The Basis Of Religion PDF Download

Excerpt from The Basis of Religion: Being an Examination of "Natural Religion" SO much for our author's personal Opinions. The real gist of his last book is this - It is engaged with the attempt to answer two'ques tions: (1) Are the negative views of modern science compatible with any kind of religion 7 and (2) if so, what are the characteristics of that religion? A large number of eminent modern scientists reject, as everyone knows, supernaturalism in all senses of the word. They not merely disbe lieve' in mira'cles, but they deny, or at any rate they say there is no reason for affirming, either the existence Of God or the immortality Of the soul. In fact, they maintain that the only soul we can know anything about is a soul indistin guishable and inseparable from brain. The word immortality is Sufficient to sum up the differences between Christianity and this kind of negative science. The soul cannot be immortal if 'it be identical with a brain that Is mortal: and again, if there be no immortality there is no God; for the present world regarded as a system complete in itself is Cruel and unjust. Conversely, if the soul be immortal, it must be a Spiritual Some thing separable from brain; and the discovery Of such a non-material principle. Within ourselves is the first step towards the discovery of a God in Nature. SO that, as I said, the word Immortality may be taken as summing up the points at issue. The Christian believes in immortality the modern negative scientist does not. In Spite Of this discrepancy, however, our author proposes to inquire whether there are not beliefs common to the two classes which can be properly called religious. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.