There is nothing more rare in the world than consistent men. Their
opinions do not influence their conduct, except when they conform to
their temperament, their passions, and to their interests. Religious
opinions, according to daily experience, produce much more evil than
good; they are injurious, because they very often agree with the
passions of tyrants, fanatics, and priests; they produce no effect,
because they have not the power to balance the present interests of the
majority of men. Religious principles are always put aside when they are
opposed to ardent desires; without being incredulous, they act as if
they believed nothing. We risk being deceived when we judge the opinions
of men by their conduct or their conduct by their opinions. A very
religious man, notwithstanding the austere and cruel principles of a
bloody religion, will sometimes be, by a fortunate inconsistency,
humane, tolerant, moderate; in this case the principles of his religion
do not agree with the mildness of his disposition. A libertine, a
debauchee, a hypocrite, an adulterer, or a thief will often show us that
he has the clearest ideas of morals. Why do they not practice them? It
is because neither their temperament, their interests, nor their habits
agree with their sublime theories. The rigid principles of Christian
morality, which so many attempt to pass off as Divine, have but very
little influence upon the conduct of those who preach them to others. Do
they not tell us every day to do what they preach, and not what they
practice?
The religious partisans generally designate the incredulous as
libertines. It may be that many incredulous people are immoral; this
immorality is due to their temperament, and not to their opinions. But
what has their conduct to do with these opinions? Can not an immoral man
be a good physician, a good architect, a good geometer, a good logician,
a good metaphysician? With an irreproachable conduct, one can be
ignorant upon many things, and reason very badly. When truth is
presented, it matters not from whom it comes. Let us not judge men by
their opinions, or opinions by men; let us judge men by their conduct;
and their opinions by their conformity with experience, reason, and
their usefulness for mankind.
CLXXXII.---REASON LEADS MEN TO IRRELIGION AND TO ATHEISM, BECAUSE
RELIGION IS ABSURD, AND THE GOD OF THE PRIESTS IS A MALICIOUS AND
FEROCIOUS BEING.
Every man who reasons soon becomes incredulous, because reasoning proves
to him that theology is but a tissue of falsehoods; that religion is
contrary to all principles of common sense; that it gives a false color
to all human knowledge. The rational man becomes incredulous, because he
sees that religion, far from rendering men happier, is the first cause
of the greatest disorders, and of the permanent calamities with which
the human race is afflicted. The man who seeks his well-being and his
own tranquillity, examines his religion and is undeceived, because he
finds it inconvenient and useless to pass his life in trembling at
phantoms which are made but to intimidate silly women or children. If,
sometimes, libertinage, which reasons but little, leads to irreligion,
the man who is regular in his morals can have very legitimate motives
for examining his religion, and for banishing it from his mind. Too weak
to intimidate the wicked, in whom vice has become deeply rooted,
religious terrors afflict, torment, and burden imaginative minds. If
souls have courage and elasticity, they shake off a yoke which they bear
unwillingly. If weak or timorous, they wear the yoke during their whole
life, and they grow old, trembling, or at least they live under
burdensome uncertainty.
The priests have made of God such a malicious, ferocious being, so ready
to be vexed, that there are few men in the world who do not wish at the
bottom of their hearts that this God did not exist. We can not live
happy if we are always in fear. You worship a terrible God, O religious
people! Alas! And yet you hate Him; you wish that He was not. Can we
avoid wishing the absence or the destruction of a master, the idea of
whom can but torment the mind? It is the dark colors in which the
priests paint the Deity which revolt men, moving them to hate and
reject Him.