The apologists of religion repeat to us every day that the passions
alone create unbelievers. "It is," they say, "pride, and a desire to
distinguish themselves, that make atheists; they seek also to efface the
idea of God from their minds, because they have reason to fear His
rigorous judgments." Whatever may be the motives which cause men to be
irreligious, the thing in question is whether they have found truth. No
man acts without motives; let us first examine the arguments--we shall
examine the motives afterward--and we shall find that they are more
legitimate, and more sensible, than those of many credulous devotees who
allow themselves to be guided by masters little worthy of men's
confidence.
You say, O priests of the Lord! that the passions cause unbelievers; you
pretend that they renounce religion through interest, or because it
interferes with their irregular inclinations; you assert that they
attack your Gods because they fear their punishments. Ah! yourselves in
defending this religion and its chimeras, are you, then, really exempt
from passions and interests? Who receive the fees of this religion, on
whose behalf the priests are so zealous? It is the priests. To whom does
religion procure power, credit, honors, wealth? To the priests! In all
countries, who make war upon reason, science, truth, and philosophy and
render them odious to the sovereigns and to the people? Who profit by
the ignorance of men and their vain prejudices? The priests! You are, O
priests, rewarded, honored, and paid for deceiving mortals, and you
punish those who undeceive them. The follies of men procure you
blessings, offerings, expiations; the most useful truths bring to those
who announce them, chains, sufferings, stakes. Let the world judge
between us.
CLXXXVIII.--PRIDE, PRESUMPTION, AND CORRUPTION OF THE HEART ARE MORE
OFTEN FOUND AMONG PRIESTS THAN AMONG ATHEISTS AND UNBELIEVERS.
Pride and vanity always were and always will be the inherent vices of
the priesthood. Is there anything that has a tendency to render men
haughty and vain more than the assumption of exercising Heavenly power,
of possessing a sacred character, of being the messengers of the Most
High? Are not these dispositions continually increased by the credulity
of the people, by the deference and the respect of the sovereigns, by
the immunities, the privileges, and the distinctions which the clergy
enjoy? The common man is, in every country, more devoted to his
spiritual guides, whom he considers as Divine men, than to his temporal
superiors, whom he considers as ordinary men. Village priests enjoy more
honor than the lord or the judge. A Christian priest believes himself
far above a king or an emperor. A Spanish grandee having spoken hastily
to a monk, the latter said to him, arrogantly, "Learn to respect a man
who has every day your God in his hands and your queen at his feet."
Have the priests any right to accuse the unbelievers of pride? Do they
distinguish themselves by a rare modesty or profound humility? Is it not
evident that the desire to domineer over men is the essence of their
profession? If the Lord's ministers were truly modest, would we see them
so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt
and so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend
them? Does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of
unraveling truth? What other passion than frenzied pride can render men
so ferocious, so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness?
What is more presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood,
in order to establish or to defend futile conjectures?
You say, O Doctors of Divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes
atheists. Teach them, then, what your God is; instruct them about His
essence; speak of Him in an intelligible way; tell of Him reasonable
things, which are not contradictory or impossible! If you are not in the
condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to
demonstrate the existence of a God in a clear and convincing way; if,
according to your own confession, His essence is as much hidden from you
as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which
they can neither understand nor reconcile. Do not accuse of presumption
and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance;
accuse not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in
contradictions. You should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred
of the people and the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not
think as you do upon a Being of whom you have no idea yourselves. Is
there anything more audacious and more extravagant than to reason about
an object which it is impossible to conceive of?
You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that
they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible
judgments. But why do you paint your God in such black colors? Why does
this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? Why
should we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able
to make of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become
perverted and hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to
have the satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been
hardened, blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused
them? The theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of
Heaven's grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so
capricious as the God whom they announce to us. A God who damns
eternally must be the most odious Being that the human mind could
imagine.
CLXXXIX.--PREJUDICES ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE EXCEPT
IT IS BASED UPON TRUTH, REASON, AND EQUITY.
No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later
it is compelled to surrender to truth. General interest tends to the
enlightenment of mortals; even the passions sometimes contribute to the
breaking of some of the chains of prejudice. Have not the passions of
some sovereigns destroyed, within the past two centuries in some
countries of Europe, the tyrannical power which a haughty Pontiff
formerly exercised over all the princes of his sect? Politics, becoming
more enlightened, has despoiled the clergy of an immense amount of
property which credulity had accumulated in their hands. Should not this
memorable example make even the priests realize that prejudices are but
for a time, and that truth alone is capable of assuring a substantial
well-being?
Have not the ministers of the Lord seen that in pampering the
sovereigns, in forging Divine rights for them, and in delivering to them
the people, bound hand and foot, they were making tyrants of them? Have
they not reason to fear that these gigantic idols, whom they have raised
to the skies, will crush them also some day? Do not a thousand examples
prove that they ought to fear that these unchained lions, after having
devoured nations, will in turn devour them?
We will respect the priests when they become citizens. Let them make
use, if they can, of Heaven's authority to create fear in those princes
who incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right
of being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a State enjoys
living under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they
themselves are not interested in exercising a power which, rendering
them odious, injures their own safety, their own power, their own
grandeur; finally, let the priests and the undeceived kings recognize
that no power is safe that is not based upon truth, reason, and equity.
