Notwithstanding the bloody tragedies which religion has so often caused
in this world, we are constantly told that there can be no morality
without religion. If we judge theological opinions by their effects, we
would be right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible
with the religious opinions of men. "Imitate God," is constantly
repeated to us. Ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this
God! Which God should we imitate? Is it the deist's God? But even this
God can not be a model of goodness for us. If He is the author of all,
He is equally the author of the good and of the bad we see in this
world; if He is the author of order, He is also the author of disorder,
which would not exist without His permission; if He produces, He
destroys; if He gives life, He also causes death; if He grants
abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace, He permits or sends famines,
poverty, calamities, and wars. How can you accept as a model of
permanent beneficence the God of theism or of natural religion, whose
favorable intentions are at every moment contradicted by everything that
transpires in the world? Morality needs a firmer basis than the example
of a God whose conduct varies, and whom we can not call good but by
obstinately closing the eyes to the evil which He causes, or permits to
be done in this world.
Shall we imitate the good and great Jupiter of ancient Paganism? To
imitate such a God would be to take as a model a rebellious son, who
wrests his father's throne from him and then mutilates his body; it is
imitating a debauchee and adulterer, an incestuous, intemperate man,
whose conduct would cause any reasonable mortal to blush. What would
have become of men under the control of Paganism if they had imagined,
according to Plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods?
Must we imitate the God of the Jews? Will we find a model for our
conduct in Jehovah? He is truly a savage God, really created for an
ignorant, cruel, and immoral people; He is a God who is constantly
enraged, breathing only vengeance; who is without pity, who commands
carnage and robbery; in a word, He is a God whose conduct can not serve
as a model to an honest man, and who can be imitated but by a chief of
brigands.
Shall we imitate, then, the Jesus of the Christians? Can this God, who
died to appease the implacable fury of His Father, serve as an example
which men ought to follow? Alas! we will see in Him but a God, or rather
a fanatic, a misanthrope, who being plunged Himself into misery, and
preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and
extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise
themselves; He tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life,
in order to follow Him. What beautiful morality! you will say. It is
admirable, no doubt; it must be Divine, because it is impracticable for
men. But does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue
despicable? According to this boasted morality of the man-God of the
Christians, His disciples in this lower world are, like Tantalus,
tormented with burning thirst, which they are not permitted to quench.
Do not such morals give us a wonderful idea of nature's Author? If He
has, as we are assured, created everything for the use of His creatures,
by what strange caprice does He forbid the use of the good things which
He has created for them? Is the pleasure which man constantly desires
but a snare that God has maliciously laid in his path to entrap him?