User:Nick Gardner /Sandbox: Difference between revisions

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 The usefulness of religion
+There is a battle constantly going on between the powers of
+good and those of evil. Even the humblest human creature
+can take some part in this battle, and even the smallest
+help to the right side has value in promoting the very
+slow progress by which good is gradually gaining ground
+from evil. That progress is often so slow as to be almost
+undetectable; but when we compare the state of the battle
+at two times that are far apart, the progress of good over
+evil becomes visible to us, and that gives us a promise that
+the good will win the final victory—quite certainly, though
+not very soon.
+The most animating and invigorating thought that can inspire a
+human creature is the thought of doing something, on even the
+humblest scale if nothing more is within reach, towards bringing
+this final victory a little nearer. And I am perfectly sure that
+it—·the religion of humanity·—is destined to be the religion of
+the future, whether or not supernatural sanctions are brought
+into it. But it appears to me that supernatural hopes, of the sort
+that rational scepticism (as I have called it) is willing to endorse,
+may still contribute quite a lot towards giving this religion the
+ascendancy it ought to have over the human mind.
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Revision as of 16:31, 3 July 2011