RELIGION AND SCEPTICISM

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 79, 2 April 1914, Page 6

RELIGION AND SCEPTICISM

The abolition of the "half-way house" in religion Vas the subject of a lunchhour address delivered in the Chamber of Commerce yesterday by the Rev. G. C. Cruickshank. Too many m< n, the speaker said, adopted the halfhe irted attitude towards Christianity—the; were not sure they believed what it taxght, and were content if they did no ban I—at1 —at least, as judged by its standards. The common assertion that religion and science were entirely at variance was too commonly accepted. "I spent last . idvent Sunday in Hyde Park, listening t j the orators," said the speaker, "and ' ritbout a dogcollar on. I heard a gre it deal of thia sort of thing, and then is no bigger fallacy. Do you know :hat the three leading materialists of thr last century— Tyndall, Spencer, and Huxlpy—were hopelessly divided?"

Faith, he continued, involved the heart ac well ah the intellect, aJid no one could say that Christianity I was an easy religion. The unique gift that man possessed—free will —included the power to doubt Conan Doyle had said that if in a hundred of God's designs he could understand enc as being for good, be would believe in Him. It was easy to quote cases of lunacy and other afflictions as disposing of the idea of the general goodness of God in nature, but the average eceptic was altogether too prone to notice the coincidences that seemed to be against God, and to forget all the instances of His goodnjss. Again, was God's goodness necessarily on the level of human intellect? He had known of an imbecile child whose parents confessed that she iad brought them to God and to self-sacrifice. Wonld anyone say deliberately that God was a malevolent God. Jesns Christ (toe speaker continned) w cither God or a fanatical rogue, and the Resurrection was either one of the best attested facts in history or else the apoetles were doubly hoaxed. There was no room fon a half belief. "If you doubt," he added, j'doubt well. And in practice either kefep your faith in detail or give it up—ilt's a farce."