FALSE RELIGION

Spinoza's onslaught on final causes contained an emphatically negative diagnosis for the causes of false religion. Ignorance about real causes in nature fed fear about the unknown future. Superstitious delusions were the result. That diagnosis, and the distinction upon which it was based, was surely commonplace: ‘the chief distinction I make between religion and superstition is that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on wisdom’, though Spinoza could add an unexpected twist to suit himself:

There is no point in lingering over this negative diagnosis. Even as a piece of prejudiced, a priori anthropology, it contained some truth: we can hardly argue with the fact that indisputable superstition is more prevalent among the indisputably ignorant. But that does not support a conclusion that less overt superstitions might be less prevalent among the less ignorant. Superstition may be a more valuable term for polemical abuse than for fine analysis, and that may be the best way to see it in Spinoza.

The question why people make mistakes in any field may not be amenable to general treatment. Far more interesting than an aetiology of mistaken religion must be any account of the causes of true or valid religion.