"Is this possible?" Not only possible, do I answer, but it is impossible
that this should not take place. It is impossible for men not to bethink
themselves--_i.e._ impossible that each man should not put to himself the
question as to who he is and wherefore he lives; for man, as a rational
being, cannot live without seeking to know why he lives, and he has
always put to himself this question, and always, according to the degree
of his development, has answered it in his religious teaching. In our
time, the inner contradiction in which men feel themselves elicits this
question with special insistence, and demands an answer. It is impossible
for men of our time to answer this question otherwise than by recognizing
the law of life in love to men and in the service of them, this being for
our time the only rational answer as to the meaning of human life; and
this answer nineteen hundred years ago has been expressed in the
Christian religion and is likewise known to the vast majority of all
mankind.
This answer in a latent state lives in the consciousness of all men of
the Christian world of our time; but it does not openly express itself
and serve as guidance for our life, only because, on the one hand, those
who enjoy the greatest authority, so-called scientists, being under the
coarse error that religion is a temporary and outgrown step in the
development of mankind and that men can live without religion, inculcate
this error to those of the masses who are beginning to be educated; and,
on the other hand, because those in power, sometimes consciously, but
often unconsciously (being under the error that the Church faith is
Christian religion), endeavor to support and excite in the people crude
superstitions given out as the Christian religion. If only these two
deceptions were to be destroyed, then true religion, already latent in
men of our time, would become evident and obligatory.
To bring this about it is necessary that, on the one hand, men of science
should understand that the principle of the brotherhood of all men and
the rule of not doing unto others what one does not wish for oneself is
not one casual idea out of a multitude of human theories which can be
subordinated to any other considerations, but is an incontestable
principle, standing higher than the rest, and flowing from the changeless
relation of man to that which is eternal, to God, and is religion, all
religion, and, therefore, always obligatory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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