'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

[rudemonk]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Never read it what does it have to say about God, pain and suffering?
</div></div>

basically that suffering has reason, even though we can't always know what that reason is and the book does not offer one except to cop out to god has his reasons so you should feel okay if some really and truly horrible shyte comes down. kind of like the footprints hallmark poster.

[rudemonk]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think Pascal the mathematician thought of it this way. There are two possibilities -

1. God exists
2. God does not exist

and two belief positions

a. Belief in God
b. Non-belief in God

this leads to 4 outcomes

1-a - God exists and I believe
1-b - God exists and I do not believe
2-a - God does not exist and I believe
2-b - God does not exist and I do not believe

And subsequent implicit consequence from the 4 outcomes

1-a - Possibility of redemption; no down side
1-b - Possibility of damnation; all down side
2-a - False belief; wasted time &amp; energy
2-b - No redemption; no wasted time &amp; energy

Given that the most severe consequence comes from 1-b, and the most profitable consequence comes from 1-a, then logically one must choose to accept (1) that God exists, and belief in that God (a) is the best choice even without evidence since it means to choose the best of the possible outcomes. </div></div>

Quod are you familiar with any of the refutations of pascal's wager?

[franksterr]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Quodlibet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
The use of a dictionary is an interesting choice in this discussion. What you have done, is use an authority to explain and define your words. Did you feel constrained by the language? </div></div>

Not by the language but possible your lack of imagination or actual understanding of the meanings of the word..
You may call it an authority, I would prefer to say an impartial judge


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Of course not. You had faith that your words would be understood by your audience. Did that feel restrictive? I dont think so.</div></div>

No I had no such faith hence the dictionary.....as I was unsure as to what meaning you applied to the word &quot;freedom&quot;
Yes somewhat restricted............as I could not find a scriptural reference that was relevant and applicable

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The language you use is part of how you express yourself.</div></div>
Yes

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Our discussion shows that you enjoy this interaction.</div></div>
YES


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Is this forum or the means to communicate in it offensive because you are restrained to using a keyboard and screen?</div></div>

Yes and No

No because this is just one way of communicating.
Yes because my dawta has wanted to hook up some software name dragon - speech recognition and then connect the Wii which would free me from both this keyboard and screen......I guess I am just being resistant to change - but I have more than two options.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">God forbid. </div></div>

I know God forbid and that is what makes his recommended lifestyle so restrictive and controlling.

[twiney]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I know God forbid and that is what makes his recommended lifestyle so restrictive and controlling. </div></div>

Why focus on the forbidden what about all the other things that are allowed? ... eg in the garden of eden only one tree was forbidden!.

[franksterr]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Twiney</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I know God forbid and that is what makes his recommended lifestyle so restrictive and controlling. </div></div>

Why focus on the forbidden what about all the other things that are allowed? ... eg in the garden of eden only one tree was forbidden!. </div></div>

We also no that Man was forbidden to eat of the Tree of Life.....so it could be two???

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil......
Can you imagine not knowing Good from Evil?
Can you imagine not Knowing - seeing.

[jah_yout]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil......
Can you imagine not knowing Good from Evil?
Can you imagine not Knowing - seeing</div></div>

yes knowledge is power....

but it also increases sorrow....

there is something to the saying &quot;ignorance is bliss&quot;....

anyway great reasonings in this thread from all concerned

[Diplomat]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That makes perfect sense, it is nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.
Hence the burden of proof lies on those who say that something exist to prove it by providing evidence. </div></div>
That argument is circular. One could just as easily say the burden of proof is on those who say something does not exist. While no one can &quot;prove&quot; God exists, there are enough probabilities that point in that direction. Of course, any two people can look at the same &quot;evidence&quot; and come to different conclusions. Either way, the believer is not required to &quot;prove&quot; anything. He or she simply needs to show reasonable probability and let the observer come to his or her own conclusions.

