Category: Philosophy & Ethics
More than people are consciously aware, a new view of the universe and of man's place in it is forming. It is forming in the laboratories of scientists, the studies of thinkers, the congresses of social workers, the assemblies of reformers, the studios of artists and, even mor...
More than people are consciously aware, a new view of the universe and of man's place in it is forming. It is forming in the laboratories of scientists, the studies of thinkers,...
2. Chapter 2We must, perforce, admit that our ancestors awoke to consciousness of themselves and their surroundings at a time when they knew practically nothing, as we understand knowledge....
3. Chapter 3In stories of creation we have the imagination of primitive man at work, trying to answer questions which it was no more prepared to answer than a child of seven is in a positio...
4. Chapter 4Early man had not the conception of natural law that we now possess. In order even partially to understand his attitude toward things, the man of to-day must abstract from the i...
5. Chapter 5Let us now pass from the study of the general features of the ancient outlook upon nature to a study of the Christian view of the world. Is the Christian view of the world insep...
6. Chapter 6Of recent years a strong reaction against the Pauline interpretation of Christianity--or shall we say the Pauline type of Christianity?--has set in. We have so completely outgro...
7. Chapter 7Christianity did not arise in the form we associate with it. The followers of Jesus, after they had become convinced that their crucified leader had arisen from the dead and had...
8. Chapter 8The conviction that there is a deep-seated conflict between the religious view the world, characteristic of the past, and the outlook which has been shaping under the guiding ha...
9. Chapter 9Religion was born from need wedded to ignorance. But needs change, and illusions fade away and are replaced by knowledge. That religion reflects these factors of which it is a f...
10. Chapter 10Do miracles happen? I am often asked this question by young people who are trying to combine religious tradition with modern thought, and find a disharmony. Ecclesiastical autho...
11. Chapter 11The hope of immortality is an essential feature of practically all modern religions. Even those oriental religions which lack its clear presence postulate a dim kind of personal...
12. Chapter 12It is noteworthy that there has never been a problem of good, but always a problem of evil. Man takes the good in his life for granted, while he bewails the presence of evil in...
13. Chapter 13What was the exact relation between religion and morality in the past? Does morality any longer need the sanctions and supernatural setting which helped to support it in other d...
14. Chapter 14Even a cursory glance at the institutional history of Christianity is instructive. Beginning as an essentially democratic brotherhood of fellow-believers in which wisdom and exp...
15. Chapter 15The rise of Protestantism was the consequence of many factors which temporarily combined and worked in the same direction. There are those who maintain that it was an unhappy ac...
16. Chapter 16In the preceding pages we have no doubt often hurt--but we have hurt to heal. The good surgeon probes deeply in order that he may not have the operation to perform again. Even a...