“Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.”

— Miguel de Unamuno

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem

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Miguel de Unamuno 199

19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher 1864–1936

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Context: Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics. A great many young people lose faith in these dogmas at an age at which despair is easy, and thus have to face a much more intense unhappiness than that which falls to the lot of those who have never had a religious upbringing. Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage. The craving for religious faith being largely an outcome of fear, the advocates of faith tend to think that certain kinds of fear are not to be deprecated. In this, to my mind, they are gravely mistaken. To allow oneself to entertain pleasant beliefs as a means of avoiding fear is not to live in the best way. In so far as religion makes its appeal to fear, it is lowering to human dignity.

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“Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.”

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Miguel de Unamuno 199

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