274. I have been given the opportunity to see people born on islands who were reasonable about civic issues but knew nothing at all about God. In the spiritual world they look like baboons. Because they have been born human and therefore have a capacity for receiving spiritual life, they are taught by angels and are brought to life by concepts of the Lord as a human being.

What human beings are like when left to themselves becomes obvious from the people who are in hell. Some such people are scholars and leaders of the church who do not want even to hear about God; they certainly cannot mention God themselves. I have seen people like this and have talked to them. I have also talked to people who would explode with rage and anger when they heard anyone talk about the Lord.

On this basis, then, consider what people would be like if they had never heard about God, when this is what some people are like even though they have spoken about God, written about God, and preached about God.

People are like this because of their wills, which are evil. Their wills, as I said before, control their intellects and take away the truth that is in them from the Word.

If people had the capability of knowing on their own that there is a God and a life after death, why would they not know that we live on as people after death? Why would they believe that our soul or spirit is like wind or ether? Why would they imagine the spirit to be something that has no eyes to see with, no ears to hear with, no mouth to speak with - at least not before it rejoins its corpse and skeleton?

Imagine a body of teaching that was hatched solely by the light of our own reason. Would it not teach that the proper object of worship ought to be we ourselves? This has in fact been taught for centuries and is still being taught now by people who know from the Word that God alone is to be worshiped. No other form of worship generated by us is possible - not even worship of the sun or the moon.