A Free Man's Worship

This was a really interesting reading filled with a lot of deep insight. Basically, this text was about Life, God and Man. Bertrand Russell talks about the creation of all things. For example, the world was created by a hot nebula which after "countless ages" finally took shape of planets. Then Man was born with the "power of thought, the knowledge of good and evil, and the cruel thirst for worship." As a result, Man created a God to worship. Russell does not really believe in "God" because he thinks that Man created a God due to the love of "good." God is simply "all-powerful and all-good, the mystic unity of what is and what should be." Because Man is not perfect and because Man will sin, they crave what they lack - the quality of being all-powerful and all-good.

Unlike God, to which Man has a certain degree of control over (for example, man can control the basic idea of "God"), Life is beyond the control of man. From the day of birth, Man was doomed to one day perish and ever since then, Man been a slave to Time, Fate and Death. No matter what Man does, He simply cannot control these aspects of Life. There was one quote that really affected me - "This is the reason why the Past has such magical powers. The beauty of its motionless and silent pictures is like the enchanted purtiy of late autumn... The Past does not change or strive ... what was eager and grasping, what was petty and transitory, has faded away, the things that were beautiful and eternal shine out of it like stars in the night. Its beauty, to a soul not worthy of it, is unendurable; but to a soul which has conquered Fate, it is the key of religion." I think this part really captures the essense of the concept of the "Past". No matter how we try to go back or to forget, our Past is part of who we are and why we are this way. Past cannot be controlled nor changed. It is beautiful and special because we cannot ever have that moment back.