The Real Nature of Religion

101:0.1Re­li­gion, as a hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, ranges from the prim­i­tive fear slav­ery of the evolv­ing sav­age up to the sub­lime and mag­nif­i­cent faith lib­erty of those civ­i­lized mor­tals who are su­perbly con­scious of son­ship with the eter­nal God.

101:0.2Re­li­gion is the an­ces­tor of the ad­vanced ethics and morals of pro­gres­sive so­cial evo­lu­tion. But re­li­gion, as such, is not merely a moral move­ment, al­beit the out­ward and so­cial man­i­fes­ta­tions of re­li­gion are might­ily in­flu­enced by the eth­i­cal and moral mo­men­tum of hu­man so­ci­ety. Al­ways is re­li­gion the in­spi­ra­tion of man’s evolv­ing na­ture, but it is not the se­cret of that evo­lu­tion.

101:0.3Re­li­gion, the con­vic­tion-faith of the per­son­al­ity, can al­ways tri­umph over the su­per­fi­cially con­tra­dic­tory logic of de­spair born in the un­be­liev­ing ma­te­rial mind. There re­ally is a true and gen­uine in­ner voice, that “true light which lights ev­ery man who comes into the world.” And this spirit lead­ing is dis­tinct from the eth­i­cal prompt­ing of hu­man con­science. The feel­ing of re­li­gious as­sur­ance is more than an emo­tional feel­ing. The as­sur­ance of re­li­gion tran­scends the rea­son of the mind, even the logic of phi­los­o­phy. Re­li­gion is faith, trust, and as­sur­ance.