niverse.[36] Those who do not hold to such doctrines are not put to death.[37] But they are not "allowed to receive any public honour, hold any public appointment, or work in any public service. In fact such people are generally regarded as utterly contemptible."[38]Utopian religion is useful to the commonwealth. No one is to be trusted who believes that the soul lives on after the body dies.Anyone who thinks differently has, in their view, forfeited his right to be classed as a human being, by degrading his immortal soul to the level of an animal's body. Still less do they regard him as a Utopian citizen. They say a person like that really doesn't care a damn for the Utopian way of life--only he's too frightened to say so. For it stands to reason, if you're not afraid of anything but prosecution, and have no hopes of anything after you're dead, you'll always be trying to evade or break the laws of your country, in order to gain your own private ends.[39]There is a lot here to ponder, and I see some internal contradictions in these texts from Utopia. On the one hand, Raphael the narrator does not establish any reasoned arguments for believing in the religious views he gives to the Utopian. Somewhat like Aristotle and Aquinas, they believe that the order of the universe supposes a creator.[40] But beyond that inference, they do not go through elaborate logical proofs to establish their system of ethics and religion.They assume that their religion is most fitting to the dignity of human kind. They also believe that religion is best for the state because otherwise they cannot imagine good citizenship without faith in God and a belief in rewards and punishments after death.Yet More knew that Lucian, whose epigrams he and Erasmus had translated, did not believe in the immortality of the soul. He knew also that "Democritus, Lucretius, Pliny and many others" shared this disbelief. The "many others" would have included Cicero, Seneca the Younge...
