Substitutes for God

Thank you, Lia, for setting up the blog. I hope all will contribute as and when the inspiration strikes.

I propose that we sign our posts. . .

Mark Van Doren has an essay entitled "Substitutes for God" in which he quotes Henshaw Ward to the effect that God has been made to disappear "beneath a heap of definitions, a universe of words." There follows this arresting sentence:"Scientists, sociologists, professors of divinity and liberal clergymen had conspired, no doubt unwillingly, to convert god into a theory, and so to remove him forever from our modst, since theories are neither true nor untrue but merely everlastingly discussable."

From The Mark Van Doren Reader (1942), pp. 29-30.

Please check out the Best American Poetry web site - and blog. From February 7 through the 15th (and possibly longer), a different guest blogger is at it every day. See http://www.bestamericanpoetry.com/

-- DL