Quote of the Week

There are many things we don't know, and many things we would wish to know. But every time our understanding, through the aid of science, has received a small push forwards, a pale anxiety moves through the congregation. They fear that God may be made ill of it, that he may die, that Christianity may dissolve, Christianity which is meant to protect us from knowledge. One fears that a ray of light may penetrate the darkness which one buries oneself in so that one does not have to see.
To put it in other words: One fears losing one's father, fears growing up, fears having to take up the struggle of life in all seriousness and on one's own account and risk. And one fears dying. Therefore the Father will live for eternity, he will assist when things go wrong, or when danger arises, and after death one will come to him and be with him. An exemplary compromise between the bitter experience and the desperate wish.
Arnulf Øverland, Christianity - the Tenth Plague, 1933.

My translation.
The entire speech can be read in Norwegian here, and in English here.