Søren Kierkegaard

“ And the same is true when, by fear of eternal punishment (terrible threat!) , and by hope of eternal salvation, He wishes to bring about—well, to make us what we are (for what we call Christian is, as we have seen, really being Christian) , to make us—well, to make us what we are; that is, make men live as they please; for to abstain from committing crimes is nothing but common prudence!
The most terrible blasphemy is the one of which "Christianity" is guilty, which is, to transform the God of the Spirit into—a ridiculous piece of nonsense. ”

“ What depth of nonsense and abomination! If something is not pleasing to God, does it perhaps become pleasing to Him by having—why, that is aggravating the mischief!— by having a clergyman along who—why, that is aggravating the mischief still more!—who gets ten dollars for declaring it pleasant to God? ”

“ What Christianity needs is not the stifling protection of the state—ah no, it needs fresh air, it needs persecution and—the protection of God. The state does only mischief in averting persecution and surely is not the medium through which God's protection can be conducted. Whatever you do, save Christianity from the state, for with its protection it overlies Christianity like a fat woman overlying her child with her carcass, beside teaching Christianity the most abominable bad habits—as, e.g., to use the police force and to call that Christianity. ”

“ But even if it were true, as is maintained so often, that it is men's wives who cause them to lose sight of eternal values: even if all men remained unmarried, there would still be in every one of us an impulse, more ingenious and more pressing and more unremitting than a woman, which will cause him to use a wrong measure and to think a couple of years, or ten years, or forty years, so enormous a length of time that even eternity were quite brief in comparison; instead of these years being as nothing when compared with the infinite duration of eternity. ”

“ No indeed, first get yourself some fat living, and when you have had it so long that your promotion to one still fatter is to be expected: then is your time come to stand before your congregation and to preach and "bear witness"—and you will satisfy them; for your life then furnishes the guarantee that it is just a joke, such as serious men like to indulge in, now and then, in theatre or in church, as a sort of recreation to gather new strength— for making money. ”

“ Because I should forever repent of not having done so, and forever repent of having been discouraged by the consideration that the generation now living would find a representation of the essential truths of Christianity interesting and curious reading, at most; having accomplished which they will calmly remain where they are; that is, in the illusion that they are Christians and that the clergy's toying with Christianity really is Christianity. ”

“ If what Christianity demanded was chastity, then away with brothels! But the change is that the brothels have remained just as they did in Heathendom, and the proportion of prostitutes remained the same, too; to be sure, they became "Christian" brothels! A brothel-keeper is a "Christian" brothel-keeper, he is a Christian as well as we others. Exclude him from church membership? "Why, for goodness sake," the clergyman will say, "what would things come to if we excluded a single paying member?" ”

“ I am not now attacking the community—they are led astray; they cannot be blamed for liking this kind of divine worship, seeing that they are left to their own devices and deceived by their clergyman who has sworn an oath on the New Testament. But woe to these clergymen, woe to them, these sworn liars! I know there have been mockers at religion, and I know how much they would have given to be able to do what I do ”

“ Consider what it means to live in a Christian state, among a Christian people, where everything is Christian and everybody is a Christian and where one, turn where one may, sees nothing but Christians and Christianity, truth and martyrs for the truth—it is not at all unlikely that this exerts an influence on the nobler! ”

“ But in Christendom the propogation of the race has become the serious business of life and of Christianity; and the clergyman—that quintessence of nonsense done up in long clothes—the clergyman, the teacher of Christianity, of the Christianity of the New Testament, has his income adjusted to the fact that the human race is active in propagating the race, and gets a little something for each child!
As I said, look about you and you will find that everything is as I told you: the change from Heathendom consists in everything remaining unchanged but having assumed the predicate "Christian." ”

“ For a conflagration is a serious business; and wherever we have to deal with a serious business this well-intentioned kindness won't do at all. Indeed, any serious business enforces a very different mode of behavior which is: either—-or. Either you are able really to do something, and really have something to do here; or else, if that be not the case, then the serious business demands precisely that you take yourself away. And if you will not comprehend that, the fire-marshal proposes to have the police hammer it into your head ”

“ And now that I am to work in the present moment I find that there will be not a few persons whom I must oblige by paying my respects to all the insignificant things which mediocrity with great self-importance will lecture about; to all the nonsense which mediocre people, by interpreting into my words their own mediocrity, will find in all I shall write; and to all the lies and calumnies to which a man is exposed against whom those two great powers in society: envy and stupidity, must of necessity conspire. ”

“ And again, must one not loathe being human? For these millions who on their knees made pilgrimage to His grave, this throng of people which no power on earth was able to overcome: but one thing were necessary, Christ's return— and all these millions would quickly regain their feet to run their way, so that the whole throng were as if blown away ”

“ Just as man—as is natural—desires that which tends to nourish and revive his love of life, likewise he who wishes to live with eternity in mind needs a constant dose of disgust with life lest he become foolishly enamored of this world and, still more, in order that he may learn thoroughly to be disgusted and bored and sickened with the folly and lies of this wretched world. ”

“ And yet this is exactly what is being done in religion where people are in very truth fooled out of the real meaning of life and helped to waste their lives. That is in very truth, the effect of this whole machinery of a state church and a thousand royal officials who, under the pretense of being spiritual guides for the people, trick them out of the highest thing in life, which is, the solicitude about one's self, and the need which would surely of itself find a teacher or minister after its own mind ”

“ In vain; for the fault lies in the edifice. The whole ramshackle pile of a State Church which has not been aired, spiritually speaking, in times out of mind—the air in it has developed a taint. And therefore religious life has become diseased or has died out; alas, for precisely that which the worldly mind regards as health is, in a Christian sense, disease—just as, vice versa, that which is healthy in a Christian sense, is regarded as diseased from a worldly point of view. ”

