The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Jean Meslier (1678-1733)

Jean Meslier (1678-1733)

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Jean Meslier (1678-1733) He was a parish priest in France who at his death left behind a manuscript he dared not publish or even show anyone, titled “My Testament”. On the packet he wrote “If I embraced a profession so directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity; I obeyed my parents.” He apologized to his parishioners for having “served error and prejudice” all through his career. No one dared publish the full text till 1864. His story is contained in Will Durant’s “The Age of Voltaire”. Durant has this to say... “He seems to have begun his doubts by studying the Bible...why was the genealogy of Christ in the Gospel of St Mathew so different from that in Luke, if both were authored by God? Why did both of these gentlemen end with Joseph, who was soon to be excused from begetting Jesus? Why should the son of God be complimented on being the Son of David, who was an arrant adulterer?” Durant quotes Meslier, “I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to distinguish between good and evil, the true and the false...I will not give up my experience, because it is a much better guide than my imagination, or than the authority of the guides whom they wish to give me...I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand I know that they do not deceive me always...my senses suffice to rectify hasty judgments which they induced me to form.” Durant continues... “ Meslier saw no warrant in reason for believing in free will or the immortality of the soul. He thought we should be grateful that we are allowed an eternal sleep after the turmoil of ‘this world which causes more trouble than pleasure to the majority of you...and pass by without murmuring, like all the beings that surround you.’” “To those who defended the conception of heaven as a consolation, he replied that on their own allegations only a minority ever reached that goal, while the majority went to hell; how, then, could the idea of immortality be a consolation? ‘The belief which delivers me from overwhelming fears...appears to me more desirable than the uncertainty in which I am left through a belief in God who, master of his favors, gives them but to his favorites, and permits all the others to render themselves worthy of eternal punishments’. How could any civilized person believe in a god who would condemn his creatures to everlasting hell?” Meslier... “ Is there in nature a man so cruel as to wish in cold blood to torment, I do not say his fellow beings, but any sentient being whatever? Conclude, then, O theologians, that according to your own principles your God is infinitely more wicked than the most wicked of men....The priests have made a God of such malicious, ferocious being...that there are few men in the world who do not wish that God did not exist....What morals would we have if we should imitate this God!” Durant.... “The Christian God, he argued, is the author of all evil, for, since he is omnipotent, nothing can happen without his consent. If he gives us life he also causes death; if he grants us health and riches, he sends us, in recompense, poverty, famine, disasters and war. There are in the world many indications of intelligent design, but are there not quite as many signs that this Divine Providence, if it exists, is capable of the most devilish mischief?” Meslier again.... “All the books are filled with the most flattering praises of Providence, whose attentive care is extolled...However, if we examine all the parts of this globe, we see the uncivilized as well as the civilized man in perpetual struggle with Providence; he is compelled to ward off the blows which it sends in the form of hurricanes, tempests, frost, hail, inundations, sterility, and the diverse accidents which so often render all man’s labors useless. In a word, I see the human race continually occupied in protecting itself from the wicked tricks of this Providence, which is said to be busy in the care of their happiness.” Durant... “After all, was there ever a stranger and more incredible God than this? For thousands of years he kept himself hidden from mankind, and heard without any clear and visible response the prayers and praises of billions of men. He is supposed to be infinitely wise, but his empire is ridden with disorder and destruction. He is supposed to be good but he punishes like an inhuman fiend. He is supposed to be just, and he lets the wicked prosper and his saints to be tortured to death. He is continually occupied in creating and destroying.” “Instead of holding, like Voltaire, that belief in God is natural and universal, Meslier contended that such a belief is unnatural, and has to be infused into the adolescent mind.” Meslier again... “All children are atheists...they have no idea of God...men believe in God only upon the word of those who have no more idea of him than themselves. Our nurses are our first theologians; they talk to children about God as they talk to them of werewolves...Very few people would have a god if care had not been taken to give them one.” Durant... “And whereas most atheists professed admiration for Jesus, Meslier included Christ too in his passionate demolition of religious faith. First of all, what sane man could believe that ‘God, with the view of reconciling himself with mankind...would sacrifice his own innocent and sinless son?’ As for Jesus himself,” “ We see him...a fanatic, a misanthrope, who, preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise themselves. He tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life, in order to follow him. What beautiful morality!....It must be divine, because it is impracticable for men.” Durant, “Meslier moves on to complete materialism. It is not necessary to go beyond matter and ask who created it; the puzzle of origins would merely be put back a step to the child’s natural question, ‘Who made God’?....’if you must worship something, worship the sun, as many peoples do, for the sun is the real creator of our life and health and light and warmth and joy’. But alas, mourns Meslier, ‘if religion were clear it would have fewer attractions for the ignorant. They need obscurity, mysteries, fables, miracles, incredible things....Priests and legislators, by inventing religions and forging mysteries,...have served them to their taste. In this way they attract enthusiasts, women and the illiterate.’” Meslier... “theological disputes...have unsettled empires and caused revolutions, ruined sovereigns devastated the whole of Europe. These despicable quarrels could not be extinguished even in rivers of blood...the votaries of a religion which preaches...charity, harmony, and peace have shown themselves more ferocious than cannibals or savages every time that their instructors have excited them to the destruction of their brethren. There is no crime which men have not committed in the idea of pleasing the deity or appeasing his wrath...or to sanction the knaveries of impostors on account of a being who exists only in their imagination.” Durant, “This gigantic and self-perpetuating conspiracy of Church and state against man and reason is defended on the ground that a supernatural religion, and even a religion of terror, is an indispensable aid in the task of forming men to morality.” Meslier, “But is it true that this dogma [of heaven and hell] renders men...more virtuous? The nations where this fiction is established, are they remarkable for the morality of their conduct?...To disabuse us...it is sufficient to open the eyes and to consider what are the morals of the most religious people. We see haughty tyrants, courtiers, countless extortioners, unscrupulous magistrates, impostors, adulterers, libertines, prostitutes, thieves and rogues of all kinds, who have never doubted the existence of a vindictive God, or the punishments of hell, or the joys of paradise.” “To discern the true principles of morality men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods; they need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of its members; and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury, to beings of their species. ...Men are unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent them from being enlightened; and they are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed.” There is much to provoke thought and commentary...but let Meslier have the last word... “From the most remote periods theology alone regulated the march of philosophy(which can be taken to include enlightened thought and education, mine). What aid has theology given it? It changed it into an unintelligible jargon,...with words void of sense, better suited to obscure then to enlighten...How Descartes, Malebranche, Leibnitz, and many others have been compelled to invent hypotheses and evasions in order to reconcile their discoveries with the reveries and blunders which religion has rendered sacred! With what precautions have not the greatest philosophers guarded themselves, even at the risk of being absurd...and unintelligible, whenever their ideas did not correspond with the principles of theology!” “Vigilant priests were always ready to extinguish systems which could not be made to tally with their interests...all that the most enlightened men could do was to speak and write with hidden meaning; and often, by a cowardly complaisance, to shamefully ally falsehood with truth...How could modern philosophers, who, threatened with the most cruel persecution, were called upon to renounce reason and to submit to faith...that is, to priestly authority...how could men thus fettered give free flight to their genius,...or hasten human progress?” Durant interrupts... “Meslier mourned the loss to mankind from this domination of philosophy by theology. He pleaded for freedom of thought as the basic right that ‘alone can give to men humanesss and grandeur of soul.’” Finally Meslier... “It is only by showing them the truth that they can know their best interests and the real motives that will lead them to happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes upon heaven; let them at last bring them back to earth. Tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge.” --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

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