Essays and Addresses
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217927871
Paperback|9780217927871
Out of Stock
Overview
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES (1901) It is one of Bishop Butler's tremendous sayings, so resonant with the sincerity of his character, that religion is nothing unless it is true. I do not think this is the general belief. Gibbon's famous sneer about philosophers, magistrates, and mobs has not yet lost its point, and there are still many well- credited citizens who would not scruple to say that the Christian religion, which is the only one that makes any demands upon the Western World, is so closely bound up with our admirable Common Law, is so intimately associated with our educational system, so admirably well-adapted (in the opinion of the rich) to make the poor contented with their lot, affords so safe an outlet for the enthusiasm latent in many breasts, that, whether it be true or false, so far from being nothing, it is one of the most valuable bulwarks of society. Such an opinion, however, is obviously not personal, and it may be that Butler was thinking of the individual man and what religion is to him in the dark watches of the night, and not what he may imagine it to be to others whose passions or predatory instincts he may very reasonably desire to control. The assent of the mind to a proposition or to a series of propositions is never hypothetical. You cannot repeat the Apostles' Creed with faith, on the footing that if it happens to be untrue you are none the worse off for having believed it, whilst if it turns out to be true in substance and in fact, you are all the better for having given it the credit to which it proves entitled. You may sway backwards and forwards, from belief to unbelief, but you cannot at any one moment of time be in both states of mind. Christianity being, so far as its confessions of faith are concerned, a modern religion, has from...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217927871 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217927874 |
| Weight | 0.40 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.28 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 116 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
View All Offers
Sort by:
Price
