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It is possible to understand at least as an expedient as utilitarian as it is highly hypocritical the argument of those who, atheists so far as they themselves are concerned, still wish to preserve religious beliefs for the people, because they exercise a depressing influence and prevent all energetic agitation for human rights and enjoyments here below.
He exhausted himself in futile efforts to reconcile his inward beliefs with the aspirations and the social struggles of his time. Froment, who had the soul of a chieftain in a helpless body, dauntlessly maintained that for him who bears the torch of a lofty ideal it is an absolute duty to hold it high over the heads of his comrades; that it would be wrong to confuse it in the other illuminations.
When man succeeds in applying these sympathies rationally, in a social fashion, he may bring upon this sad old earth some measure of that kingdom for which Jesus longed. But Christianity has stood and, on the whole, still stands for certain beliefs in regard to the universe as a whole and the relation of man to it, which only patient reflection and inductive investigation can settle.
But he knew, also, that his present beliefs and resolves and aspirations were sincere, were sane, were final the expression of the mind and heart that were really himself. Of what use, however, to argue with Ross? "I could no more convince him," thought Arthur, "than I could myself have been convinced less than a year ago."
Doubtless, the height of the tower, seated as it was on the hill-top, the rushing of the ceaseless wind, the hypnotic effect of the lofty altitude of the speck in the sky at which he gazed, and the rushing of the paper messengers up the string till sight of them was lost in distance, all helped to further affect his brain, undoubtedly giving way under the strain of beliefs and circumstances which were at once stimulating to the imagination, occupative of his mind, and absorbing.
The highest education is that which teaches us to guide ourselves by motives which are intangible, remote, incapable of direct and material appreciation. Weak minds find confirmation of their beliefs in the discovery of the same beliefs in other people. They do not take the trouble to find out how their neighbours obtained these beliefs.
The blood from my heart rushed to my head to revive it; the muscles of my limbs communicated to the fibres of the brain their galvanic tension. Nerves turned into imagination, flesh into life. Nothing has developed my materialistic beliefs like this decarnation of which I had such a sensible, or rather visible perception.
The aim of civilisation, contrary to all revolutionary beliefs, has been not to return to the state of nature but to escape from it. It was precisely because the Jacobins led mankind back to the primitive condition by destroying all the social restraints without which no civilisation can exist that they transformed a political society into a barbarian horde.
In brief, Jehovah is the eternal god of law and power, demanding sacrifice and priestly atonement, and promising happiness eternal upon the bosom of Abraham to those who recognize their responsibility to him and obey his precepts. Again, there are three fundamental beliefs, that differ from those of Christianity as the Talmud diverges from the New Testament scriptures.
While it is proper, therefore, to distinguish incantations from prayers, the combination of the two could scarcely be avoided by the priests, who, rising in a measure superior to the popular beliefs, felt it to be inconsistent with a proper regard for the gods not to give them a superior place in the magical texts.
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