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Handout #208 |
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Christianity is opposed to nature |
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In the private writings, authors could express their
thought freely in their publications, they had to be somewhat prudent.
Revealed morality is not compatible with natural morality. Every devotee is hard, pitiless, implacable, a poor husband, a poor citizen, a bad brother, and so on. These duties are too subordinated to others. One of the worst effects of religious duties is the degradation of natural duties; it is a ladder of chimeric duties raised up above real duties. Ask a priest whether it is worse to piss in a chalice than to slander an honorable woman. 'Piss in a chalice -sacrilege!, he will tell you. There is no public punishment for calumny, but there is the fire for sacrilege. The result is to reverse any real distinction of crimes in a society. There are two moralities in the gospel, the book to which we must refer, or be completely ignorant on this point. There is general morality common to all people. And there is a morality which is truly Christian morality. Now the latter is the most anti-social morality that I know. Take the trouble to re-read the Sermon on the Mount. Re-read the whole gospel and select the distinctive, precepts of Christianity; then tell me whether there is anything more capable of unloosing human ties, of whatever nature. Diderot, Unpublished commentary on the Letter on Man. I believe in God, though I get on very well with atheists. It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley; but it does not matter whether one does or does not believe in God. Diderot to Voltaire, 11 June 1749. |