[franksterr]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChurchDude</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That makes perfect sense, it is nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.
Hence the burden of proof lies on those who say that something exist to prove it by providing evidence. </div></div>
That argument is circular. One could just as easily say the burden of proof is on those who say something does not exist. While no one can &quot;prove&quot; God exists, there are enough probabilities that point in that direction. Of course, any two people can look at the same &quot;evidence&quot; and come to different conclusions. Either way, the believer is not required to &quot;prove&quot; anything. He or she simply needs to show reasonable probability and let the observer come to his or her own conclusions. </div></div>

Really
Okay I believe both Thor and Zeus exist and my proof is that whenever it rains it is sometimes accompanied by Thunder and Lightening and only Thor and Zeus make those things happen.......would you say that that is true or reasonable probable?

[johnnycakes]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

&quot; That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence&quot;:

Since the beginning of humanity's existence there have been 1000 gods worshipped by people. Each in its time was considered the only true god and each, in turn, was discarded as fraudulent in favor of the next .

Just what is it that makes the current god any different from any other in that long list ?

[rudemonk]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChurchDude</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That makes perfect sense, it is nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.
Hence the burden of proof lies on those who say that something exist to prove it by providing evidence. </div></div>
That argument is circular. One could just as easily say the burden of proof is on those who say something does not exist. While no one can &quot;prove&quot; God exists, there are enough probabilities that point in that direction. Of course, any two people can look at the same &quot;evidence&quot; and come to different conclusions. Either way, the believer is not required to &quot;prove&quot; anything. He or she simply needs to show reasonable probability and let the observer come to his or her own conclusions. </div></div>

Really
Okay I believe both Thor and Zeus exist and my proof is that whenever it rains it is sometimes accompanied by Thunder and Lightening and only Thor and Zeus make those things happen.......would you say that that is true or reasonable probable? </div></div>

one of my favorite authors wrote...

<span style="font-style: italic">Ragnarok


In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel. If this is so, how could a mere chronicle of its forms transmit the stupor, the exaltation, the alarm, the menace and jubilance which made up the fabric of that dream that night? I shall attempt such a chronicle, however; perhaps the fact that the dream was composed of one single scene may remove or mitigate this essential difficulty.
The place was the School of Philosophy and Letters; the time, towards sundown. Everything (as usually happens in dreams) was somewhat different; a slight magnification altered things. We were electing officials: I was talking with Pedro Henriquez Urena, who in the world of waking reality died many years ago. Suddenly we were stunned by the clamour of a demonstration or disturbance. Human and animal cries came from the Bajo. A voice shouted 'Here they come!' and then 'The Gods! The Gods!' Four or five individuals emerged from the mob and occupied the platform of the main lecture hall. We all applauded, tearfully; these were the Gods returning after a centuries-long exile. Made larger by the platform, their heads thrown back and their chests thrust forward, they arrogantly received our homage. One held a branch which no doubt conformed to the simple botany of dreams; another, in a broad gesture, extended his hand which was a claw; one of the faces of Janus looked with distrust at the curved beak of Thoth. Perhaps aroused by our applause, one of them - I no longer know which - erupted in a victorious clatter, unbelieveably harsh, with something of a gargle and of a whistle. From that moment, things changed.
It all began with a suspicion (perhaps exaggerated) that the Gods did not know how to talk. Centuries of fell and fugitive life had atrophied the human element in them; the moon of Islam and the cross of Rome had been implacable with these outlaws. Very low foreheads, yellow teeth, stringy mulatto or Chinese moustaches and thick bestial lips showed the degeneracy of the Olympian lineage. Their clothing corresponded not to a decorous poverty but rather to the sinister luxury of the gambling houses and brothels of the Bajo. A carnation bled crimson in a lapel and the bulge of a knife was outlined beneath a close-fitting jacket. Suddenly we sensed that they were playing their last card, that they were cunning, ignorant and cruel like old beasts of prey and that, if we let ourselves be overcome by fear or piety, they would finally destroy us.
We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in the dream) and joyfully killed the Gods.

