Article November 19, 1910 Issue

TRANSFORMATION OF THOUGHT

WILLIAM HART SPENCER.

Mortal man, while tacitly admitting that there is a creator who is good, nevertheless imagines that His power is either inoperative or spasmodic, and that there is another power, that of evil, which is always operative, and that this so-called power is as great or greater than good. As a consequence, the mortal fears evil more than he loves the good. We have read that among some peoples religious ceremonies are designed to placate evil deities,—the good spirits not requiring worship or votive offerings, as they would not harm. Naturally, for such ignorance we have a sense of pity, based on the assumption that our present-day enlightenment has raised us above such reasoning, but this so-called heathen thought is more prevalent among us than many would be willing to admit. A study of the object of not a little present-day worship might strengthen the impression that the line of demarcation between Christian and non-christian civilizations is in many cases very faintly drawn.

From the view-point of this mortal plane, mankind study and dread the effects of evil. Their thought dwells continually either on the positive or negative side of so-called evil, and rests but little on the operation of good. While in such a mental atmosphere, if the fear of the penalty for wrong-doing were eliminated, love for good, of itself, is not strong enough to be the incentive for the forsaking of sin. The wish to be saved simply from the results of sin,—in order to avoid the wrath of a so-called angry God,—is really a desire to be saved in sin, and as such has no connection with the honest desire for salvation from sin, the being freed from hindrances which interfere with the understanding of God as Love.

The false belief that God, good, commissions a devil to deal out vengeance for sins committed, or allows the persecution of the children of men as a matter of caprice, has had a tendency to drive men away from God. Another hindrance is the difficulty of the adult mind, unfamiliar with spiritual leading, to overcome the thought of God as a magnified type of mortal man, with the variable moods common to humanity. To this mistaken concept of what is designated as God, is directly traceable a large share of the misery in the thought of the world. The thought of God as being susceptible to argument is a prevalent error, and leads to the likelihood of an attempt to bargain with Him by mentally asking for added proofs of His honesty of purpose. Gideonlike, the desire will be, not for one sign only, but two.

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