80 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



the Devil as "the Bad Man." No longer is it possible 

 to regard miracles — in the sense of suspension or vio- 

 lation of natural law — as of daily occurrence, nor 

 magic as the universal means of controlling nature or 

 supernatural powers. To persons of mature mind this 

 faith of childhood is gone and gone forever. 



Loss OF Religious Faith 



The first effect of loss of childhood faith is universal 

 disbelief in everything that is incapable of scientific 

 proof. One of the most dramatic moments of my 

 college days was when a Senior, who was generally 

 regarded as the best student in college, was reluctantly 

 persuaded by classmates to rise in a great religious 

 meeting in the Chapel and confess his loss of religious 

 faith. He told of the faith his mother had taught 

 him and then said, "I studied astronomy and geology 

 and biology; and the Bible story was gone. I studied 

 psychology, philosophy and religion; and free-will, 

 immortality, and God were gone." 



This experience has been duplicated by many ear- 

 nest, serious students. The reaction against the un- 

 tenable faith of childhood has carried them to the 

 other extreme of no religious faith at all. I recall a 

 conversation I once had with a great biologist, who, 

 in a sort of frenzy, recited his creed of unbelief: 

 "There is no God, no Devil, no heaven, no hell, no 

 plan or purpose in the universe, no soul, no immor- 

 tality, no free will, no responsibility." And at another 

 time he added this inevitable conclusion to such a 

 creed: "The evolution of consciousness was the great- 

 est blunder in the universe," meaning that if only we 

 had remained unconscious it would not have mattered 



