It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion that we shall discover truth, reason and morality.
BARON D'HOLBACHIt is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion that we shall discover truth, reason and morality.
BARON D'HOLBACHCan theology give to the mind the ineffable boon of conceiving that which no man is in a capacity to comprehend? Can it procure to its agents the marvellous faculty of having precise ideas of a god composed of so many contradictory qualities?
BARON D'HOLBACHIf 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.
BARON D'HOLBACHMan is the work of nature, he exists in nature, he is subject to its laws, he can not break free, he can not leave even in thought; it is in vain that his spirit wants to soar beyond the bounds of the visible world, he is always forced to return.
BARON D'HOLBACHPeople have suffered and become insane for centuries by the thought of eternal punishment after death. Wouldn’t it be better to depend on blind matter… than a god who puts out traps for people, invites them to sin, and allows them to sin and commit crimes he could prevent.
BARON D'HOLBACHAll religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.
BARON D'HOLBACHWhen we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon, than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths, or to reject absurdities, and palpable contradictions.
BARON D'HOLBACHThe universe, that vast assemblage of every thing that exists, presents only matter and motion: the whole offers to our contemplation, nothing but an immense, an uninterrupted succession of causes and effects.
BARON D'HOLBACHHow could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears?
BARON D'HOLBACHNature, you say, is totally inexplicable without a God. That is to say, to explain what you understand very little, you have need of a cause which you understand not at all.
BARON D'HOLBACHIn Nature nothing; is mean or contemptible, and it is only pride, originating in a false idea of our superiority, which causes our contempt for some of her productions. In the eyes of Nature, however, the oyster that vegetates at the bottom of the sea is as dear and perfect as the proud biped who devours it.
BARON D'HOLBACHThe savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.
BARON D'HOLBACHIf 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.
BARON D'HOLBACHAll religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity.
BARON D'HOLBACHThe Jehovah of the Jews is a suspicious tyrant, who breathes nothing but blood, murder, and carnage, and who demands that they should nourish him with the vapours of animals.
BARON D'HOLBACHYou 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?
BARON D'HOLBACH