The beliefs of unbelief Author:William Henry Fitchett 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: PART II THE ALTERNATIVE TO BELIEF IN GOD CHAPTER I ATHEISM " The atheistic theory is not only absolutely unthinkable; but, even if it were thinkable, i... more »t would not be a solution."—Herbert Spencer. The alternatives to the Christian faith about God are easily named. " It is impossible," to quote Herbert Spencer once more, " to avoid making the assumption of self-existence somewhere." We may believe, with the atheist, in the self-existence of matter; or, with the pantheist, in the self-existence of everything; or, with the Christian, in the self-existence of God. Or we may deny all three with the agnostic. But he who rejects the belief of Christianity as to God must put in its place one of these three—atheism, pantheism, agnosticism. It might be imagined that pantheism, as an alternative to Christianity, could be dismissed almost without debate. The word is used in literature as a label, but does any sane man under civilised skies really hold the creed behind the label, with all the consequences which follow from that creed ? Yet pantheism, it cannot be denied, has inspired some famous books; it has captured some great thinkers—on the Continent at least; it has yielded some picturesque philosophies. But, stripped of all ingenious disguises, what is the hard and naked quality of its teaching? Pantheism starts with a very different premiss to atheism; but, paradoxical as it may seem, it arrives at the same conclusion. Atheism denies any creation, since there is no Creator. Pantheism denies creation too, but it is because there is no creature! But there are darker shadows still in this dark creed. On the pantheistic theory God did not create the universe. He is the universe—all that is dark in it, as well as all that is bright. Everything is but a disguise of God. A...« less