Baron d'Holbach

In religion, as at play, one begins with being dupe, and ends with being knave.

Men are naturally disposed to listen to, and believe those who make them hope for an end to their miseries. Misfortunes render them timorous and credulous, and lead them to superstition. A fanatic easily makes conquests among a wretched …

The dogma of the resurrection of Jesus is only attested by men whose subsistence depended on that absurd romance; and as roguery continually belies itself, these witnesses could not agree among themselves in their evidence.

the ways of God are not as those of men. The Deity ought never to act in a natural way, or be easily understood. It is the essence of religion that men should not comprehend any part of the divine conduct. This furnishes to their spiritual …

the miracles of the messiah were calculated to convince those only who did not [Pg 82]see them. Thus it is, that these miracles are believed at present by people who would not credit those performed in their presence.

It must be acknowledged, that the impossibility of comprehending the doctrine of Jesus furnishes a good reason for denying that it can be divine. It cannot be conceived why a God, sent to instruct men, should never distinctly explain …

Jesus charged people of property with the maintenance of his apostles. Their successors have taken sufficient advantage of this, and through it assumed an authority to exercise the most cruel extortions on impoverished nations.

the apostles, and especially their successors in the sacred ministry have, in preaching their gospel, brought on the world troubles and divisions unknown in all other preceding religions.

Moreover, the indulgence which he preached must have gained him the hearts of all the ladies in his auditory.

Jesus, whose birth was very equivocal, had particular reasons for wishing that adultery should be treated with indulgence. Independently of Mary his mother, from whom Joseph was probably separated, our preacher had in his train dames, …

It was after the Babylonish captivity that the Jews knew the dogma of another life, and the resurrection, which they learned of the Persian disciples of Zoroaster. In the time of Jesus, that dogma was not even generally received. The …

We are quite surprised at finding, that Moses and the ancient Hebrew writers have no where mentioned the dogma of a future life, which now-a-days forms one of the most important articles of the Christian religion.

The preacher recommended peace and concord; dispositions necessary to a new born, weak, and persecuted sect; but this necessity ceased when this sect had attained strength enough to dictate the law.

a protestant is bound to believe the gospel to be divine: and the examination of it is permitted only, while he finds there what the ministers of his sect have resolved that he shall find. Beyond this, he is regarded as an ungodly man, and …

The worshipers of God find, above all in the order of the universe, an invincible proof of this existence of an intelligent and wise being, who governs it. But this order is nothing but a series of movements necessarily produced by causes …

To wonder at the order of nature, is to wonder that any thing can exist; it is to be surprised at one's own existence.

The universe can be only what it is; all sensible being there enjoy and suffer, that is, are moved sometimes in an agreeable, and sometimes in a disagreeable manner. these effects are necessary; they result necessarily from causes, which …

Everything that passes in the world, proves to us, in the clearest manner, that it is not governed by an intelligent being.

Now, if the ignorance of nature gave birth to Gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.

Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe …

Religion has ever filled the mind of man with darkness, and kept him in ignorance of his real duties and true interests. It is only by dispelling the clouds and phantoms of Religion, that we shall discover Truth, Reason, and Morality. …

Pascal proves nothing in favour of Religion, unless that a man of genius may be foolish on some subjects, and is but a child, when he is weak enough to listen to his prejudices.

All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God.

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.