On science and religion:

From "The present relations of science and religion." Philosophy, vol. 14, no. 54 (April, 1939), pp. 131-154.

"I have been obliged to paint the scene as I see it; and the prospects of Christianity, as I see them, are somewhat gloomy unless applied science (that blind Samson) should uproot the pillars of the house and bury pure science with it in the ruins. Though I am not a Christian, and never have been one since I began to think for myself, I take no pleasure in this prospect. Whether Christianity be true or false, Christ's parable about the subsequent fate of the man who was left 'swept and garnished,' after the expulsion of a demon that possessed him, seems to me to be profoundly true of humanity as a whole. Ordinary human nature abhors a vacuum, and it will not for long rest content without some system of emotionally toned and unverifiable apocalyptic beliefs for which it can live and die and persecute and endure. When I contemplate Communism and Fascism, the two new religions which have entered into the clean-swept place and possessed it, and when I consider the probable consequences of their sisterly bickerings, I appreciate the concluding lines of Mr. Belloc's Cautionary Tale about the boy who ran away from his nurse in the Zoo and was eaten by a lion. 'Always keep a hold of Nurse, for fear of finding Something Worse.' "