 When I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any purpose in the universe and still more unable to wish to discern one. Those who imagine that the course of cosmic evolution is slowly leading up to some consummation pleasing to the Creator are logically committed, though they usually fail to realize this, to the view that the Creator is not omnipotent, or if he were omnipotent he would decree the end without troubling about means. I do not myself perceive any consummation toward which the universe is tending. According to the physicists, energy will be gradually more evenly distributed, and as it becomes more evenly distributed it will become more useless. Gradually everything that we find interesting or pleasant, such as life and light, will disappear. So at least they assure us. The cosmos is like a theater in which just once a play is performed, but after the curtain falls the theater is left cold and empty until it sinks and ruins. I do not mean to assert with any positiveness that this is the case. That would be to assume more knowledge than we possess. I say only that it is what is probable on present evidence. I will not assert dogmatically that there is no cosmic purpose, but I will say that there is no shred of evidence in favor of there being one. I will say further that if there be a purpose, and if this purpose is that of an omnipotent creator, then that creator, so far from being loving and kind as we are told, must be of a degree of wickedness scarcely conceivable. A man who commits a murder is considered to be a bad man. An omnipotent deity, if there be one, murders everybody. A man who willingly afflicted another with cancer would be considered a fiend. But the creator, if he exists, afflicts many thousands every year with this dreadful disease. A man who, having the knowledge and power required to make his children good, chosen instead to make them bad, would be viewed with execration. But God, if he exists, makes this choice in the case of very many of his children. The whole conception of an omnipotent God whom it is impious to criticize could only have arisen under Oriental despotisms, where sovereigns, in spite of capricious cruelties, continued to enjoy the adulation of their slaves. It is the psychology appropriate to this outmoded political system which belatedly survives in Orthodox theology. Many Orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas, rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is of course a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the earth and Mars there is a China teapot, revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion, provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed, even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it. I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the inquisitor in an earlier time. It is customary to suppose that if a belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history. Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd. In early civilization, there may be as much as 1% for which there is something to be said. In our own day. But at this point I must be careful. We all know there are absurd beliefs in Soviet Russia. If we are Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics. If we are Catholics, we know there are absurd beliefs among Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists, we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those which you do not hold. I cannot therefore think it presumptuous to doubt something which has been long held to be true. Especially when this opinion has only prevailed in certain geographical regions, as in the case with all theological opinions. My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology, and further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity. Thanks for watching.