WHAT IS RELIGION ? 225 



Such definitions may be quoted almost indefinitely. 

 But the Christian Religion as practised in civilized 

 Christian countries may be stated thus : 

 Idealistic. First, to create an ideal which cannot be 

 defined and call it God, to love this ideal with all 

 the heart and soul and mind, and to worship it. 

 More especially to flatter it by telling God how great, 

 good, and omnipotent he is. 1 And secondly, to do 

 unto others as we would be done by. 



1 " God is an ideal of the mind. ... To worship the image made 

 of ideas is to worship the work of the human brain. God-worship, 

 therefore, is idolatry. 



" The God of this country is called a God of love ; but it is said 

 that he punishes the crimes and even the errors of a short and 

 troubled life with torture which will have no end. It is not even a 

 Man which theologians create ; for no man is quite without pity ; no 

 man, however cruel he might be, could bear to gaze for ever on the 

 horrors of the fire and the rack ; no man could listen for ever to 

 voices shrieking with pain, and ever crying out for mercy and for^ 

 giveness." ("The Martyrdom of Man," Winwood Reade, 1890, 

 pp. 434, 435.) 



" However sublime the former idea of a Creator, and his creative 

 power, may have been; however much it may be divested of all 

 human analogy, yet in the end this analogy still remains unavoidable 

 and necessary in the teleological conception of Nature. In reality 

 the Creator must himself be conceived of as an organism, that is, as 

 a being who, analogous to man, even though in an infinitely more 

 perfect form, reflects on his constructive power, lays down a plan of 

 his mechanisms, and then, by the application of suitable materials, 

 makes them answer their purpose. Such conceptions necessarily suffer 

 from the fundamental error of anthropomorphism, or man-likening. 

 In such a view, however exalted the Creator may be imagined, we 

 assign to him the human attributes of designing a plan, and there- 

 from suitably constructing the organism." ... " If we closely 

 examine the common life and the mutual relations between plants 

 and animals (man included), we shall find everywhere, and at all 

 times, the very opposite of that kindly and peaceful social life which 



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