Essays of Schopenhauer
an undeniable example of the practical efficacy of religion. I must, in
spite of everything you have said, doubt whether the efficacy of
religion goes much beyond this. Just think, if it were suddenly declared
by public proclamation that all criminal laws were abolished; I believe
that neither you nor I would have the courage to go home from here alone
under the protection of religious motives. On the other hand, if in a
similar way all religions were declared to be untrue; we would, under
the protection of the laws alone, live on as formerly, without any
special increase in our fears and measures of precaution. But I will
even go further: religions have very frequently a decidedly demoralising
influence. It may be said generally that duties towards God are the
reverse of duties towards mankind; and that it is very easy to make up
for lack of good behaviour towards men by adulation of God. Accordingly,
we see in all ages and countries that the great majority of mankind find
it much easier to beg admission into Heaven by prayers than to deserve
it by their actions. In every religion it soon comes to be proclaimed
that it is not so much moral actions as faith, ceremonies, and rites of
every kind that are the immediate objects of the Divine will; and indeed
the latter, especially if they are bound up with the emoluments of the
clergy, are considered a substitute for the former. The sacrifice of
animals in temples, or the saying of masses, the erection of chapels or
crosses by the roadside, are soon regarded as the most meritorious
works; so that even a great crime may be expiated by them, as also by
penance, subjection to priestly authority, confessions, pilgrimages,
donations to the temple and its priests, the building of monasteries and
the like; until finally the clergy appear almost only as mediators in
the corruption of the gods. And if things do not go so far as that,
where is the religion whose confessors do not consider prayers, songs of
praise, and various kinds of devotional exercise, at any rate, a partial
substitute for moral conduct? Look at England, for instance, where the
audacious priestcraft has mendaciously identified the Christian Sunday
with the Jewish Sabbath, in spite of the fact that it was ordained by
Constantine the Great in opposition to the Jewish Sabbath, and even took
its name, so that Jehovah's ordinances for the Sabbath--_i.e._, the day
on which the Almighty rested, tired after His six days' work, making it
therefore _essentially the last day_ of the week--might be conferred on
the Christian Sunday, the _dies solis_, the first day of the week which
the sun opens in glory, the day of devotion and joy. The result of this
fraud is that in England "Sabbath breaking," or the "desecration of the
Sabbath," that is, the slightest occupation, whether it be of a useful
or pleasurable nature, and any kind of game, music, knitting, or worldly
book, are on Sundays regarded as great sins. Must not the ordinary man
believe that if, as his spiritual guides impress upon him, he never
fails in a "strict observance of the holy Sabbath and a regular
attendance on Divine Service,"--in other words, if he invariably whiles
away his time on a Sunday, and never fails to sit two hours in church to
listen to the same Litany for the thousandth time, and to babble it with
the rest _a tempo_, he may reckon on indulgence in here and there little
sins which he at times allows himself? Those devils in human form, the
slave-owners and slave-traders in the Free States of North America (they
should be called the Slave States), are, in general, orthodox, pious
Anglicans, who look upon it as a great sin to work on Sundays; and
confident in this, and their regular attendance at church, they expect
to gain eternal happiness. The demoralising influence of religion is
less problematical than its moral influence. On the other hand, how
great and how certain that moral influence must be to make amends for
the horrors and misery which religions, especially the Christian and
Mohammedan religions, have occasioned and spread over the earth! Think
of the fanaticism, of the endless persecutions, the religious wars, that
sanguinary frenzy of which the ancients had no idea; then, think of the
Crusades, a massacre lasting two hundred years, and perfectly
unwarrantable, with its war-cry, _It is God's will_, so that it might
get into its possession the grave of one who had preached love and
endurance; think of the cruel expulsion and extermination of the Moors
and Jews from Spain; think of the massacres, of the inquisitions and
other heretical tribunals, the bloody and terrible conquests of the
Mohammedans in three different parts of the world, and the conquest of
the Christians in America, whose inhabitants were for the most part, and
in Cuba entirely, exterminated; according to Las Casas, within forty
years twelve million persons were murdered--of course, all _in majorem
Dei gloriam_, and for the spreading of the Gospel, and because,
moreover, what was not Christian was not looked upon as human. It is
true I have already touched upon these matters; but when in our day "the
Latest News from the Kingdom of God" is printed, we shall not be tired
of bringing older news to mind. And in particular, let us not forget
India, that sacred soil, that cradle of the human race, at any rate of
the race to which we belong, where first Mohammedans, and later
Christians, were most cruelly infuriated against the followers of the
original belief of mankind; and the eternally lamentable, wanton, and
cruel destruction and disfigurement of the most ancient temples and
images, still show traces of the monotheistic rage of the Mohammedans,
as it was carried on from Marmud the Ghaznevid of accursed memory, down
to Aureng Zeb, the fratricide, whom later the Portuguese Christians
