Every religion, in its origin, was a restraint invented by legislators who wished to subjugate the minds of the common people. Like nurses who frighten children in order to put them to sleep, ambitious men use the name of the gods to inspire fear in savages; terror seems well suited to compel them to submit quietly to the yoke which is to be imposed upon them. Are the ghost stories of childhood fit for mature age? Man in his maturity no longer believes in them, or if he does, he is troubled but little by it, and he keeps on his road.
CXLII.—HONOR IS A MORE SALUTARY AND A STRONGER CHECK THAN RELIGION.
There is scarcely a man who does not fear more what he sees than what he does not see; the judgments of men, of which he experiences the effects, than the judgments of God, of whom he has but floating ideas. The desire to please the world, the current of custom, the fear of being ridiculed, and of "WHAT WILL THEY SAY?" have more power than all religious opinions. A warrior with the fear of dishonor, does he not hazard his life in battles every day, even at the risk of incurring eternal damnation?
The most religious persons sometimes show more respect for a servant than for God. A man that firmly believes that God sees everything, knows everything, is everywhere, will, when he is alone, commit actions which he never would do in the presence of the meanest of mortals. Those even who claim to be the most firmly convinced of the existence of a God, act every instant as if they did not believe anything about it.
CXLIII.—RELIGION IS CERTAINLY NOT A POWERFUL CHECK UPON THE PASSIONS OF KINGS, WHO ARE ALMOST ALWAYS CRUEL AND FANTASTIC TYRANTS BY THE EXAMPLE OF THIS SAME GOD, OF WHOM THEY CLAIM TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVES; THEY USE RELIGION BUT TO BRUTALIZE THEIR SLAVES SO MUCH THE MORE, TO LULL THEM TO SLEEP IN THEIR FETTERS, AND TO PREY UPON THEM WITH THE GREATER FACILITY.
"Let us tolerate at least," we are told, "the idea of a God, which alone can be a restraint upon the passions of kings." But, in good faith, can we admire the marvelous effects which the fear of this God produces generally upon the mind of the princes who claim to be His images? What idea can we form of the original, if we judge it by its duplicates? Sovereigns, it is true, call, themselves the representatives of God, His lieutenants upon earth. But does the fear of a more powerful master than themselves make them attend to the welfare of the peoples that Providence has confided to their care? The idea of an invisible Judge, to whom alone they pretend to be accountable for their actions, should inspire them with terror! But does this terror render them more equitable, more humane, less avaricious of the blood and the goods of their subjects, more moderate in their pleasures, more attentive to their duties? Finally, does this God, by whom we are assured that kings reign, prevent them from vexing in a thousand ways the peoples of whom they ought to be the leaders, the protectors, and fathers? Let us open our eyes, let us turn our regards upon all the earth, and we shall see, almost everywhere, men governed by tyrants, who make use of religion but to brutalize their slaves, whom they oppress by the weight of their vices, or whom they sacrifice without mercy to their fatal extravagances. Far from being a restraint to the passions of kings, religion, by its very principles, gives them a loose rein. It transforms them into Divinities, whose caprices the nations never dare to resist. At the same time that it unchains princes and breaks for them the ties of the social pact, it enchains the minds and the hands of their oppressed subjects. Is it surprising, then, that the gods of the earth believe that all is permitted to them, and consider their subjects as vile instruments of their caprices or of their ambition?
Religion, in every country, has made of the Monarch of Nature a cruel, fantastic, partial tyrant, whose caprice is the rule. The God-monarch is but too well imitated by His representatives upon the earth. Everywhere religion seems invented but to lull to sleep the people in fetters, in order to furnish their masters the facility of devouring them, or to render them miserable with impunity.