gious; they have
what is called _an implicit faith_. Their parsons believe for them; and
they stupidly adhere to the unknown belief of their guides. They go to
hear sermons, and would think it a great crime to transgress any of the
ordinances, to which, in childhood, they are taught to conform. But of
what service to morals is all this? None at all. They have not the least
idea of Morality, and are even guilty of all the roguery, fraud, rapine,
and excess, that is out of the reach of law.

The populace have no idea of their Religion; what they call Religion
is nothing but a blind attachment to unknown opinions and mysterious
practices. In fact, to deprive people of Religion is to deprive them
of nothing. By overthrowing their prejudices, we should only lessen or
annihilate the dangerous confidence they put in interested guides, and
should teach them to mistrust those, who, under the pretext of Religion,
often lead them into fatal excesses.

198.

While pretending to instruct and enlighten men, Religion in reality keeps
them in ignorance, and stifles the desire of knowing the most interesting
objects. The people have no other rule of conduct, than what their priests
are pleased to prescribe. Religion supplies the place of every thing else:
but being in itself essentially obscure, it is more proper to lead mortals
astray than to guide them in the path of science and happiness. Religion
renders enigmatical all Natural Philosophy, Morality, Legislation and
Politics. A man blinded by religious prejudices, fears truth, whenever
it clashes with his opinions: he cannot know his own nature he cannot
cultivate his reason, he cannot perform experiments.

Everything concurs to render the people devout; but every thing tends to
prevent them from being humane, reasonable and virtuous. Religion seems to
have no other object, than to stupefy the mind.

Priests have been ever at war with genius and talent, because
well-informed men perceive, that superstition shackles the human mind, and
would keep it in eternal infancy, occupied solely by fables and
frightened by phantoms. Incapable of improvement itself, Theology opposed
insurmountable barriers to the progress of true knowledge; its sole object
is to keep nations and their rulers in the most profound ignorance of
their duties, and of the real motives, that should incline them to do
good. It obscures Morality, renders its principles arbitrary, and subjects
it to the caprice