icero, object to him that to make a criminal die
is not to punish him at all, that death _is nothing_, that it is merely
the end of our ills, that it is a moment more happy than calamitous? And
do not Cicero and the whole senate surrender to these reasons? The
conquerors and the legislators of the known universe formed visibly
therefore a society of men who feared nothing from the gods, who were
real atheists.

Further on Bayle examines whether idolatry is more dangerous than
atheism, if it is a greater crime not to believe in the Deity than to
have unworthy opinions thereof: in that he is of Plutarch's opinion; he
believes it is better to have no opinion than to have a bad opinion; but
with all deference to Plutarch, it was clearly infinitely better for the
Greeks to fear Ceres, Neptune and Jupiter, than to fear nothing at all.
The sanctity of oaths is clearly necessary, and one should have more
confidence in those who believe that a false oath will be punished, than
in those who think they can make a false oath with impunity. It is
indubitable that in a civilized town, it is infinitely more useful to
have a religion, even a bad one, than to have none at all.

It looks, therefore, that Bayle should have examined rather which is the
more dangerous, fanaticism or atheism. Fanaticism is certainly a
thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion,
whereas fanaticism does: atheism is not opposed to crime, but fanaticism
causes crimes to be committed. Fanatics committed the massacres of St.
Bartholomew. Hobbes passed for an atheist; he led a tranquil and
innocent life. The fanatics of his time deluged England, Scotland and
Ireland with blood. Spinoza was not only atheist, but he taught atheism;
it was not he assuredly who took part in the judicial assassination of
Barneveldt; it was not he who tore the brothers De Witt in pieces, and
who ate them grilled.

The atheists are for the most part impudent and misguided scholars who
reason badly, and who not being able to understand the creation, the
origin of evil, and other difficulties, have recourse to the hypothesis
of the eternity of things and of inevitability.

The ambitious, the sensual, have hardly time for reasoning, and for
embracing a bad system; they have other things to do than comparing
Lucretius with Socrates. That is how things go among us.

That was not how things went with the Roman senate which was almost
entirely composed of atheists in