Page:The Necessity of Atheism (Brooks).djvu/320

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318
THE NECESSITY OF ATHEISM

form the literary basis of the other world religions. It avails one nothing to deny these things, for they are actually undeniable. We must face the implied intellectual revolution honestly and see what is to be done about it.

To be thoroughly religious, one must, I believe, be sorely disappointed. One's faith in God increases as one's faith in the world decreases. The happier the man, the farther he is from God.

It is important that the truth be known. Is religion, is church membership a help to virtue? The careless will answer without hesitation, "Yes!" Of course. The statistics, when they are not smothered, cry, "No!"

On the basis of biological, sociological, and historical knowledge, we should recognize that the individual self is subject to death and decay, but the sum total of individual achievement, for better or for worse, lives on in the immortality of the Larger Self; that to live for the sake of the species and posterity is religion of the highest kind; and that those religions which seek a future life either in Heaven or in the Pure Land, are selfish religions.

In these difficult times we are told that we should go to the temple, that we should get in touch with God. We do not need the temple. We do not need to get in touch with "God." We need to get in touch with each other.