“If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that the ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy enthusiasm or deceit adorned or disfigured them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them; and that custom, respect and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness of men serve its own interests.” --Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach.
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Nothing to disagree with here.
There are those who argue that religion is necessary for at least some people. To agree with this I’d have to agree with the proposition that we have no practical choice but to abandon some people (people who will inevitably become an underclass) to “ignorance and fear”. And I don’t agree with that. I’m sorely tempted in the present situation in the US, mind you, but I don’t agree – if only because I think it’s unhealthy for a society to let ignorance and fear simmer and breed uncountered within itself. We have to fight it, which means never abandoning any of our fellow humans to the darkness.
It may in fact be that a significant part of the reason we in the US are going through what we are, is exactly because those who were relatively progressive in their politics and/or religious persuasions, cut the knuckle-draggers loose to fend for themselves instead of reaching out to them. One important way would have been to protect everyone’s jobs and purchasing power, including theirs. If we had done that instead of catering to the wealthy, they might have seen (or at least intuited) the value in civil society and social safety nets. They would not have been vulnerable to the lie that these public goods are the source of their problems.
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