§ 1.
Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet, being such as we have represented
them, it is evident that it would be useless to search in their
writings for a new idea of the Divinity. The conferences of Moses
and Mahomet with the Deity, and the miraculous conception of Jesus
Christ, are the greatest impostures that have ever met the face of day,
and you must shun their contemplation as you love the truth.
§ 2.
God, as we have seen, being only Nature, or in other words the
combination of all beings, all properties, and all energies, is
necessarily the cause from which emanates every thing, and of course
not distinct or different from its effects. He cannot be termed good,
nor evil, nor just, nor merciful nor jealous: these attributes belong
only to mankind. The Deity therefore can neither punish nor reward. The
opposite idea may lead aside the ignorant, who, conceiving the Divinity
to be an uncompounded essence, represent him to themselves under
images altogether unsuited to his nature. Those alone who exercise
their judgment without confounding its operations with those of their
imaginative faculty, and who have sufficient strength of mind to
cast away the prejudices of infancy, can form a clear and distinct
conception of the subject. They regard him as the author of every
being, producing them without distinction, and giving no preference
to one over another, and whose power is such that he created man with
as much ease as he did the meanest worm, or the humblest plant.
§ 3.
We must therefore believe that this universal Being whom we generally
name God, takes no greater care of a man than of an ant, nor pays more
attention to a lion than to a stone; neither regards the beauty or
deformity, good or evil, perfection or imperfection. He cares not to
be praised, beseeched, sought alter, or flattered; he is not affected
by what men say or do; he is not susceptible of love or hatred:
[59] in one word he is not more occupied with man than he is with the
rest of the other creatures, whatever may be their nature. All these
distinctions are merely the inventions of a limited understanding:
they originate in ignorance, and self-interest keeps them up.
§ 4.
Thus, therefore, no rational man can believe in God, nor in hell,
nor in spirits, nor in devils, in the sense in which the terms
are generally understood. These big words have only been coined to
intimidate and blind the vulgar. Those who wish to convince themselves
of this truth would do well to devote particular attention to what
follows, and accustom themselves to suspend their judgment until
after mature reflection.
§ 5.
The infinity of stars which we see above us has not escaped the
fictions of presumptive credulity. Amongst the glittering hosts, there
is one said to have been set apart for the celestial court, where God
holds regal state in the midst of his courtiers. This place is the
residence of the blessed, wither the souls of the virtuous are conveyed
after leaving the body. We need not dwell upon an opinion so frivolous
and so contradictory to common sense. It is well enough ascertained
that what we denominate the heavens is merely a continuation of the
air which surrounds us--a fluid through which the other planets move,
like the earth which we inhabit, unsustained and unconnected with
any solid mass whatever.
§ 6.
The priests having, like the pagans with their Gods and goddesses,
invented a heaven, where God and the blessed might dwell; after the
same example next they contrived a hell, or subterranean place,
to which, they assure us, the spirits of wicked men go down for
the purpose of being everlastingly tormented. Now, the word hell,
in its original sense, imports no more than a place dark and deep;
and the poets invented it as the opposite to the residence of the
blessed, which they represented as high and bright. This is the exact
signification of the Latin terms inferus and inferi, and the Greek
hades; any dark place such as a sepulchre, or whatever was fearful
from its depth and obscurity. The whole sprung from the imagination
of the poet and the knavery of the priests--the former knowing how to
make an impression in this way, on weak, timid, and melancholy minds;
and the latter having rather more substantial reasons for continuing
the delusion.