You tell us, O theologians! that "what is folly in the eyes of men, is
wisdom before God, who is pleased to confound the wisdom of the wise."
But do you not pretend that human wisdom is a gift from Heaven? In
telling us that this wisdom displeases God, is but folly in His eyes,
and that He wishes to confound it, you proclaim that your God is but the
friend of unenlightened people, and that He makes to sensible people a
fatal gift, for which this perfidious Tyrant promises to punish them
cruelly some day. Is it not very strange that we can not be the friend
of your God but by declaring ourselves the enemy of reason and common
sense?

CXXXV.--FAITH IS IRRECONCILABLE WITH REASON, AND REASON IS PREFERABLE TO
FAITH.

Faith, according to theologians, is consent without evidence. From this
it follows that religion exacts that we should firmly believe, without
evidence, in propositions which are often improbable or opposed to
reason. But to challenge reason as a judge of faith, is it not
acknowledging that reason can not agree with faith? As the ministers of
religion have determined to banish reason, they must have felt the
impossibility of reconciling reason with faith, which is visibly but a
blind submission to those priests whose authority, in many minds,
appears to be of a greater importance than evidence itself, and
preferable to the testimony of the senses. "Sacrifice your reason; give
up experience; distrust the testimony of your senses; submit without
examination to all that is given to you as coming from Heaven." This is
the usual language of all the priests of the world; they do not agree
upon any point, except in the necessity of never reasoning when they
present principles to us which they claim as the most important to our
happiness.

I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to
distinguish good from evil, the true from the false. If, as you pretend,
my reason comes from God, I will never believe that a God whom you call
so good, had ever given me reason but as a snare, in order to lead me to
perdition. Priests! in crying down reason, do you not see that you
slander your God, who, as you assure us, has given us this reason?

I will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than
imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give
me. This experience teaches me that enthusiasm and interest can blind
and mislead them, and that the authority of