Ironically it occurs to the Martian that the shades of Hypatia, Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus, Vanini, Darwin, and the vast numbers of Waldenses, Albigenses, Huguenots, Jews, and the victims of the Inquisition and the Witch Hunt, must, as they contemplate the present tactics of that Holy Institution, the Church, find some consolation in the depths of that hell to which the Church consigned them. The Martian logically deduces that by employing science for its defense, the Church admits the impotence of "divine revelation," in this age, to convince even its own adherents of the problematical existence of a divine being. _Theology is no longer recognized as authoritative even by theologians!_ Will the theologians now discard their theology based on the supernatural, and build a system of theology based on science? Is this all that is left to the theologian: that he must use the pitiful "Theology of Gaps"? That is, wherever there are gaps in scientific knowledge, the theologians insert their idea of God! This is but the replacing of the question mark with a meaningless label. CHAPTER V THE PERSISTENCE OF RELIGION _We believe what we believe, not because we have been convinced by such and such arguments, but because we are of such and such a disposition._ C. E. M. JOAD. _The mind of the ordinary man is in so imperfect a condition that it requires a creed; that is to say, a theory concerning the unknown and the unknowable in which it may place its deluded faith and be at rest._ WINWOOD READE. _Generations followed and what had been offered as hypothetical theological suppositions were through custom and tradition taken for granted as unquestioned truth._ LLEWELYN POWYS. The Martian has had his attention drawn to the statement that religion in some form or other has existed from most primitive times down to the present day. The theologians point to this as a proof of the existence of a supreme being. An investigation of this assertion leads the Martian to the conclusion that religions have continued to exist mainly because of the power which inherited superstitions wield over mankind. Men are born with a marked tendency towards superstitions. Certain isolated families of men are born with an inherited tendency towards tuberculosis. Most of these are born, not with an active tuberculosis, but some as yet imperfectly understood tendency, a defect in their protoplasmic make-up that renders them an easy prey to the tubercle bacillus if they are exposed to it. Similarly, generations of men have been born with a weakened mental vitality towards superstition; a weakened mental capacity that renders their minds an easy prey to that fear which manifests itself in superstition, creed, religion--the God-idea. It was Karl Marx who remarked that, "The tradition of all the generations of the past weighs down like an Alp upon the brain of the living."