Can 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 ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
More Baron d'Holbach Quotes
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All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance and ferocity.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
Savage and furious nations, perpetually at war, adore, under diverse names, some God, conformable to their ideas, that is to say, cruel, carnivorous, selfish, blood-thirsty.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
The savage god of the Mexicans cannot be satisfied without thousands of mortals which are immolated to his sanguinary appetite.
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How could the human mind progress, while tormented with frightful phantoms, and guided by men, interested in perpetuating its ignorance and fears?
BARON D'HOLBACH -
Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.
BARON D'HOLBACH -
If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
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 -
Men always fool themselves when they give up experience for systems born of the imagination.
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The unhappiness of people is due to their ignorance of nature.
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It is thus superstition infatuates man from his infancy, fills him with vanity, and enslaves him with fanaticism.
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 -
Man 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'HOLBACH -
The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.
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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.
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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