Abstract
The great religions are now everywhere in decline, as regards their hold on men’s minds.1 The claims of their doctrines have grown perceptibly less convincing. Multitudes whose loyalty yesterday was firm have deserted their allegiance. Calm certitudes that only recently resisted savage persecution have crumbled, and in many hearts where spiritual peace was once a reliable, if occasional, visitor, deep doubt and confusion have taken root. No doubt an intense enthusiasm is also apparent, and a determined clinging to traditions. But they are marked rather uniformly by a quality of shutting out the intellect, for fear.
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Notes
Cf. Melville Herskovits, ‘A culture is the way of life of a people’, Cultural Anthropology (New York: Knopf, 1955).
C. Kluckhohn and W. H. Kelly, ‘The concept of culture’, in R. Linton (ed.), The Science of Man in the World Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1945).
Thus W. Cantwell Smith in The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Mentor Books, 1964) Ch. 3.
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© 1979 Patrick Burke
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Burke, P. (1979). Deliverance. In: The Fragile Universe. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04412-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-04412-2_2
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