God, the Invisible King

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Герберт Уэллс. God, the Invisible King

PREFACE

CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION

CHAPTER THE SECOND. HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT

CHAPTER THE THIRD. THE LIKENESS OF GOD

CHAPTER THE FOURTH. THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS

CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE INVISIBLE KING

CHAPTER THE SIXTH. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH

Отрывок из книги

1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER

Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the new belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, to trace how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always had hitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; it has always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps plainer than it was and to more people – that is all.

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For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an understanding of relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into those black wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind will take us.

That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. It may be that they may never be able to deal with it.

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