ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



habitat; that our earth is a celestial body among 

 myriads of others, and that when we solemnly lift 

 our eyes heavenward, we are lifting them to other 

 worlds made of the same stuff as our own. Our re- 

 ligious emotions and aspirations lead us to look 

 away from the earth and to imagine finer and fairer 

 realms, but disinterested science does not humor 

 our illusions; it brings us back to earth again, 

 back to the heaven we despise. Hence the trouble 

 the narrow religious nature has with science. It 

 experiences a cold shudder before its revelations 

 and will none of it. It will have beginnings and 

 endings, boundaries and limitations, heavenly and 

 earthly, and will read the impersonal laws of the 

 universe in terms of our personal human needs 

 and relations. It sets up a judge and ruler of cre- 

 ation modeled on our human plan, and then to 

 get out of the dilemma in which it finds itself, with 

 all the sin and misery and injustice of the world 

 which it finds upon its hands, and which omnipotent 

 love and mercy could never tolerate, dopes itself 

 with theological casuistry that seeks to justify the 

 ways of God to man. It is a world-old problem. The 

 only way I see out of it is by purging our minds of the 

 old dogmas and boldly facing the reality as science 

 shows it to us. Religion as the world has so long 

 used the term — that human mixture of fear, 

 reverence, superstition, and selfish desire — has 

 had its day. We may still marvel and love and ad- 



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