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Show 1 PROBLEMS OF LIFE. I Restless Age Constant Changes in Reli- Qious Belief Modern Unbelief Identical With Paganism Materialism, Which Denies Creation, Unable to Explain Its Own Tenets Matter and Spirit The j Resurrection of the Body Objections p "i Inconsistent and Illogical. j (Written for The Iutermountain Catholic.) f ' Tlic ape is restless and the strenuous efforts made to advance are not confined to the business I vorld. Religion is tested more than it has been J ln a1-V Past age. Only the true can ultimately sur- I vive. Mere professional belief not backed bv "deeds I cannot control the intelects of the twentieth een- !tnry. Hence the constant changes in the various religious beliefs 'in order to meet the pressing demands de-mands of th cover varying changes of human thought, which hungers for novelty. .Materialism seems to be the dominant, if not )opuhir, error to be met on all sides. This rests I t n tlie denial ot the fundamental principle of all I Jyligious belief, viz., that God is the Creator of all 1 filings visible and invisible. This, as commonly I 'Understood by those who do not reason, mean's I . . fboism. whilst with those who still assume to be f rdigiously progressive it means pantheism, the incipient in-cipient error after the great Gentile apostasy. The human mind without some divine guide. to I r-teor its course in the acquisition of religious truths is .sure to err when it strives to build up a religious system. This has been verified in all the I Ji.ea then nations of antiquity. Xo sooner did thev -..separate from the synagogue than they lost sight ; vt,(jo 1S Creator, and the farther thev separated j . J lrae f rom the early traditiou of the Patriarchal : t- f'ligion, the grosser and more grotesque became Ij their superstitions. None of the old heathen myth- piogies represents creation, but gave as a substi- I lute cither emanation, formation or generation. I .Not even Plato or Aristotle in all their writings I recognized God as the Creator of the universe. Their ideas of spirit and matetr were so confused tn:,t' like modern unbelief, they could only give hu- !i fcian theories or their own simple conceptions of jKJi the Roul and body, which they designated as spirit I " r,nd matter. But in ancient as well as in modern ! Mimes the denial of the account given in Genesis J t'f the fundamental principle, pon which all reli- j fcious belief teW-leads' the' human mind into the I mazes of darkness and uncertainty, whereas where I the proper standpoint is taken to start with, then 1 harmony follows. 1 Those who' speak of man as composed of matter- ! UUI spirit, instead ot a body and soul, and pretend I " know more of these two elements than the j P'n atest philosophers, if questioned as to what 1,rse tprm!? iffuif.y, Avill give vague answers which I they pretend are verified by science. Not even J Professor Huxley, who strove so hard to upset I I Christian faith, according to his own confession, U v-mld give any idea of the essence and nature of I J matter and spirit, which he termed the component I j parts of matter. The Holy Scriptures tell us that tllfre is a spirit in man, and that God gaveth him -j understanding. "What that spirit consists of is neither revealed nor within the compass, of reason T. 1" fat,lom- It certainly cannot be in the same f-ense that God is a spirit, because it is a creature I which began to exist in time, and God is the Creator Crea-tor who had no beginning, who is omnipotent and infinite in all his attributes. Hence, the absurdity i of oar would-be religious progressive thinkers in J calling spirit a divine spark which emanated from i-vatures God. This, instead of being a modem misconception of the solution of the" great religious reli-gious question which always agitates society, is J Hmply repeating what the old pagan philosophers -' Taught when trying by their own intellects to solve the problem of life. Their theories of formation, emanation or generation simply identified spirit t it; the. divinity to which it returned and was re-. re-. nsorbed after death. Our modern unbelievers give 1 ii'-thing better or r.eycr than this pantheistic con-1 con-1 1- -opt ion of God and man, yet with a great flourish I I they t( M U3 that this age is going to solve the nrob-U nrob-U Ivm of life- e descend from t-pirit to matter and ask. Miai are its component parts? Analyze is, if you ; v-ill but tell what arc its component parts. The j most profound philosophers of ancient and modern 1 limes were unable to sav. The Epicurean school ! ,....,1,1 a :t j - j -ii i f , i ' "uiu ojjiy leim n, inoesiruciiuie ana lnuissoJU- '"le atoms." Berkley denied the existence of mat- I ter. which he termed a delusion, or pictures I painted on the retina of the eye. Then again, if we substitute for matter an organic body the same I difficulties present themselves 'to our wisest philos- I ophors in defining what it is. Some say "that an 1 organic body is something that is extendeed and occupies space." Others deny this because they say space is undefinable, or has no real existence except in defining the relationship of co-existing organic bodies. But if it be nothing, the distance which two bodies may be apart cannot make something some-thing out of it. 4From nothing nothing is made" 1 is a sound philosophical principle. Only God can make something out of nothing. Again, if we 1 term it ''extension in space" the same objection holds good as simple extension could not form its I essence. It may tell its height and width, but ! could not in any sense be the property of matter. "Will our enlightened modern thinkers who find no I difficulty in solving the most intricate problems j i Continued on Page 4. 'A ; . --Vv.. 1- PROBLEMS OF LIFE. Continued from Page 1. connected with religion answer this simple question? ques-tion? What has their pretended science discovered that will throw some light on these plain simple queries. Some of our modern pretended philosophers assume as-sume that because the human bodv is constantlv undergoing a change that the old doctrine of th' resurrection on the last day is impossible. Impossible Impos-sible to whom? Will it be denied that the bodv of an old man of eighty is the same body which he' had as a child It may have exchanged every particle of matter ten times over, but these cliansres bv exuding effete matter and assimilating new matter do not affect the identity of the bodv. Therefore they do not constitute the real bodv. The sensible sensi-ble body visible to the eye is something more than an aggregation of particles of matter which are constantly changing, otherwise the bodv of the child when through its constant molecular changes had lost all the original matter that composed it would ose its identity and be another entirely different dif-ferent body. But such is not the case. How.' then adduce these molecular changes as argument against the resurrection of the body on the last day f I nbelief. when it aims to solve the problem of life by denying the fundamental principle of religion is not inconsistent, but moves blindiv on disregarding all the rules of logic. F. D. |