human
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, but this never seems to have meant anything practically or emotionally to him, while as a cosmological statement it seemed quite unverifiable. Most thinkers have tried by searching to find out God, to find some way of thinking of the ultimate origin, nature, and purpose of things, but at an early age Herbert Spencer foreclosed this quest, and was quite comfortable in so doing, chiefly, it must be suspected, because it never appealed to him save as a purely intellectual puzzle.
gpt
As regards 'the ultimate nature of things or origin of them,' my position is simply that I know nothing about it, and never can know anything about it, and must be content in my ignorance. I deny nothing, and I affirm nothing, and to any one who says that the current theory _is not_ true, I say just as I say to those who assert its truth--you have no evidence. Either alternative leaves us in inextricable difficulties. An _uncaused_ Deity is just as inconceivable as an uncaused Universe. If the existence of matter from all eternity is incomprehensible, the creation of matter out of nothing is equally incomprehensible. Thus finding that either attempt to conceive the origin of things is futile, I am content to leave the question unsettled as _the insoluble mystery_
human
Otherwise he would never have written the following passage,
gpt
The creed of Christendom is evidently alien to my nature, both emotional and intellectual. To many, and apparently to most, religious worship yields a species of pleasure. To me it never did so; unless, indeed, I count as such the emotion produced by sacred music.... But the expressions of adoration of a personal being, the utterance of laudations, and the humble professions of obedience, never found in me any echoes.