 Hume frequently draws attention to the moral and political costs of religion. He never argues that religion is inherently destructive, but he consistently claims that it tends to distort and corrupt morality. Were it not for religion’s influence, Hume claims, we would never approve of qualities such as “celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues” (EPM 9.1.3). The “delusive glosses of superstition and false religion” can cause us to approve of such qualities despite the fact that they are neither useful nor agreeable (EPM 9.1.3). Similarly, Hume emphasizes the difference between moral and religious sources of motivation. When a person pays a debt or restores a loan, for example, “his divinity is nowise beholden to him; because these acts of justice are what he was bound to perform, and what many would have performed, were there no god in the universe. But if he fast a day, or give himself a sound whipping; this has a direct reference, in his opinion, to the service of God. No other motive could engage him to such austerities” (NHR 14.6). Hume often blames these distortions of morality on particular forms of Christianity, such as Catholicism and sectarian offshoots of Calvinism and Lutheranism. But in some places Hume comes close to faulting any religion that represents God as “infinitely superior to mankind” (NHR 10.2), arguing that, “[t]he more tremendous the divinity is represented, the more tame and submissive do men become to his ministers” (NHR 14.8). He clearly believes that monotheistic religions tend to focus human attention on the one God rather than on the enjoyment of life on earth. Monotheism also tends to promote intolerance, factionalism, and even violence.