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ONERELIGION

H.G. Wells places his hopes for
a world government on yet another
hope: a new universal rational
religion.

    From the "Outline of History",
    3rd ed, p.1089:

    "But out of the trouble and tragedy
    of this present time there may
    emerge a moral and intellectual
    revival, a religious revival, of a
    simplicity and scope to draw
    together men of alien races and now
    discrete traditions into one common
    and sustained way of living for the
    world's service."

    "Religious emotion -- stripped of
    corruptions and freed from its last
    priestly entanglements -- may
    presently blow through life again
    like a great wind, bursting the
    doors and flinging open the
    shutters of the individual life,
    and making many things possible and
    easy that in these present days of
    exhaustion seem almost too
    difficult to desire."

This notion of a world religion
seems very peculiar to my eyes,
since I would've believed Wells a
rationalist along the lines of
Arthur C. Clarke.                      GODDEATH

Is Wells a believer in the Big Lie?                              (1/96)
Or is his notion of "religion"
something closer to what I would            But then, I've been inclined
call "philosophy"?                          to say things like "The
                                            measure of a manifesto
                                            is the actions it produces,
                                            not it's internal consistency
                                            or conformance to some
                                            rational criteria."

                                                       MANIFESTO

                                            What's the difference between
                                            a manifesto and a religion?

                                                       TRUTH




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