It is very strange that men should deny a Creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels.
BARON D'HOLBACHThese principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man.
More Baron d'Holbach Quotes
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When 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'HOLBACH -
People 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'HOLBACH -
The unhappiness of people is due to their ignorance of nature.
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.
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.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
Nature, 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'HOLBACH -
These principles, universally recognized, are at fault when the question of the existence of God is considered; what has been said of Him is either unintelligible or perfectly contradictory; and for this reason must appear impossible to every man.
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.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
The 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'HOLBACH -
Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of religion that we shall discover truth, reason and morality.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
The atheist . . . destroys the chimeras which afflict the human race, and so leads men back to nature, to experience and to reason.
BARON D'HOLBACH