Philosophers, in all ages, have taken the part that seemed destined for the ministers of religion.
Your host, Jean Meslier
No one dreams about another life when he is very much absorbed in objects which he meets on earth.
Your host, Jean Meslier
Every national religion has a tendency to make man vain, unsocial, and wicked; the first step toward humanity is to permit each one to follow peacefully the worship and the opinions which suit him.
Your host, Jean Meslier
We are told that Divine qualities are not of a nature to be grasped by limited minds.
Your host, Jean Meslier
No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later it is compelled to surrender to truth.
Your host, Jean Meslier
If our Christ-worshipers claim that God endowed their saints with power to perform the
Your host, Jean Meslier
miracles related in their lives, some of the Pagans claim also that the daughters of Anius, high-priest of Apollo, had really received from the god Bacchus the power to change all they desired into wheat, into wine, or into oil, etc.; that Jupiter gave to the nymphs who took care of his education, a horn of the goat which nursed him in his infancy, with this virtue, that it could give them an abundance of all they wished for.
Jean Meslier
In order to avoid all embarrassment, they tell us that it is not necessary to know what God is; that we must adore without knowing; that it is not permitted us to turn an eye of temerity upon His attributes.
Jean Meslier
If we read history with some attention, we shall see that Christianity, fawning at first, insinuated itself among the savage and free nations of Europe but by showing their chiefs that its principles would favor despotism and place absolute power in their hands.
Jean Meslier
We are assured that the dogma of another life is of the greatest importance to the peace of society; it is imagined that without it men would have no motives for doing good. Why do we need terrors and fables to teach any reasonable man how he ought to conduct himself upon earth?