son is a deceitful guide; and good sense becomes madness.
This _science_ is called _theology_, and this theology is a continual
insult to the reason of man.

3.

By the magical power of "ifs," "buts," "perhaps's," "what do we know,"
etc., heaped together, a shapeless and unconnected system is formed,
perplexing mankind, by obliterating from their minds, the most clear ideas
and rendering uncertain truths most evident. By reason of this systematic
confusion, nature is an enigma; the visible world has disappeared, to give
place to regions invisible; reason is compelled to yield to imagination,
who leads to the country of her self-invented chimeras.

4.

The principles of every religion are founded upon the idea of a GOD. Now,
it is impossible to have true ideas of a being, who acts upon none of our
senses. All our ideas are representations of sensible objects. What then
can represent to us the idea of God, which is evidently an idea without an
object? Is not such an idea as impossible, as an effect without a cause?
Can an idea without an archetype be anything, but a chimera? There are,
however, divines, who assure us that the idea of God is innate; or that
we have this idea in our mother's womb. Every principle is the result of
reason; all reason is the effect of experience; experience is acquired
only by the exercise of our senses: therefore, religious principles are
not founded upon reason, and are not innate.

5.

Every system of religion can be founded only upon the nature of God and
man; and upon the relations, which subsist between them. But to judge
of the reality of those relations, we must have some idea of the divine
nature. Now, the world exclaims, the divine nature is incomprehensible to
man; yet ceases not to assign attributes to this incomprehensible God, and
to assure us, that it is our indispensable duty to find out that God, whom
it is impossible to comprehend.

The most important concern of man is what he can least comprehend. If God
is incomprehensible to man, it would seem reasonable never to think of
him; but religion maintains, man cannot with impunity cease a moment to
think (or rather dream) of his God.

6.

We are told, that divine qualities are not of a nature to be comprehended
by finite minds. The natural consequence must be, that divine qualities
are not made to occupy finite minds. But religion tells us, that the poor
finite mind of man ought never to lose s