To such evils could religion persuade!--is more than the exclamation of righteous indignation against the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father, Agamemnon, at the bidding of a priest, to propitiate a goddess. It is still further applicable to the long chain of outrageous wrongs which have been inflicted upon the innocent at the instigation of a stupid and savage fanaticism. What is worst of all, much of this bloodthirsty religion has claimed a commission from the God of love, and performed its detestable deeds in the insulted name of that soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit, whom the loftiest and best of men delight to adore as the Prince of peace. No wonder that Voltaire cried out, Christian religion, behold thy consequences! if he could calculate that ten million lives had been immolated on the altar of a spurious Christianity. One hundred thousand were slain in the Bartholomew massacre alone. Righteousness, peace, and love were not the monster which Voltaire laboured to crush: he was most intensely incensed against the blind and bigoted priesthood, against the malicious and murderous servants who ate the bread of a holy and harmless Master, against their intolerance of light and hatred of knowledge, their fierce yet profoundly contemptible struggles with one another, the scandals of their p. 145 casuistry, their besotted cruelty. 273 We have been betrayed into speaking thus strongly of the extreme lengths to which superstition will carry those who yield themselves to its ruthless tyranny. But perhaps we have not gone far from our subject, after all; for the innocent Iphigenia, whose doom kindled our ire, was sacrificed to the goddess of the moon.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 19:19:12 +0000
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