Hitler's Table Talk

A SCHOOL OF PESSIMISM 419
the Catholic Church, is that it is a school of pessimism rather
than of optimism. The Japanese religion, on the contrary,
rouses men to enthusiasm by the promise it holds of the rewards
in the Hereafter, while the unfortunate Christian has no prospect
before him but the torments of Hell.
Such pessimism has a marked effect. Even a child of three
can be made to acquire a terror of mind which will remain with
him for the whole of his life. We all know many grown-up
people who are nervous in the dark, simply because they had
been told in their childhood that a bogey-man, a robber or the
like lurked in the shadows.
It is no less difficult to eradicate these childish inhibitions
than it is to free the human soul of that haunting terror of Hell
which the Catholic Church impresses on it with such vigour
during its most tender years. A man possessed of a minimum
of intelligence who takes the trouble to ponder over these
questions has no difficulty in realising how nonsensical these
doctrines of the Church are. For how, he must ask himself, can
a man possibly be put on a spit, be roasted and tortured in a
hundred other ways when, in the nature of things, his body has
no part in the resurrection? And what nonsense it is to aspire
to a Heaven to which, according to the Church's own teaching,
only those have entry who have made a complete failure of life
on earth ! It won't be much fun, surely, to have to meet again
there all those whose stupidity, in spite of the biblical tag
"blessed are the humble of heart", has already infuriated one
beyond endurance on this earth ! Imagine, too, how tremendously
attractive a Heaven will be to a man, which contains only
women of indifferent appearance and faded intellect! Only
those, we are told, with the minimum of sin shall enter through
the gates of Heaven; now, in spite of the fact that the burden
of sin must inevitably grow heavier with each successive year,
I have yet to meet a priest anxious to leave this life as quickly,
and therefore with as light a burden, as possible! But I could
name many a Cardinal of sixty and over who clings most
tenaciously to life on this sinful earth. When one examines
the Catholic religion closely, one cannot fail to realise that it is
an almost incredibly cunning mixture of hypocrisy and business
acumen, which trades with consummate skill on the deeply