Religion and Science
9. A Last Word
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built the unity of purpose and practice desirable
amongst the believers of a particular religion.
5. The prevalent form of Judaism, which no longer
consists of the original teachings of the prophet
Moses, there having been many additions and
alterations, has also played its part in giving birth to
this modem concept.
Toynbee writes:
It is, in fact, difficult to imagine that a God
whose mind and will govern the whole course
of the Universe would compromise the
conduct of His government by acting on a
caprice. It would seem highly improbable that
he would pick out just me and my tribe to be
His Prophet and His ‘Chosen People’. Any
such idea of mine would seem less likely to be
the truth than to be an hallucination conjured
up by my innate self-centredness.
4
The concept of the ‘Chosen People’ (possibly the
concept of Judaism which the writer has in mind)
normally signifies that a group is chosen for no
better reason than its relation to a particular person,
