RATIONALISM IN EUROPE.

CHAPTER IV.

(continued)

ON PERSECUTION.

PART II.

THE HISTORY OF PERSECUTION.

aThe arguments I have presented original: "adduced" in the first part of this chapter will be enough to show how harmful the effects of the doctrine of exclusive salvation The religious belief that only one specific church or belief system leads to eternal life, and all others lead to damnation. have been. However, we still have one consequence to examine, compared to which all others seem insignificant. I am referring, of course, to religious persecution. This—perhaps the most terrible of all the evils that humans have inflicted upon one another—is the direct practical result of the principles we have so far considered only in their theoretical original: "speculative" form. If people believe with a deep and vivid original: "realising" faith that their own view on a disputed question is true beyond any possibility of mistake, and if they further believe that those who adopt other views will be sentenced by the Almighty to an eternity of misery—even if those people have the same moral character but simply a different belief—