The Earth Satellite

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28415, 23 October 1957, Page 3

The Earth Satellite

Sir. —Somebody started a correspondence about a satellite. The contributors weren’t much interested in sputnik, preferring instead to discuss deity. It proved an excuse for a group of amateur logicians to display their paces. But now look what’s happened! This time it’s a real pagan that’s entered the lists. I would like to say this to my logical friends; What has been propounded by “Sincere” is a hypothesis which strictly cannot be disproved. While no theoretical proof can be given of the Christian view, either nobody ever feels the need to ‘prove’’ what is self-evident about facts of immediate experiencelike the unpleasantness of a pain in the tummy, for instance; or this other fact that God is spirit, truth, and. above all, love. Taken with the minor premise which we all own a priori—namely, love is wholly good—it doesn’t require any sort of logician to draw the conclusion.—Yours, etc.,

October 19, 1957.

Sir, —Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstances it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance. It is character that builds an existence out of circumstances. From the same material one man builds palaces, another hovels, one warehouses, another villas. Bricks and mortar are mortar and bricks until the architect can make them into something else, for instance, in the field of science, an earth satellite. —Yours, etc.,

HELL OR HEAVEN? October 22, 1957.

Sir,—The letter by "Sincere" is the best we have had so far. These other writers are quite amusing. Why do they continually quote Bible passages? I notice tha‘t they never quote the contradictions, which are galore. It must be a great blow to them, that it was the "Godless" Russian scientists who produced the satellite.— Yours, etc.,

NO HUMBUG October 22, 1957.

Sir, —May “Saved" wake up to the fact that prophecy is impossible without pre-knowledge of the behaviour of each force, earn person, each atom, in the universe. All action is interaction. All forces are interdependent. Thus prophecy, if true, means pre-knowledge of such events as the arising of the “devil," as well as the arising of the satellite. Let "Saved” therefore discard either prophecy or free-will, as to believe in both without rationalising is impossible.—Yours, etc., DAMNED.

October 22, 1957. [“I.G.Y.” may briefly reply; otherwise this correspondence is closed.—Ed., “The Press.’’]