Jorge Luis Borges
Translated By J.E.I.</span>

[Diplomat]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChurchDude</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That makes perfect sense, it is nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.
Hence the burden of proof lies on those who say that something exist to prove it by providing evidence. </div></div>
That argument is circular. One could just as easily say the burden of proof is on those who say something does not exist. While no one can &quot;prove&quot; God exists, there are enough probabilities that point in that direction. Of course, any two people can look at the same &quot;evidence&quot; and come to different conclusions. Either way, the believer is not required to &quot;prove&quot; anything. He or she simply needs to show reasonable probability and let the observer come to his or her own conclusions. </div></div>

Really
Okay I believe both Thor and Zeus exist and my proof is that whenever it rains it is sometimes accompanied by Thunder and Lightening and only Thor and Zeus make those things happen.......would you say that that is true or reasonable probable? </div></div>
Ah, as I mentioned before, the conclusion is left to the observer. From my perspective, neither. Rain, thunder, and lightening can be credibly explained scientifically because they fall in the domain of science. However, if you were to insist - inspite of all the credible scientific evidence - that rain, thunder, and lighting are &quot;proof&quot; for the gods' existence, then you would still be entitled to that belief.

[franksterr]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChurchDude</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Ah, as I mentioned before, the conclusion is left to the observer.</div></div>

Are you then saying that all truths as they reflect reality are subjective?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">From my perspective, neither. Rain, thunder, and lightening can be credibly explained scientifically because they fall in the domain of science. </div></div>

I accept the scientific explanation of Rain, Thunder and Lightening because not only can science predict then,with a fair amount of accuracy. Science can reproduce then at will.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">However, if you were to insist - inspite of all the credible scientific evidence - that rain, thunder, and lighting are &quot;proof&quot; for the gods' existence, then you would still be entitled to that belief. </div></div>

Being entitle to a belief does not make it a true reflection of reality.

Are you then saying that a belief in God is not necessarily a reflection of reality, but an entitlement to freely believe what you will, without regard to whether or not it is real and or true?

[franksterr]

Re: 'I can't be sure God DOES NOT exist': World's most

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: monk</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ChurchDude</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: franksterr</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That makes perfect sense, it is nearly impossible to prove that something doesn't exist.
Hence the burden of proof lies on those who say that something exist to prove it by providing evidence. </div></div>
That argument is circular. One could just as easily say the burden of proof is on those who say something does not exist. While no one can &quot;prove&quot; God exists, there are enough probabilities that point in that direction. Of course, any two people can look at the same &quot;evidence&quot; and come to different conclusions. Either way, the believer is not required to &quot;prove&quot; anything. He or she simply needs to show reasonable probability and let the observer come to his or her own conclusions. </div></div>

Really
Okay I believe both Thor and Zeus exist and my proof is that whenever it rains it is sometimes accompanied by Thunder and Lightening and only Thor and Zeus make those things happen.......would you say that that is true or reasonable probable? </div></div>

one of my favorite authors wrote...

