And are these to be mute in your heavens? Are we to fall to lesser notes of eternal praise, of eternal thanksgiving? Prophets of the faiths, what are these heavens of yours? Is there in them anything to draw our hearts? Have you pointed to us what we really would have? Your sacred books are full of your descriptions, of your enticements; you have beggared all the languages in words to describe what you would have us long for. And what have you gained? Is there any one man, one woman, one child, not steeped in the uttermost incurable disease, in feeble old age, who would change the chances of his life here for any of your heavens? There is no one. Or if you were to say to a man, "Choose. You shall be young again, and strong, or you shall go to heaven." Which would he choose? Therefore, ye teachers of the faiths, are your promises vain. I do not believe in nor do I fear your hells, those crude places of fire and pitch and little black devils. I care not for your heavens; I would not go there, not to any of them, neither to the happy hunting ground, nor to heaven, nor to the garden of the Houris nor to Nirvana, _not if they be as you tell me they are_. Nor do I want to merge my identity in the Infinite. This life is good enough for me, while I retain health and strength. I am not tempted. Nor is anyone tempted. Whom have you persuaded? You know that you have enticed no one. No one is deceived. Men will die for many things, they will leap to accept death--but not for your heavens. All men _fear_ death and what is beyond, the righteous who you say have earned heaven no less than the unrighteous. All faiths have had their martyrs, but that is different. They have died to preserve their souls, as soldiers die to preserve their honour, gladly. Even the godly do not believe. They will have nothing of your heavens. I cannot understand how either Christian or Buddhist came to imagine such unattractive, unreasonable heavens. And so they have all failed. No religion gives us an intelligible First Cause, no religion gives us a code of conduct we can follow, no religion offers us a heaven we would care to attain. There are many definitions of religion. I have written some on my first page. It will be seen that they all hinge on one of these ideas, either that religion is a theory of causation, or it is a code of conduct, or that it is concerned with future rewards and punishments. But if indeed religion have any or all of these meanings, then is religion false, then are all religions false. And more, no one who thinks over the subject, no one who takes it seriously would believe any one of them, could take any as a satisfactory explanation. No one accepts any code of religious conduct as absolutely workable, no one is attracted by their heavens. I am sure of these things. Then shall I sit down with Omar Khayyam and say:--