Thursday, November 4, 2010

Baron d’Holbach: “Good Sense”

Thesis: Man looks to religion because he is ignorant. He attributes happiness to god rather than himself because he is lazy.


Religion due to Ignorance


Whoever uses common sense when analyzing religion will realize that it has no foundation


Theology is but the ignorance of natural causes reduced to a system


Man has always been at the mercy of his priest


Man has remained a child without experience, a slave without courage, fearing to reason, and unable to extricate himself from the labyrinth in which he has so long been wandering


the human mind, confused by its theological opinions ceased to know its own powers, mistrusted experience, feared truth and disdained reason, in order to follow authority


to discover the true principles of Morality, men habe no need of gods but only common sense. They have only to commune with themselves, to reflect upon their own nature


Happiness


Man has been taught nothing but stories about invisible powers upon whom his happiness is supposed to depend


Oppressed by the double yoke of spiritual and temporal power, it has been impossible for the people to know and pursue their happiness


Knowledge, Reason, and Liberty, can alone reform them, and make them happier


Almost always fascinated by religious fiction, poor mortals turn not their eyes to the natural and obvious causes of their misery; but attribute their vices to the imperfection of their natures, and their unhappiness to the anger of the gods


Men will be good , when they are well instructed, well governed, and when hey are punished or despised for the evil, and justly rewarded for the good


Overview


Men are unhappy, only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent their being enlightened; they are wicked, only because their reason is not sufficiently developed


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