so greedy of respect, so easily irritated by contradictions, so prompt
and so cruel in revenging themselves upon those whose opinions offend
them? Does not modest science impress us with the difficulty of
unraveling truth? What other passion than frenzied pride can render men
so ferocious, so vindictive, so devoid of toleration and gentleness?
What is more presumptuous than to arm nations and cause rivers of blood,
in order to establish or to defend futile conjectures?

You say, O Doctors of Divinity! that it is presumption alone which makes
atheists. Teach them, then, what your God is; instruct them about His
essence; speak of Him in an intelligible way; tell of Him reasonable
things, which are not contradictory or impossible! If you are not in the
condition to satisfy them; if, so far, none of you have been able to
demonstrate the existence of a God in a clear and convincing way; if,
according to your own confession, His essence is as much hidden from you
as from the rest of mortals, pardon those who can not admit that which
they can neither understand nor reconcile. Do not accuse of presumption
and vanity those who have the sincerity to confess their ignorance;
accuse not of folly those who find it impossible to believe in
contradictions. You should blush at the thought of exciting the hatred
of the people and the vengeance of the sovereigns against men who do not
think as you do upon a Being of whom you have no idea yourselves. Is
there anything more audacious and more extravagant than to reason about
an object which it is impossible to conceive of?

You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that
they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible
judgments. But why do you paint your God in such black colors? Why does
this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist? Why
should we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able
to make of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become
perverted and hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to
have the satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been
hardened, blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused
them? The theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of
Heaven's grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so
capricious as the God whom they announce to us. A God who damns
eternally must be the most odious Being tha