CXC.--HOW MUCH POWER AND CONSIDERATION THE MINISTERS OF THE GODS WOULD
HAVE, IF THEY BECAME THE APOSTLES OF REASON AND THE DEFENDERS OF
LIBERTY!
The ministers of the Gods, in warring against human reason, which they
ought to develop, act against their own interest. What would be their
power, their consideration, their empire over the wisest men; what would
be the gratitude of the people toward them if, instead of occupying
themselves with their vain quarrels, they had applied themselves to the
useful sciences; if they had sought the true principles of physics, of
government, and of morals. Who would dare reproach the opulence and
credit of a corporation which, consecrating its leisure and its
authority to the public good, should use the one for studying and
meditating, and the other for enlightening equally the minds of the
sovereigns and the subjects?
Priests! lay aside your idle fancies, your unintelligible dogmas, your
despicable quarrels; banish to imaginary regions these phantoms, which
could be of use to you only in the infancy of nations; take the tone of
reason, instead of sounding the tocsin of persecution against your
adversaries; instead of entertaining the people with foolish disputes,
of preaching useless and fanatical virtues, preach to them humane and
social morality; preach to them virtues which are really useful to the
world; become the apostles of reason, the lights of the nations, the
defenders of liberty, reformers of abuses, the friends of truth, and we
will bless you, we will honor you, we will love you, and you will be
sure of holding an eternal empire over the hearts of your fellow-beings.
CXCI.--WHAT A HAPPY AND GREAT REVOLUTION WOULD TAKE PLACE IN THE
UNIVERSE, IF PHILOSOPHY WAS SUBSTITUTED FOR RELIGION!
Philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for
the ministers of religion. The hatred of the latter for philosophy was
never more than professional jealousy. All men accustomed to think,
instead of seeking to injure each other, should unite their efforts in
combating errors, in seeking truth, and especially in dispelling the
prejudices from which the sovereigns and subjects suffer alike, and
whose upholders themselves finish, sooner or later, by becoming the
victims.
In the hands of an enlightened government the priests would become the
most useful of citizens. Could men with rich stipends from the State,
and relieved of the care of providing for their own subsistence, do
anything better than to instruct themselves in order to be able to
instruct others? Would not their minds be better satisfied in
discovering truth than in wandering in the labyrinths of darkness? Would
it be any more difficult to unravel the principles of man's morals, than
the imaginary principles of Divine and theological morals? Would
ordinary men have as much trouble in understanding the simple notions of
their duties, as in charging their memories with mysteries,
unintelligible words, and obscure definitions which are impossible for
them to understand? How much time and trouble is lost in trying to teach
men things which are of no use to them. What resources for the public
benefit, for encouraging the progress of the sciences and the
advancement of knowledge, for the education of youth, are presented to
well-meaning sovereigns through so many monasteries, which, in a great
number of countries devour the people's substance without an equivalent.
But superstition, jealous of its exclusive empire, seems to have formed
but useless beings. What advantage could not be drawn from a multitude
of cenobites of both sexes whom we see in so many countries, and who are
so well paid to do nothing. Instead of occupying them with sterile
contemplations, with mechanical prayers, with monotonous practices;
instead of burdening them with fasts and austerities, let there be
excited among them a salutary emulation that would inspire them to seek
the means of serving usefully the world, which their fatal vows oblige
them to renounce. Instead of filling the youthful minds of their pupils
with fables, dogmas, and puerilities, why not invite or oblige the
priests to teach them true things, and so make of them citizens useful
to their country? The way in which men are brought up makes them useful
but to the clergy, who blind them, and to the tyrants, who plunder them.
CXCII.--THE RETRACTION OF AN UNBELIEVER AT THE HOUR OF DEATH, PROVES
NOTHING AGAINST INCREDULITY.
The adherents of credulity often accuse the unbelievers of bad faith
because they sometimes waver in their principles, changing opinions
during sickness, and retracting them at the hour of death. When the body
is diseased, the faculty of reasoning is generally disturbed also. The
infirm and decrepit man, in approaching his end, sometimes perceives
himself that reason is leaving him, he feels that prejudice returns.
There are diseases which have a tendency to lessen courage, to make
pusillanimous, and to enfeeble the brain; there are others which, in
destroying the body, do not affect the reason. However, an unbeliever
who retracts in sickness, is not more rare or more extraordinary than a
devotionist who permits himself, while in health, to neglect the duties
that his religion prescribes for him in the most formal manner.
Cleomenes, King of Sparta, having shown little respect for the Gods
during his reign, became superstitious in his last days; with the view
of interesting Heaven in his favor, he called around him a multitude of
sacrificing priests. One of his friends expressing his surprise,
Cleomenes said: "What are you astonished at? I am no longer what I was,
and not being the same, I can not think in the same way."
The ministers of religion in their daily conduct, often belie the
rigorous principles which they teach to others, so that the unbelievers
in their turn think they have a right to accuse them of bad faith. If
some unbelievers contradict, in sight of death or during sickness, the
opinions which they entertained in health, do not the priests in health
belie opinions of the religion which they hold? Do we see a great
multitude of humble, generous prelates devoid of ambition, enemies of
pomp and grandeur, the friends of poverty? In short, do we see the
conduct of many Christian priests corresponding with the austere
morality of Christ, their God and their model?