faithfully tried to imitate by destroying the temples and the _auto da
fé_ of the inquisition at Goa. Let us also not forget the chosen people
of God, who, after they had, by Jehovah's express and special command,
stolen from their old and faithful friends in Egypt the gold and silver
vessels which had been lent to them, made a murderous and predatory
excursion into the Promised Land, with Moses at their head, in order to
tear it from the rightful owners, also at Jehovah's express and repeated
commands, knowing no compassion, and relentlessly murdering and
exterminating all the inhabitants, even the women and children (Joshua
x., xi.); just because they were not circumcised and did not know
Jehovah, which was sufficient reason to justify every act of cruelty
against them. For the same reason, in former times the infamous roguery
of the patriarch Jacob and his chosen people against Hamor, King of
Shalem, and his people is recounted to us with glory, precisely because
the people were unbelievers. Truly, it is the worst side of religions
that the believers of one religion consider themselves allowed
everything against the sins of every other, and consequently treat them
with the utmost viciousness and cruelty; the Mohammedans against the
Christians and Hindoos; the Christians against the Hindoos, Mohammedans,
Americans, Negroes, Jews, heretics, and the like. Perhaps I go too far
when I say _all_ religions; for in compliance with truth, I must add
that the fanatical horrors, arising from religion, are only perpetrated
by the followers of the monotheistic religions, that is, of Judaism and
its two branches, Christianity and Islamism. The same is not reported of
the Hindoos and Buddhists, although we know, for instance, that Buddhism
was driven out about the fifth century of our era by the Brahmans from
its original home in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and
afterwards spread over the whole of Asia; yet we have, so far as I know,
no definite information of any deeds of violence, of wars and cruelties
by which this was brought about. This may, most certainly, be ascribed
to the obscurity in which the history of those countries is veiled; but
the extremely mild character of their religion, which continually
impresses upon us to be forbearing towards _every living thing_, as well
as the circumstance that Brahmanism properly admits no proselytes by
reason of its caste system, leads us to hope that its followers may
consider themselves exempt from shedding blood to any great extent, and
from cruelty in any form. Spence Hardy, in his excellent book on
_Eastern Monachism_, p. 412, extols the extraordinary tolerance of the
Buddhists, and adds his assurance that the annals of Buddhism furnish
fewer examples of religious persecution than those of any other
religion. As a matter of fact, intolerance is only essential to
monotheism: an only god is by his nature a jealous god, who cannot
permit any other god to exist. On the other hand, polytheistic gods are
by their nature tolerant: they live and let live; they willingly
tolerate their colleagues as being gods of the same religion, and this
tolerance is afterwards extended to alien gods, who are, accordingly,
hospitably received, and later on sometimes attain even the same rights
and privileges; as in the case of the Romans, who willingly accepted and
venerated Phrygian, Egyptian, and other foreign gods. Hence it is the
monotheistic religions alone that furnish us with religious wars,
persecutions, and heretical tribunals, and also with the breaking of
images, the destruction of idols of the gods; the overthrowing of Indian
temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun three thousand
years; and all this because a jealous God had said: "_Thou shalt make no
graven image_," etc. To return to the principal part of the matter: you
are certainly right in advocating the strong metaphysical needs of
mankind; but religions appear to me to be not so much a satisfaction as
an abuse of those needs. At any rate we have seen that, in view of the
progress of morality, its advantages are for the most part
problematical, while its disadvantages, and especially the enormities
which have appeared in its train, are obvious. Of course the matter
becomes quite different if we consider the utility of religion as a
mainstay of thrones; for in so far as these are bestowed "by the grace
of God," altar and throne are closely related. Accordingly, every wise
prince who loves his throne and his family will walk before his people
as a type of true religion; just as even Machiavelli, in the eighteenth
chapter of his book, urgently recommended religion to princes. Moreover,
it may be added that revealed religions are related to philosophy,
exactly as the sovereigns by the grace of God are to the sovereignty of
the people; and hence the two former terms of the parallel are in
natural alliance.
_Demop_. Oh, don't adopt that tone! But consider that in doing so you
are blowing the trumpet of ochlocracy and anarchy, the arch-enemy of all
legislative order, all civilisation, and all humanity.
_Phil_. You are right. It was only a sophism, or what the fencing-master
calls a feint. I withdraw it therefore. But see how disputing can make
even honest men unjust and malicious. So let us cease.
_Demop_. It is true I regret, after all the trouble I have taken, that I
have not altered your opinion in regard to religion; on the other hand,
I can assure you that everything you have brought forward has not shaken
my conviction of its high value and necessity.
_Phil_. I believe you; for as it is put in Hudibras:
"He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still."
I find consolation, however, in the fact that in controversies and in
taking mineral waters, it is the after-effects that are the true ones.
_Demop_. I hope the after-effect may prove to be beneficial in your
case.