rather be the rabbit on the
operating table, with the knife in his flesh, than such a God! A God who
cannot make a rose red except by dipping it in human blood can be sure
that no human being would ever envy him his office. On the last day of
judgment, if such a day there be, it will not be the rabbit, or man, who
will fear the opening of the books; it will be God.
And how do we know that things will be better in the unseen world?
Suppose they should be worse? Jesus intimated that the next world would
be worse, for he says in Matthew 7:13-14, "Wide is the gate, and broad
is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in
thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account