Who are the "unbelievers" and why are they "unbelievers"? They are of course those who cannot believe. And their inability to believe is solely due to the fact that their faculty of intelligence is too highly developed in relation to the religious terminology through which they come across accounts of all things divine. Here one must remember how these accounts in the terminology of the authorised religions are based mainly on "the creation of an appropriate atmosphere". They are, in their ceremonial nature, only designed for the creation of feelings of happiness in the conscious life of the individual. And it is here that this form of religious cult, although it is completely dependent on "faith", has its great mission. However, this means that in order to participate in its happiness and joy-creating nature, one's intelligence in the religious field must be so insignificant that one does not make any demands, however small, on oneself regarding understanding "God's ways" and therefore may get one's whole religious need satisfied through ceremonies, devotional sermons, hymns and organ music, religious decorations, incense, illuminated altars, church and temple servants in religious vestments. All these phenomena create a certain heightened contrast to the phenomena of everyday life, with its disease, poverty and troubles for the great majority of people. It is a matter of course that the feeling of this heightened contrast must make a stimulating, festive impression on the sensitive mind. And the only obstacle hindering him from being mentally uplifted and enthusiastic is clearly "lack of faith". The fact is that the more the faculty of intelligence develops, which happens especially through all modern schooling in all fields which are rapidly expanding, the more it creates the wish or desire for "knowledge" in the religious field as well, especially as the religious terminology in many areas clashes with what can, for the time being, be explored and thought out by intelligence. And it is just this collision between intelligence and the traditional religious dogmas or conceptions which forbids the belief in these very dogmas. And as the faculty of intelligence is yet too underdeveloped for the individual to solve the religious problems or understand the greatest and eternal facts for himself, so these facts have gradually been overshadowed by the multitude of ordinary daily and directly vital problems which the individual has the power to solve with his intelligence. It is a matter of course that as his interest in purely material things develops, his interest in the above-mentioned highest facts, which are outside his field of intelligence, decreases. The things with which one occupies oneself develop in one's mind while the opposite is the case with things one does not occupy oneself with. The above-mentioned development of the intelligence or mental attitude of the individual must inevitably result in strongly marked materialism or atheism.
      As you can now see, this mental condition is thus a state of consciousness just as natural as the religious one. "Lack of faith" is just as natural as "faith". If "lack of faith" is "sinful", "faith" is just as sinful. The "unbeliever" cannot help his mental stage any more than "the believer" can help his. Their mental states or attitudes are therefore, for both parties, phenomena which are completely beyond their day-conscious will. Neither of them can decide whether they want to believe or disbelieve any more than they can decide whether they want brown or blue eyes. To believe then that a Godhead would consider one of the above-mentioned parties "sinful" and "punish" him with a torment of pain from which he could never be "saved" in all eternity and at the same time consider the other party as "holy" or "saved" and favour him equally with eternal life in glory and joy is a view which is sure to deprive any intelligent being of the ability to consider the authorised religious terminology as the absolute expression of truth and justice.