existence of Jesus Christ, nor Buddha, nor
Moses. I believe that these are ideal characters constructed from still
more ancient legends and traditions.

I cannot believe that the Bible version of the relations of man and God
is correct. For that version, and all other religious versions known
to me, represents man as sinning against or forsaking God, and God as
punishing or pardoning man.

But if God made man, then God is responsible for all man's acts and
thoughts, and therefore man cannot sin against God.

And if man could not sin against God, but could only act as God ordained
that he should act, then it is against reason to suppose that God could
be angry with man, or could punish man, or see any offence for which to
pardon man.

I cannot believe that man has ever forsaken God. Because history shows
that man has from the earliest times been eagerly and pitifully seeking
God, and has served and raised and sacrificed to God with a zeal akin to
madness. But God has made no sign.

I cannot believe that man was at the first created "perfect," and
that he "fell." (How could the perfect fall?) I believe the theory of
evolution, which shows not a fall but a gradual rise.

I cannot believe that God is a loving "Heavenly Father," taking a tender
interest in mankind. Because He has never interfered to prevent the
horrible cruelties and injustices of man to man, and because He has
permitted evil to rule the world. I cannot reconcile the idea of
a tender Heavenly Father with the known horrors of war, slavery,
pestilence, and insanity. I cannot discern the hand of a loving Father
in the slums, in the earthquake, in the cyclone. I cannot understand the
indifference of a loving Father to the law of prey, nor to the terrors
and tortures of leprosy, cancer, cholera, and consumption.

I cannot believe that God is a personal God, who intervenes in human
affairs. I cannot see in science, nor in experience, nor in history any
signs of such a God, nor of such intervention.

I cannot believe that God hears and answers prayer, because the universe
is governed by laws, and there is no reason to suppose that those laws
are ever interfered with. Besides, an all-wise God knows what to do
better than man can tell Him, and a just God would act justly without
requiring to be reminded of His duty by one of His creatures.

I cannot believe that miracles ever could or ever did happen. Because
the universe is governed by laws, and there is n