With Christian mythology and the special form of theistic belief associated with it the case is different. In so far as that belief involves the notion of a "personal God," it has been rendered quite untenable by the recent advances of monistic science. But, more than this, it was shown more than two thousand years ago, by eminent exponents of the monistic philosophy, that the conception of a personal God, creator and ruler of the world, does not give the slightest help toward a truly rational view of the world. For even if the question of "creation," in the ordinary and trivial sense of the term, be answered by referring it to the miraculous agency of a creator working according to plan apart from the world, there immediately arises upon that the new inquiry: "Whence comes this personal God? What was He doing before creation? And whence did He derive the material for it?" and such like questions. The antiquated conception of an anthropomorphic personal God is destined, before the present century is ended, to drop out of currency throughout the entire domain of truly scientific philosophy; the corresponding conception of a personal devil--even as late as last century connected with the former and very generally accepted--has already been given up once for all by all persons of education. Let it be noted, however, in passing, that the amphitheism which believes in God and devil alike is much more compatible with a rational explanation of the world than pure monotheism. The purest form of this is perhaps the amphitheism of the Zend religion of Persia, which Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, the "Golden Star") founded two thousand years before Christ. Here Ormuzd, the god of light and goodness, stands everywhere in conflict with Ahriman, the god of darkness and evil. The continual conflict between a good and an evil principle was personified in a similar manner in the mythology of many other amphitheistic religions: in the old Egyptian, the good Osiris was at war with the evil Typhon; in the old Indian, Vishnu the sustainer with Siva the destroyer, and so forth. If we really must retain the conception of a personal God as the key to our view of the universe, then this amphitheism can explain the sorrows and defects of this world very simply, as being the work of the evil principle or devil. Pure monotheism, on the contrary, as represented in the religions of Moses and Mohammed in their original form, has no rational explanation of these to offer. If their "one God" is really the absolutely good, perfect being they proclaim, then the world which he has created must also be perfect. An organic world so imperfect and full of sorrows as exists on this earth he could not possibly have contrived.