If Religion Were True, Its Followers Would

Man's Relations To Man Do Not Captivate My Fancy. It Is Man's Relation To The Cosmos--to The Unknown--which Alone Arouses In Me The Spark Of Creative Imagination.

It Is Because The Cosmos Is Meaningless That We Must Secure Our Individual Illusions Of Values, Direction, And Interest By Upholding The Artificial Streams Which Give Us Such Worlds Of Salutary Illusion. That Is - Since Nothing Means Anything In Itself, We Must Preserve The Proximate And Arbitrary Background Which Makes Things Around Us Seem As If They Did Mean Something.

Religion As A Vital Issue Is Dead Except On Paper, And Whatever Beauty-baiting The Future May Witness Will Be The Work Of Greed And Trade, And Not Of Honest Cosmos-facing.

It Is Good To Be A Cynic - It Is Better To Be A Contented Cat - And It Is Best Not To Exist At All. Universal Suicide Is The Most Logical Thing In The World - We Reject It Only Because Of Our Primitive Cowardice And Childish Fear Of The Dark. If We Were Sensible We Would Seek Death - The Same Blissful Blank Which We Enjoyed Before We Existed.

When Randolph Carter Was Thirty He Lost The Key Of The Gate Of Dreams.