Religious Stuff Be In, S.C.M.

Sir,—I have no wish to enter into a controversy on the existence of God, but I do feel that such a subject deserves a great deal more intelligent and impartial thinking than Messrs Jansen and Hubbard employ in their "proof."

They say, in effect, that because Jesus thought he was the Son of God, his "life, teaching, and example" prove that he indeed was.

Let us remember that many people who were neither bad nor particularly mad have cherished exactly the same idea. There is such a thing as monomania, and people with this from of insanity are certainly not regarded as "mad" in the ordinary sense of the word. '

The delusion of divine parentage is particularly prevalent among the insane, and such insanity is certainly not incompatible with the retention of argumentative cunning that Jesus displayed. (Two modern examples, if I may be forgiven for mentioning them here, are Adolf Hitler and Dr. Mussadiq both monomaniacs, yet they have swayed whole nations and changed the history of the world with their own particular forms of oratory.)

Bernard Shaw, having the ability to think for himself, cannot reduce the case to such a delightful piece of "logic" as do Messrs. Jansen and Hubbard in their third paragraph. Speaking of Jews' trial. G.B.S. says, "If jesus had been indicted In a modern court, he would have been examined by two doctors; found to be obsessed by a delusion; declared incapable of pleading; and sent to an asylum. . . ."

Your correspondents exhort us to consider "the believers of every age who . . . not only think hut know there is a God—shifting their ground to base their "proof on the beliefs of our ill-formed ancestors.

Perhaps we are also expected to believe that witches should be burnt, that it is a monstrous sin to say the earth is any other shap than completely flat, and that the world is the centre of the universe.

For the "believers" of certain ages both thought and knew three things and mercilessly persecuted those who had so little faith as to think other-wise.

Traditional belief is not a sound basis for faith, and one would expect people with the benefit of a university education to appreciate this fact and to consider other aspects than those drummed into them from childhood.

In closing, I wish to stress that I am not trying to prove or disprove anything, but 1 do deplore Messrs. Jansen and Hubbards' narrow and illogical treatment of a subject meriting a greater depth of thought than they seem to have given it.

Also, I feel sure that I am not alone in deploring the lamentable lack of taste shown in their "holier-than-thou" postscript. Perhaps it could well apply to them?