Atheists & Agnostics

Farmer-Rick

(11,745 posts)

12. Believing absurdities leads to believing in other stupid crap.

Tue Apr 15, 2025, 06:13 PM

Apr 15

A Warning from Voltaire from back in the 1776. A translation from French:

"Formerly there were those who said: You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is injust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well. And from this derives all those crimes of religion which have overrun the world."

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/origins-warning-from-voltaire

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Believing absurdities leads to believing in other stupid crap. Farmer-Rick Apr 15 #12