“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature - after the recipe for making eels from flour - is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried the impossibility. If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.” IfsDoeOrderTeachDoubtConditionsCrySupremeAbsurdCertaintyPleasantImmenseDependenceRecipesImpossibilityAdmirableThere Is No GodAudacityFlourEels Author:Baron d'Holbach
“If the ministers of the Church have often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven's cause, they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violencess. It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of mortals.” IfsMindRealEvilHeavenNationsCausesChurchKnownAtheismPositive AtheismChainsMortalsMinistersRevoltFetters Book:Superstition In All Ages (1732) Common Sense Source: Superstition In All Ages (1732) Common Sense
“If experience be consulted, it will be found there is no action, however abominable, that has not received the applause of some people. Parricide - the sacrifice of children - robbery - usurpation - cruelty - intolerance - prostitution, have all in their turn been licensed actions, and have been deemed laudable and meritorious deeds with some nations of the earth. Above all, Religion has consecrated the most unreasonable, the most revolting customs.” PeopleIfsChildrenHas BeensActionEarthReligionTurnsFoundNationsSacrificeDeedsCrueltyCustomsIntoleranceApplauseProstitutionUnreasonableRobberyUsurpation Author:Baron d'Holbach
“If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.” IfsScienceReligionKnowledgeAtheismIgnoranceBirthAtheistAtheisticTheismTheistIgnorance And Fear Author:Baron d'Holbach
“If we go back to the beginnings of things, we shall always find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that imagination, rapture and deception embellished them; that weakness worships them; that custom spares them; and that tyranny favors them in order to profit from the blindness of men.” IfsMenReligionOrderImaginationIgnoranceWorshipWeaknessAtheistProfitFavorsTyrannyDeceptionCustomsSparesBlindnessRaptureIgnorance And Fear Author:Baron d'Holbach
“The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. You think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire? Are not your volitions and desires necessarily excited by objects or qualities totally independent of you?” IfsThinkingActionDesireQualityPrinciplesObjectsIllusionConsequenceIndependentMereExcitedFree WillInwardPersuasionOur ActionsVolition Author:Baron d'Holbach
“It is thus religion infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity and fanaticism: if he has a heated imagination it drives him on to fury; if he has activity, it makes him a madman, who is frequently as cruel to himself, as he is dangerous and incommodious to others: if, on the contrary, he be phlegmatic or of a slothful habit, he becomes melancholy and is useless to society.” IfsMenImaginationDangerousHabitActivityAtheistContraryVanityUselessMelancholyFuryFanaticismMadmenInfancy Author:Baron d'Holbach