<span style="font-style: italic">Ragnarok


In our dreams (writes Coleridge) images represent the sensations we think they cause; we do not feel horror because we are threatened by a sphinx; we dream of a sphinx in order to explain the horror we feel. If this is so, how could a mere chronicle of its forms transmit the stupor, the exaltation, the alarm, the menace and jubilance which made up the fabric of that dream that night? I shall attempt such a chronicle, however; perhaps the fact that the dream was composed of one single scene may remove or mitigate this essential difficulty.
The place was the School of Philosophy and Letters; the time, towards sundown. Everything (as usually happens in dreams) was somewhat different; a slight magnification altered things. We were electing officials: I was talking with Pedro Henriquez Urena, who in the world of waking reality died many years ago. Suddenly we were stunned by the clamour of a demonstration or disturbance. Human and animal cries came from the Bajo. A voice shouted 'Here they come!' and then 'The Gods! The Gods!' Four or five individuals emerged from the mob and occupied the platform of the main lecture hall. We all applauded, tearfully; these were the Gods returning after a centuries-long exile. Made larger by the platform, their heads thrown back and their chests thrust forward, they arrogantly received our homage. One held a branch which no doubt conformed to the simple botany of dreams; another, in a broad gesture, extended his hand which was a claw; one of the faces of Janus looked with distrust at the curved beak of Thoth. Perhaps aroused by our applause, one of them - I no longer know which - erupted in a victorious clatter, unbelieveably harsh, with something of a gargle and of a whistle. From that moment, things changed.
It all began with a suspicion (perhaps exaggerated) that the Gods did not know how to talk. Centuries of fell and fugitive life had atrophied the human element in them; the moon of Islam and the cross of Rome had been implacable with these outlaws. Very low foreheads, yellow teeth, stringy mulatto or Chinese moustaches and thick bestial lips showed the degeneracy of the Olympian lineage. Their clothing corresponded not to a decorous poverty but rather to the sinister luxury of the gambling houses and brothels of the Bajo. A carnation bled crimson in a lapel and the bulge of a knife was outlined beneath a close-fitting jacket. Suddenly we sensed that they were playing their last card, that they were cunning, ignorant and cruel like old beasts of prey and that, if we let ourselves be overcome by fear or piety, they would finally destroy us.
We took out our heavy revolvers (all of a sudden there were revolvers in the dream) and joyfully killed the Gods.

Jorge Luis Borges
Translated By J.E.I.</span> </div></div>

<span style="font-style: italic">Here is one of my favorite a bit long but well worth the read
</span>


Gerald Massey's Lectures

The Coming Religion

Our &quot;friends the enemy&quot; cheerily assure us that certain things are settled once for all in favour of Historical Christianity, and any further kicking against the fact is all in vain. If you show them that the Mosaic Writings do not contain an original revelation to mankind, but are a Mosaic of Persian and Egyptian mythology, that the foundations of their creed are destroyed if the Fall of Man is a fable, they will tell you that does not in the least invalidate the authority of the Bible, nor imperil the Christian revelation. Oh, no! The Church has never committed itself to any particular interpretation. Let us throw up the sponge and continue the battle. Some of the Apologists (as they call themselves, without meaning it ironically) pretend to think they are so secure that they can denounce any discussion of the Mosaic legends as intolerably tiresome. They affect to consider the matter past discussion. But those same &quot;certain things&quot; were never more uncertain or unsettled than at the present time; and when they do get settled the occupation of those who preach them as God's truth to-day will be gone forever! If they have closed the controversy, we have just begun to open it! We have not done with the note of interrogation yet. If they have made and tied up their little bundle of old dried sticks, ours are beginning to grow, and put forth a new leaf; ours are yet green and lusty with the sap of a new life.


These people have a vision of their own, <span style="text-decoration: underline">and as it was bequeathed to them they will not part with it, <span style="color: #FF0000">even though they have to close their eyes to see!</span> They will die in the &quot;good old faith.&quot; </span>But that is what others of us cannot do.<span style="font-weight: bold"> We have but just begun to ascertain the meaning of the good old facts that preceded the good old faith</span>. We are finding out that names the most hallowed are spurious counterfeits of the ancient gods. <span style="font-size: 14pt">We are learning that the literary fortunes of the Bible were made by Mythology, and filched from the peoples who have been spoiled as Pagans, and accursed as the spawn of Satan</span>. There is a spirit within us that wants to see, with our eyes wide open, and will see, and must tear the bandages and blinkers off the eyes to see, each for himself,



