Even by the confession of the most ardent defenders of religion and of
its usefulness, nothing is more rare than sincere conversions; to which
we might add, nothing is more useless to society. Men do not become
disgusted with the world until the world is disgusted with them; a woman
gives herself to God only when the world no longer wants her. Her vanity
finds in religious devotion a role which occupies her and consoles her
for the ruin of her charms. She passes her time in the most trifling
practices, parties, intrigues, invectives, and slander; zeal furnishes
her the means of distinguishing herself and becoming an object of
consideration in the religious circle. If the bigots have the talent to
please God and His priests, they rarely possess that of pleasing society
or of rendering themselves useful to it. Religion for a devotee is a
veil which covers and justifies all his passions, his pride, his bad
humor, his anger, his vengeance, his impatience, his bitterness.
Religion arrogates to itself a tyrannical superiority which banishes
from commerce all gentleness, gaiety, and joy; it gives the right to
censure others; to capture and to exterminate the infidels for the glory
of God; it is very common to be religious and to have none of the
virtues or the qualities necessary to social life.
CLXXVII.--THE SUPPOSITION OF ANOTHER LIFE IS NEITHER CONSOLING TO MAN NOR
NECESSARY TO MORALITY.
We are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest
importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men
would have no motives for doing good. Why do we need terrors and fables
to teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth?
Does not each one of us see that he has the greatest interest in
deserving the approbation, esteem, and kindness of the beings which
surround him, and in avoiding all that can cause the censure, the
contempt, and the resentment of society? No matter how short the
duration of a festival, of a conversation, or of a visit may be, does
not each one of us wish to act a befitting part in it, agreeable to
himself and to others? If life is but a passage, let us try to make it
easy; it can not be so if we lack the regards of those who travel with
us.
Religion, which is so sadly occupied with its gloomy reveries,
represents man to us as but a pilgrim upon earth; it concludes that in
order to travel with more safety, he should travel alone; renounce the
pleasures which he meets and deprive himself of the amusements which
could console him for the fatigues and the weariness of the road. A
stoical and morose philosophy sometimes gives us counsels as senseless
as religion; but a more rational philosophy inspires us to strew flowers
on life's pathway; to dispel melancholy and panic terrors; to link our
interests with those of our traveling companions; to divert ourselves by
gaiety and honest pleasures from the pains and the crosses to which we
are so often exposed. We are made to feel, that in order to travel
pleasantly, we should abstain from that which could become injurious to
ourselves, and to avoid with great care that which could make us odious
to our associates.