Domination -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sections (TOC) : ---------------------------------- * 1 72 Words; 479 Characters * 2 46 Words; 283 Characters * 3 85 Words; 528 Characters * 4 25 Words; 161 Characters * 5 12 Words; 74 Characters * 6 20 Words; 150 Characters * 7 11 Words; 89 Characters * 8 159 Words; 861 Characters * 9 84 Words; 482 Characters * 10 54 Words; 295 Characters * 11 12 Words; 91 Characters * 12 55 Words; 287 Characters * 13 32 Words; 202 Characters Sections (Content) : ---------------------------------- * 1 ...superstition is an enemy to civil liberty, and enthusiasm a friend to it. As superstition groans under the dominion of priests, and enthusiasm is destructive of all ecclesiastical power, this sufficiently accounts for the present observation. Not to mention, that enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition, on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery. * 2 They were the monstrously big monasteries whose bells tolled and tolled and nobody heard them. The poor, the desperate did not understand their language, but they noted the false timbre. Those bells tolled for others. They were not calls to love; they were snorts of vanity. * 3 Very far from being a civilizing force, Christianity has always, throughout the course of history, placed obstacles in the path of progress. We shall find in it the negation of science, which disproves its dogmas; the firmest support of absolutism, and of the inequality of the social classes; the oppressor of the human conscience in the clamps of its false morality; the odious standard in whose shadow all crimes have been committed; the vampire thirsting for blood, to whom have been sacrificed millions of victims. * 4 ...this bleeding world, which would surely convince sentient vultures that God created it for them. Call that cynicism, if you like. I call it accuracy. * 5 ...as Christians call it, "Faith," or as I call it, "the herd"... * 6 ...the Church, like the state, had largely excluded the indigenous and the poor from political, economic, cultural, and social participation. * 7 ...the Religion of kings and priests [is] conspiring against suffering humanity. * 8 Christian charity does not readily allow a man to think hardly of his neighbors. As soon as, by some trick, he has discovered the art of imposing on them and getting hold of a share in the public authority, you have a man established in dignity; it is the will of God that he be respected: very soon you have a power; it is God's will that it be obeyed: and if the power is abused by him who wields it, it is the scourge wherewith God punishes His children. There would be scruples about driving out the usurper: public tranquility would have to be disturbed, violence would have to be employed, and blood spilled; all this accords ill with Christian meekness; and after all, in this vale of sorrows, what does it matter whether we are free men or serfs? The essential thing is to get to heaven, and resignation is only an additional means of doing so. * 9 Jesus Christ was crucified because he attempted to supersede the ritual of Moses. As time rolled on the opinions of men changed until Christianity became an established dogma which it meant death to dispute. Though he who does dispute it may be imprisoned, slandered and persecuted, if he has courage in his belief future ages may exalt him to a divinity and persecute others in his name as he was persecuted in the name of his predecessor. Such is the homage of the world. * 10 Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well pleasing to him. He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is -- a purely egoistic cause. * 11 God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. * 12 It would be foolish to assert that there is no power above mine. Only the attitude that I take toward it will be quite another than that of the religious age: I shall be the enemy of -- every higher power, while religion teaches us to make it our friend and be humble toward it. * 13 The kingdom is upwards of three hundred leagues in diameter, and divided into thirty provinces; there the Fathers possess all, and the people nothing; it is a masterpiece of reason and justice. Events : ---------------------------------- Domination -- Added : April 13, 2020 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://RevoltSource.com/