whether the traditional vision be false or true. <span style="font-weight: bold">Nature gave us eyes to see with; it was men who added the blinkers. Nature intended us to be led by our own eyes; it was men who substituted the system of leading by the nose the mass of dough-faced humanity which church and state have tried so hard and so long to knuckle and mould for the purpose of leading it by the nose</span>. We have found out now-a-days that even the horses pull better without than with the use of blinkers. So ignorant are many of these men of what is being thought outside their own little world, they do not even know how the battle is going against them. They are in possession of a few crumbling out-works, and do not appear to understand that the enemy is already in the heart of the citadel itself, with the sappers and miners depositing their mental dynamite; nor care greatly, so long as the commissariat remains intact, and they can draw the usual rations! for their attitude is, &quot;deprive us of what you please doctrinally, and resolve all our mysteries into myth, so long as you do not disestablish and disendow the Church!&quot; So long as the out-works are standing with them inside they will not recognise defeat! And orthodox Christianity is mainly built up of out-works or scaffolding. It is not the scaffolding, however, with which the institution was built, but one that conceals the true nature of the real building inside. The ordinary worshipper stands outside and mistakes the scaffolding for the real building, and looks upon it as it rises tier above tier like so many landing-stages and resting-places on the upward way to heaven. It has been my aim to penetrate beyond this scaffolding, discover the secrets of the hiding-place, and contradict the false report concerning the builders. And what we do find is that the so-called &quot;Revealed Religion&quot; is simply unrevealed mythology, and that a spurious system of salvation was proffered to those who would accept the ancient mythology transmogrified into Historic Christianity, and be bribed into changing their old lamps for new ones! Orthodox preachers will go on asserting Sunday after Sunday, in the name of God, any number of things which their hearers do not believe, only they have heard them repeated so often--past all power of impinging or impugning--until the sense is too out-wearied to rebel; things which they themselves do not believe, if they could once afford to question their own souls. The Pall Mall Gazette has lately asked the question, if you had £100,000 to spare what do you think would be the greatest charity to give it to? I should like to have replied, &quot;Pension off a few of those poor slaves of the pulpit, who are forced to earn their living by preaching what they no longer believe.&quot; How little the orthodox world dreams of the new dawn that is rolling up the sky, glorious with its promise of the brighter, better day! Nay, it is already flaming through the cob-webbed windows, and trying to look in at the shut eyes of the sleepers, which are fast closed, or blinking at the splendour shining on their faces! They are still dreaming how to roll the world back the other way




once more into the night of the past, even while they are passing, face upwards, beneath the radiant arch over their heads, alight with the dawn of a day that is not theirs; blind to the glory of its coming, deaf to the birds that soar and prophesy in song, senseless to an amazing apparition of the Eternal growing visibly present in this our world of time! Now and again the sleepers start, and you hear a troubled moan from those that dream, and know they dream, but are afraid to wake. And when they do wake they will begin shouting for the fire-engines to come and put out the flame of dawn, now reddening the sky as with a conflagration and the end of all things for them.


If these men had truly cared for religion instead of their Anthropomorphic theology, they would not have gnashed their teeth and shaken the fist at the alleged phenomena of modern Spiritualism, as they have done. They would have embraced Spiritualism as if it had held out to them the strong right hand of salvation itself. For just when scientific research is undermining and exploding the ancient beliefs that have been falsely founded on mythology--just when the Materialists think they have discovered the great secret of life in protoplasm, and we are on the verge of finding the mechanical equivalent for consciousness--just when some are assuming that force comes from the visible side of phenomena, that mind is but a property of matter, an effect rather than a cause, and thought is nothing more than a result of molecular motion--just when the scientific report is that the deeper we dive physically, the farther off recedes the heart-beat of eternal life, in breaks this revelation from a world unknown, and, as it was assumed, unknowable. And these alleged phenomena contain the sole possible, palpable, natural evidence of a future life, that men have, or ever did have, or ever can have, to go upon. But no! what they care for are the old wives' fables and the figments which have become their hereditary stock in trade; the facts may go to the devil, to whom, indeed, they generally consign them. For, if it be God himself who tries to speak with them in this way from behind the mask of matter to prove the fact, they say it cannot be our God. He is dead, and buried in a book. This must be the devil. It is the devil. They had succeeded in substituting the non-natural for the natural, making men believe that this sham was the supernatural. They have taught us to look for God in the wrong way. They have based religion on erroneous grounds. <span style="text-decoration: underline">They have made us the victims of false beliefs, and a false belief will make despicable cowards of men who would otherwise have looked facts in the face, and been true to themselves and honest to others</span>.<span style="font-size: 17pt"> They have evolved our respect and reverence by means of the whip. And now when the stick and scourge, the knout and whip, have lost their terrors, have done their worst, and had their day, it is found that religious reverence has vanished also, and the young are becoming utterly sceptical in most things, before they are old enough to be in




