...the universal and everlasting craving of
humanity -- to find someone to worship. So long as man remains free he strives
for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship. But
man seeks to worship what is established beyond dispute, so that all men would
agree at once to worship it. For these pitiful creatures are concerned not only
to find what one or the other can worship, but to find community of worship is
the chief misery of every man individually and of all humanity from the
beginning of time. For the sake of common worship they've slain each other with
the sword. They have set up gods and challenged one another, "Put away
your gods and come and worship ours, or we will kill you and your gods!"
And so it will be to the end of the world, even when gods disappear from the
earth; they will fall down before idols just the same.
