Prayer - Mahatma Gandhi

Prayer
solaced. I shall dispose of the second argument first. Here, it is recommended
as a sort of staff to the weak. Such are the trials of life, and such is their
power to shatter reason of men that great many people may need prayer and
faith some time. They have a right to it and they are welcome to it. But there
have been, and there are always, some true rationalists — few, no doubt — who
have never felt the necessity of either. There is also the class of people who,
while they are not aggressive doubters, are indifferent to religion.
"As all people do not ultimately require the help of prayer, and as those who
feel its necessity- are free to take to it, and do take to it when required,
compulsion in prayer, from the point of utility cannot be upheld. Compulsory
physical exercise and education may be necessary for physical and mental
development of a person, not so the belief in God and prayer for the moral
side. Some of the world's greatest agnositics have been the most moral men. To
these, I suppose, you would recommend prayer for its own sake, as an
expression of humility, in fact, your first argument. Too much has been made
of this humility. So vast is knowledge that even the greatest scientists have felt
humble sometimes, but their general trait has been that of masterful enquiry,
their faith in their own powers has been as great as their conquest of nature.
Had it not been so, we shall still be scratching earth with bare fingers for roots,
nay, we should have been wiped out of the surface of the earth.
"During the Ice Age, when human beings were dying of cold and fire was first
discovered, your prototype in that age must have taunted the discoverer with :
"What is the use of your schemes, of what avail are they against the power and
wrath of God* The humble have been promised the Kingdom of God hereafter.
We do not know whether they will get it, but here on this earth their portion is
serfdom. To revert to the main point, your assertion about 'accept the belief
and the faith shall come' is too true, terribly true. Much of religious fanaticism
of this world can be traced directly to this kind of teaching. Provided you catch
them young enough, you can make a good majority of human beings believe in
anything. That is how your orthodox Hindu, or fanatical Mahomedan, is
manufactured. There are, of course, always a small few in either community
who will outgrow these beliefs that have been forced upon them Do you know
that if the Hindus and the Mahomedans stopped studying their scriptures, until
they reached maturity, they would not be such fanatical believers in their
dogmas, and would cease to quarrel for their sake Secular education is the
remedy for Hindu-Muslim riots, but you are not made that way.
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