“ He is the most ridiculous being that ever existed, His Word is the most ridiculous book which has ever appeared; for to move heaven and earth, as He does in his Word, and to threaten with hell and everlasting damnation—in order to obtain as His result what we understand by being Christians (and our assumption was that we are true Christians) —-well, now, has anything so ridiculous ever been seen before? Imagine that a fellow with a loaded pistol in his hand held up a person and said to him, "I shall shoot you" ”

“ In the New Testament the Savior of the World, our Lord Jesus Christ, represents the matter in this way: "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. ”

“ In His word God recommends the single state. Now suppose two young people want to be married. To be sure, they ought certainly to know, themselves, what Christianity is, seeing that they call themselves Christians; but never mind that now. The lovers then apply to—the clergyman; and the clergyman is, we remember, pledged by his oath on the New Testament (which nota bene recommends the single state) . ”

“ When finally the right man arrives, he who in the highest sense is called to the task—for all we know, chosen early and slowly educated for this business—which is, to throw light on the matter, to set fire to this jungle which is a refuge for all kinds of foolish talk and delusions and rascally tricks—when he comes he will always find a nice company of addle-pated fools and twaddlers who, surely enough, do think that, perhaps, things are wrong and that "something must be done about it" ”

“ What a bright future for these old people, and what gladness! But frugal and pious as they were they decided not to sell the jewel just yet, since they had enough wherewithal to live still one more day. ”

“ That is to say, in the case of a fire the whole way of looking at things is a very different one from that of quiet every-day life. The qualities which in quiet every-day life render one well-liked, viz., good-nature and kindly wellmeaning, all this is repaid, in the case of a fire, with abusive language and finally with a crack on the head. ”

“ But for a matter touching his eternal salvation where the point is to assume, with all the seriousness one's personality is capable of, and as a personality, responsibility for what certainly could not in any profounder sense be called serious—when a child is bound by a vow: for that the age of fifteen is excellently fitting. ”

“ And, since the point is to find out all which may be adduced to extol the human race, one ought—while having a care not to mention anything which is not true—one ought to watch that nothing, nothing escape one which in this connection may serve as a proof or even as a suggestion. ”

“ God Incarnate is betrayed, mocked, deserted by absolutely all men; not a single one, literally not a single one, remains faithful to him—and then, afterwards, afterwards, —oh yes, afterwards, there were millions of men who on their knees made pilgrimage to the places where many hundred years ago His feet, perhaps, trod the ground ”

“ That which occupies man's mind at all times, that which gives rise to science [10] and makes science spread into many, many sciences, and into interminable detail; that of which, and for which, thousands of clergymen and professors live, that which forms the contents of the history of Christendom, by the study of which the clergyman or the professor to be is trained—is to get a different kind of worship arranged, the main point of which would be: to do what one pleases, but in such fashion that the name of God and the invocation of God be brought into connection therewith ”

“ That which Christ and the Apostles and every martyr desires, and desires as the only thing: that we should follow in His footsteps, just that is the thing which mankind does not like or does not find pleasure in. ”

“ If he thinks they may help him, and that he will add to his strength by joining them, then he is eo ipso not the right man. The right man will understand at once, as did the fire-marshal, that the crowd must be got out of the way; in fact, that their presence and puttering around is the most dangerous ally the fire could have. Only, that in matters of the spirit it is not as in the case of the conflagration, where the fire-marshal needs but to say to the police: rid me of these people! ”

“ Every physician will admit that by the correct diagnosis of a malady more than half the fight against it is won; also, that if a correct diagnosis has not been made, all skill and all care and attention will be of little avail. ”

“ In another sense this nonsense is, to be sure, ingenious enough, as serving the self-interest of the clergy who understand full well that if the decision concerning a man's religion were reserved until he had reached maturity (which were the only Christian, as well as the only sensible, way) , many might possess character enough to refuse to become Christians by an act of hypocrisy. ”

“ As is easily perceived, then, the confirmation ceremony is still worse nonsense than the baptism of infants, just because confirmation pretends to supply what was lacking at the baptism, viz., a real personality capable of making a vow in a matter touching one's eternal salvation. ”

“ Now if he, the right man, is deceived but a single instant and thinks that it is this company who are to aid him, then it is clear he is not the right man. If he is deceived and has dealings with that company, then providence will at once take its hand off him, as not fit. ”

“ The same is true in religion. The worst of all is to satisfy a craving which has not as yet made its appearance, to anticipate it, or—worse still—by the help of stimulants to produce something which looks like a craving, which then is promptly satisfied. ”

“ For to obtain that effect it certainly is not necessary to threaten one with a loaded pistol and the most painful torture; in fact, it is possible that neither the loaded pistol nor the most painful torture would be able to deter him from making his life as comfortable as he can. ”

“ This observation applies also to other relations where much depends on taking things seriously: assuming there is ability in a man, it is best that he show reluctance to meddle with them. To be sure, as the proverb has it: "where there is a will there is a way"; but true seriousness appears only when a man fully equal to his task is forced, against his will, to undertake it—against his will, but fully equal to the task. ”

“ And this is the way, they claim, this is the way to continue the work which the Savior of Mankind did begin—stunting the human race as they do. And why is this so? Because there happen to be a thousand and one royal officials who have to support their families by furnishing what is called—spiritual guidance for men's souls! ”

“ Just because one lives in a delusion (not to speak even of being interested in keeping up the delusion) , one is bound to desire that which will feed the malady—a common enough observation this—the sick man desiring precisely those things which feed his malady. ”