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acceptance and retirement, when man was helpless before catastro–
phes; they also taught men to husband their spiritual resources and
to remember their ideals. All this creates a bond between our culture
and the religions of the past.
There is finally in the supernaturalism and subjectivity of religion
a powerful stimulus to the imagination which must appeal to those
modern artists for whom the interior world is the great source of
themes and devices, and art itself a symbolic process of constructive
self-revelation.
Still, none of this proves the claims that the religions today
make in politics, morals, philosophy, and culture. They cannot ac–
complish what they pretend and indeed they make this accomplish–
ment more difficult for others.
Those who are convinced that religion is necessary in order to
restore morality assume that the religious are more moral than
unbelievers; they assume also that religion alone can give morality
a secure basis.
If
by religion we mean belief in a supernatural being
as the source of moral law as well as of cosmic order, and the
practice of traditional rites, observances and prayers addressed to
that being, it is perfectly evident that many people who are not at
all religious are moral, and that the religious are on the whole not
more moral than the unreligious. How many acts and attitudes have
the religions in the past condoned and even proposed which religious
people today consider immoral! And in so far as the particular im–
moralities that arouse most concern are those connected with war
and the totalitarian state, it is clear that religious belief is no great
deterrent.
If
Stalin is an atheist, Franco is a believer, and the
Catholic church supported Mussolini and Franco, and urged German
Catholic soldiers to die for Hitler, another believer. In Russia the
churches pray for Stalin as they did for the Czars. In the short period
of the existence of the state of Israel, the orthodox synagogue has
placed obstacles in the way of science and personal freedom in
the name of Biblical revelation. Clearly, religion as we have known
it
and as it exists today has not provided an adequate basis for
morality and has even contributed to the present crisis. Where the
churches have condemned fascist terror and indignities, they have
not preceded secular groups in this condemnation. Indeed, an evolv–
ing secular morality has helped to purge religion of the barbarities
