How have we come to adopt these tales of the creation? Through habit. Just as a man inured to poison can take it with impunity, so a man used to them from childhood can accept the most unbelievable opinions. Therefore the opinions of the masses are only formed through habit. The people believe that which they hear incessantly repeated. And that is why the power of religion is so much stronger than that of philosophy, for it is not accustomed to hearing the opposite of its belief, a thing which happens very often to philosophy: So one sees frequently, nowadays, men who, having entered suddenly into the study of the speculative sciences, lose the religious beliefs which they have only held through habit, and become zendihs (infidels).
The religion sacred to philosophers is to study that which is, for the most sublime worship one can render to God is the recognition and knowledge of his works, which leads us to know him, himself, in all his reality. In the eyes of God that is the noblest action, while the vilest action is to tax with error and presumption those who practise this worship, higher than any other, who adore him by this religion, the best of all religions.
Among the most dangerous of these fictions concerning a future life are those which counsel virtue as a means of arriving at happiness. In that case virtue is no longer worth anything, since one only abstains from voluptuousness in the hope of being doubly repaid in the future. The brave will only seek death to evade a worse evil. The good will only respect the belongings of others in order to acquire twice as much.
Wine is forbidden because it excites wickedness and quarrels; but I am preserved from those excesses by wisdom: I take it only to sharpen my wits.[52]
That renegade philosopher, Al Ghazali, has gathered up all he learned from the writings of the philosophers, and has turned against them the arms he borrowed from them.
As for us, the philosophers, at the risk of exposing ourselves to the rage of the persecutors of philosophy, which was our mother, we will, when the time is ripe, uncover the poison hidden in Al Ghazali's book.
Our social state does not bring out all the resources and possibilities there are in women; it would seem that they are only destined to bear and rear children, and this state of servitude has destroyed in them the capability for larger things. That is why one never sees, with us, a woman possessed of the moral virtues—their lives pass like those of flowers, and they are a burden upon their husbands. From this comes also the misery which devours our cities, for there are twice as many women there as men, but the former are not permitted to work for their own support.
My father aided in rescuing from prison Ibn Badja, who was accused of heresy. My father does not understand that his own son will one day be regarded as a far worse heretic.