earnest about anything; for which the false teaching is responsible. The young have been disgusted with the ancient object of reverence, the grim and gory ghost of an anthropomorphic God.


We are constantly hearing complaints respecting the want of reverence on the part of the young for the old. But if they are old fools, and &quot;old women&quot; of the wrong sex, why should they be reverenced? It is said the children of this generation have no reverence for God or man. But if the reverence was evoked by the stick, and the reign of the stick is over, what are you going to do?</span> It is of no use complaining, and probably it is too late to think of getting a new stick.


Before condemning, however, let us look a little deeper. Why should we expect reverence for such a God as we have allowed to be set before the children? Such a God as that of the Hebrews, who cursed all mankind because one of them, and the first one, ate an apple: a God for whom David was a man after his own heart; a God who revealed himself to Moses a posteriori.<span style="color: #FF0000"> Reverence for such a deity used to be inspired by hell-fire; and now the fires of hell are going out</span>--in fact, as Horace Greeley said, there are not half the people damned now-a-days that ought to be, only we want these to be the proper sort. What right, what reason have we to expect intellectual reverence for the parents themselves, who pretend to believe and permit such teachings as have been imposed on their children? They are most likely to be looked upon as old fogies, hypocrites, and fools by the younger generation, as it rises up to sit in judgment on them. Reverence must ultimately depend on the object presented for reverence. The first necessity is that it shall be a reality and not a sham, not a swindle, not an imposition to be found out, whether as a father in heaven, a father in the Church, or a father in the family. Possibly the pious pretences and the pious pretenders are being found out by the younger generation. But, the veriest larrikin has no lack of respect for the cricketer Grace, the sculler Beach, or the fighter Gordon, because these, in their way and range, are living realities. And if you want to have filial respect or religious reverence, the object must be a living reality that is worthy of it! Neither men, nor women, nor children will much longer bow down to false authority, or believe blindly as they have done hitherto perforce.


The world is waking from its phantom dreams,

To make out that which is from that which seems.


People now demand the verification of all that is taught as true. They must see for themselves that which is set forth as the truth. They must touch it and test it to learn whether it has the ring of reality. <span style="font-weight: bold">The demand of the present is that that which is asserted by the teacher shall be verifiable by the learner in every domain of thought, all the range of nature--all that exists, being ready to supply the means of practical experiment for attaining the sure foothold of a




scientific basis. </span>It is true that we are still compelled to battle vigorously, and spend life freely in fighting against the shadows and phantoms of to-day that are thinning out, and will be seen through to-morrow--compelled to fight them and to expose their false pretensions, because so many still mistake them for solid realities. But the people, men and women, aye and little children, will ere long arise and say to these our purblind spiritual teachers--


Begone, you foolish preachers!

Howlers, snufflers, screechers!

You miserable teachers!

You God-of-blood beseechers

You forgers of God's features!

Who make us the devil's creatures;

Shut up, you foolish preachers!

Get out, you hell-fire screechers,

Go home, you played-out preachers!