THE PERSISTENCE OF RELIGION
_We believe what we believe, not because we have been convinced by
such and such arguments, but because we are of such and such a
disposition._
C. E. M. JOAD.
_The mind of the ordinary man is in so imperfect a condition that it
requires a creed; that is to say, a theory concerning the unknown
and the unknowable in which it may place its deluded faith and be at
rest._
WINWOOD READE.
_Generations followed and what had been offered as hypothetical
theological suppositions were through custom and tradition taken for
granted as unquestioned truth._
LLEWELYN POWYS.
The Martian has had his attention drawn to the statement that religion
in some form or other has existed from most primitive times down to the
present day. The theologians point to this as a proof of the existence
of a supreme being. An investigation of this assertion leads the Martian
to the conclusion that religions have continued to exist mainly because
of the power which inherited superstitions wield over mankind. Men are
born with a marked tendency towards superstitions.
Certain isolated families of men are born with an inherited tendency
towards tuberculosis. Most of these are born, not with an active
tuberculosis, but some as yet imperfectly understood tendency, a defect
in their protoplasmic make-up that renders them an easy prey to the
tubercle bacillus if they are exposed to it. Similarly, generations of
men have been born with a weakened mental vitality towards superstition;
a weakened mental capacity that renders their minds an easy prey to that
fear which manifests itself in superstition, creed, religion--the
God-idea. It was Karl Marx who remarked that, "The tradition of all the
generations of the past weighs down like an Alp upon the brain of the
living."
Since the days of our racial childhood, our beliefs have been handed
down from generation to generation, and they have persisted since in all
ages it was forbidden to question their existence. Man has persuaded
himself that it is so just because he has said it for so long and so
often. The force of repetition is great; it is, in fact, taken by a vast
majority of men as the equivalent of proof.
Most men have to accept their religions ready made. Their daily tasks
leave them no time or opportunity for a personal search. The toil for
bread is incessant, there is not sufficient leisure to verify the
sources of their religious beliefs. Moreover, the ecclesiastic's answers
to the riddles of life are easier, by far, to grasp than the answers of
science. These two factors, of innate mental inertia and force of
repetition, are well manifested by the present tactics of advertising.
The manufacturer of any product well knows that constant repetition and
the dangling of his product before the eyes of the public will lead to a
widespread acceptance of the advertising slogans propounded for his
article.
The force of so-called authority has aggravated this mental inertia. It
takes a tremendous amount of will power and mental courage for any
individual to assert an opinion that runs counter to the accepted mode
of thinking. It is much easier and much more pleasant to give oneself
passively to that delusion of grandeur, that delusion that pleasantly
drugs the mind with the assumption that there is a supreme being who is
personally interested in our well-being; a providence who, like a school
master, at his pleasure dispenses rewards and punishments; as
immortality, Heaven and Hell. So firmly has this become entrenched in
the minds of men that the irrationalities which manifest themselves
against such a conception make no impression. Schopenhauer well states,
"Nothing is more provoking, when we are arguing against a man with
reasons and explanations, and taking all pains to convince him, than to
discover at last that he _will_ not understand, that we have to do with
his _will_."
The Martian, knowing the widespread extent of religious beliefs and
their supposed influence in our daily lives, is prepared to find in our
annals a vast literature that would attest to the overwhelming benefits
that mankind had derived from his religious beliefs.
He is amazed to find that the little good which religion had
accomplished, had occurred at the time when our race was in its infancy.
Just as fear is instilled into the mind of the child to protect it from
the dangers of its environment before the child has reached the age when
it can use its reason for protection, just so had religion, by its
implantation of fear, served its purpose in the days of our racial
childhood. The child, however, as soon as it learns to reason, replaces
those fears by a logical comprehension of the laws governing his
environment. But in religious matters this fear has clung to man
tenaciously; and while at first serving a protective function, at the
present stage of civilization constitutes an embryonic impediment. The
assertion of ecclesiastics that without the aid of religious learning
and influence our civilization would have been retarded is a statement
that a study of the development of man shows to be directly opposed to
the facts; that religion has been the greatest impediment in the road to
progress. This will be shown in the subsequent chapters. The
oft-repeated assertion that, during the Middle Ages, ecclesiastic
influence was the saving grace is well refuted by Dr. William J.
Robinson:
"We are told by the Church apologists that during the Middle Ages the
priests and monks kept up the torch of learning, that, being the only
literate people, they brought back the study of the classics.
Historically speaking, this is about the most impudent statement that
one could imagine. It was the Church that retarded human progress at
least one thousand years, it is the Church that put a thick,
impenetrable pall over the sun of learning and science, so that humanity
was enveloped in utter darkness, and if the priests and monks later
learned to read and write (from the Arabs, Jews, and Greeks exiled from
Constantinople after 1453), it is because they wanted to keep the power
in their hands; the people they did not permit to learn either to read
or write. _Even the reading of the Bible, bear in mind, was considered a
crime._ We are told that the priests and monks built hospitals and gave
alms to the poor. Having gotten enormous tracts of the best land into
their hands, so that the people were starving, they were willing to
throw a bone occasionally to the latter. It cost them nothing and it
gave them a reputation for charity. They built enormous monasteries with
well filled cellars, and lived on the fat of the land, while the people
lived in wretched hovels, working their lives away for a crust of bread.
The beasts, the domestic animals lived a more comfortable life than did
the men, women, and children of the people. And the Church never, never
raised a finger to ameliorate their condition. It kept them in
superstitious darkness and helped the temporal lords--for a long period
the spiritual were also the temporal lords--to keep them in fear,
subjection and slavery."
The Martian being an impartial observer examined what had been done by
Christianity for the intellectual and material advancement of humanity
during her long reign, and what had been done by science and purely
secular knowledge in its brief period of activity, the period when
science and secular knowledge had partially liberated themselves from
ecclesiastical domination. He came to the conclusion that in instituting
a comparison he had established a contrast.