Religion and History

The Lessons of History, Chapter VII

By:  Will & Ariel Durant

Overview

Religion has been a key element in maintaining the moral character of civilization.  Without it, no society has maintained its moral character.

Highlights

Contrasting faith in a religious heaven with the earthly utopia of socialist idealism, history shows that “Heaven and utopia are buckets in a well:  when one goes down the other goes up; when religion declines Communism grows.”

Although it may have been “fear that first made the gods” (Lucretius), the gods also encouraged morals, particularly in the Christian era, and had a mitigating influence on the State.  Some doubt that religion promoted morals because of religious hypocrisy, but “… the moral disorder born of half a millennium of barbarian invasion, war, economic devastation, and political disorganization would have been much worse without the moderating effect of the Christian ethic, …”

“The majestic dream (of a moral world) broke under the attacks of nationalism, skepticism, and human frailty.”  The Church was run by men who suffered from the same frailties as political rulers and tyrants.  Nevertheless, “There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”

Lesson

The paternalistic political class that wants to take care of everyone has decided that religion is at best irrelevant, at worst an obstruction to their plans and an impediment to their power.  As a result, it is and will be under constant government attack.  And they are right.  Religion is one of the pillars of  (individual-empowering) Civil Society that stands in the way of their plans for centralized power.