confidence, not a sense of inadequacy. So in the world of action, there is little alternative but to treat their pretensions with indulgence, and get on with the business of life; and in practice many do. There is a further alternative for the man of action, which I expect a few adopt; it is to split the mind into Jekyll and Hyde compartments; the religious compartment for Sundays, and the Hyde compartment for weekdays. In turning oneself into a hypocrite, inner integrity takes a tumble.
But if the church-goer is put into this embarrassing dilemma by the clergy, the atheist is not. Fortunately or unfortunately for him, he does not admit the reality of sin, so is not plagued by feelings of guilt, and is free to face life's problems with as much courage and confidence as he has. No one, of course has an unlimited amount of courage. As Lord Moran has pointed out in his book The Anatomy of Courage, a man's reserves of courage at any particular time are limited, and are replenished only by the normal processes of recuperation. But the atheist is in a position to husband his slender stock of courage economically from the start; whereas the Christian (if he is not careful) wastes his by wanton indulgence in excessive penitence for guilt, or by misplaced enthusiasm. The atheist cannot claim to be at one with God, because he asserts and professes to believe that God does not exist. But he is in the fortunate position of being able to put himself into God's shoes as it were (consciously or unconsciously), and so bring a reasonable intelligence to bear on the practical way to solve life's problems. The Christian is at a great disadvantage in this respect unless he is prepared to put himself, to a limited extent, on an equality with the God in whom he professes to believe. An in-dwelling presupposes at least friendship, and there is always a certain equality in friendship. For without this limited equality of consciousness, he cannot bring the same dispassionate intelligence to bear on life's problems, as the…