History's Verdict On Religion
by Will Durant
Will Durant (1885-1982), one of the leading historians of the twentieth century, had some surprising and important things to say about religion.

He achieved world-wide recognition for his many prize-winning books including The Story of Philosophy and the monumental eleven volume classic of world history, The Story of Civilization, the last five volumes of which were co-authored by his wife, Ariel Durant.

After completing their life's work they looked back and asked what history had to say about the big issues in life. The result was a little book published in 1968 entitled The Lessons of History. In it they distilled the accumulated store of knowledge from their forty years of historical research. This leaflet contains some of their valuable insights from the chapter entitled Religion and History.

God In History
"Religion does not seem at first to have any connection with morals. Apparently (for we are merely guessing, or echoing Petronius, who echoed Lucretius) it was fear that first made the gods" (pg. 43).

"Does history support a belief in God? If by God we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative. Like other departments of biology, history remains at bottom a natural selection of the fittest individuals and groups in a struggle wherein goodness receives no favors, misfortunes abound, and the final test is the ability to survive. Add to the crimes, wars, and cruelties of man the earthquakes, storms, tornadoes, pestilences, tidal waves, and other 'acts of God' that periodically desolate human and animal life, and the total evidence suggests either a blind or impartial fatality to which we subjectively ascribe order, splendor, beauty, or sublimity... Nature and history do not agree with our conceptions of good and bad; they define good as that which survives, and bad as that which goes under; and the universe has no prejudice in favor of Christ as against Genghis Khan" (pg. 46).

Religion's Survival
"One lesson of history is that religion has many lives, and has a habit of resurrection. How often in the past have God and religion been reborn! Ikhnaton used all the powers of a pharoah to destroy the religion of Amon; within a year of Ikhnaton's death the religion of Amon was restored. Atheism ran wild in the India of Buddha's youth, and Buddha himself founded a religion without a god; after his death Buddhism developed a complex theology including gods, saints, and hell... In America the rationalism of the Founding Fathers gave place to a religious revival in the 19th century" (pg. 49-50).

"Catholicism survives because it appeals to the imagination, hope, and the senses; because its mythology consoles and brightens the lives of the poor; and because the commanded fertility of the faithful slowly regains lands lost to the Reformation. Catholicism has sacrificed the adherence of the intellectual community, and suffers increasing defections through contact with secular education and literature; but it wins converts from souls wearied with the uncertainty of reason, and from others hopeful that the Church will stem internal disorder and the Communist wave" (pg. 49).

"As long as there is poverty there will be gods" (pg. 51)

The Causes of Religion's Decline
"First the Protestant Reformation, which originally defended private judgement. Then the multitude of Protestant sects and conflicting theologies, each appealing to both Scriptures and reason. Then the higher criticism of the Bible, displaying the marvelous library as the imperfect work of fallible men. Then the deistic movement in England, reducing religion to t vague belief in a God hardly distinguishable from nature. Then the growing acquaintance with other religions, whose myths, many of them pre-Christian, were distressingly similar to the supposedly factual bases of one's inherited creed. Then the Protestant exposure of Catholic miracles, the deistic exposure of Biblical miracles, the general exposure of frauds, inquisitions, and massacres in the history of religion... the massive attack of the French Enlightenment upon Christianity... Finally, the awesome triumphs of scientific technology, promising man omnipotence and destruction, and challenging the divine command of the skies" (pg. 47).

"In one way Christianity lent a hand against itself by developing in may Christians a moral sense that could no longer stomach the vengeful God of traditional theology. The idea of hell disappeared from educated thought, even from pulpit homilies. Presbyterians became ashamed of the Westminster Confession, which had pledged them to a belief in a God who had created billions of men and women despite his foreknowledge that, regardless of their virtues and crimes, they were predestined to everlasting hell. Educated Christians visiting the Sistine Chapel were shocked by Michelangelo's picture of Christ hurling offenders pell-mell into an inferno whose fires were never to be extinguished; was this the 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild' who had inspired our youth? Just as the moral development of the Hellenes had weakened their belief in the quarrelsome and adulterous deities of Olympus ('A certain proportion of mankind,' wrote Plato, 'do not believe at all in the existence of the gods.'), so the development of the Christian ethic slowly eroded Christian theology. Christ destroyed Jehovah" (pg. 47-48).

"A thousand signs proclaim that Christianity is undergoing the same decline that fell on the old Greek religion after the coming of the Sophists and the Greek Enlightenment" (pg. 49)

"The Church was manned with men who often proved biased, venial, or extortionate... The Church stooped to fraud, as with pious legends, bogus relics, and dubious miracles; for centuries it profited from a mythical 'Donation of Constantine' that had allegedly bequeathed Western Europe to Pope Sylvester I and from 'False Decretals' (c. 842) that forged a series of documents to give sacred antiquity to papal omnipotence. More and more the hierarchy spent its energies in promoting orthodoxy rather than morality, and the Inquisition almost fatally disgraced the Church. Even while preaching peace the Church fomented religious wars in sixteenth century France and the Thirty Years' War in Germany. It played only a modest part in the outstanding advance of modern morality--the abolition of slavery. It allowed the philosophers to take the lead in the humanitarian movements that have alleviated the evils of our time" (pg. 45).

Moral Freedom
"Meanwhile much of our moral freedom is good, it is pleasant to be relieved of theological terrors, to enjoy without qualm the pleasures that harm neither others or ourselves" (pg. 42)

The Verdict
"Historical evidence does not support the existence of a god; it indicates that religion, born in fear, breeds among the poor, but is now declining with advancing knowledge, morality, and standards of living. Christianity promoted persecutions and war, but morality was advanced by others. Life improves without religion."


REFERENCES:
1) Durant, Will and Ariel: The Lessons of History, New York, 1968. 2) Durant, Will and Ariel: A Dual Autobiography. Simon and Schuster, New York, 1977.