If fear has created the Gods, fear still holds their empire in the mind
of mortals; they have been so early accustomed to tremble even at the
name of the Deity, that it has become for them a specter, a goblin, a
were-wolf which torments them, and whose idea deprives them even of the
courage to attempt to reassure themselves. They are afraid that this
invisible specter will strike them if they cease to be afraid. The
religious people fear their God too much to love Him sincerely; they
serve Him as slaves, who can not escape His power, and take the part of
flattering their Master; and who, by continually lying, persuade
themselves that they love Him. They make a virtue of necessity. The love
of religious bigots for their God, and of slaves for their despots, is
but a servile and simulated homage which they render by compulsion, in
which the heart has no part.