Certainly the creative power which is at work bears no resemblance to
the personal God postulated by the Hebrews, and the modern man of
science cannot fit Him into the scheme of the world as he knows it. He
has to try to reconceive God, and when he has done so, nothing but an
unsatisfying abstraction is left. It is unsatisfying because even the
greatest men of science, although they possess the intellects of giants,
have still the hearts of children. And children cling to that which is
endowed with a human shape and has been given the warmth of living
flesh.
H. LEVY
A structure of absolute moral and religious beliefs erected initially as
beyond criticism, imposed upon a changing society from above rather
than emerging from below, has no affinity with science, whatever
personal solace and comfort it may provide, for it assumes that the
facts of life, including the material facts of the world, can be
compassed within a rigidly prescribed framework. It has taken several
centuries of history for the scientific movement to be emancipated from
just these cramping human assumptions. The writings of many scientists
show, alas, that the emancipation has not yet been completed.
J. B. S. HALDANE
We know very little about what may be called the geography of the
invisible world. The religions, if I may continue the metaphor, have
covered the vacant spaces of its map with imaginary monsters; the
philosophies have ruled them with equally imaginary parallels of
latitude. But both have affirmed, in opposition to the so-called
practical man, that the meaning of the visible world is to be found in
the invisible. That has been the secret of their success. They have
failed when they tried either to describe the details of the visible
world or to dictate the details of conduct in it. The churches are half
empty today because their creeds are full of obsolete science, and their
ethical codes are suited to a social organization far simpler than that
of today.
HOWARD W. HAGGARD, M. D.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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