Superstition in all agesHolbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Religion
Superstition in all ages
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Atheism
Here is yet another vision. Watching the flocks of his father-in-law,
Laban, who had promised him that all the speckled lambs produced by his
sheep should be his recompense, he dreamed one night that he saw all the
males leap upon the females, and all the lambs they brought forth were
speckled. In this beautiful dream, God appeared to him, and said: "Lift
up now thine eyes and see that the rams which leap upon the cattle are
ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban
does unto thee. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto
the land of thy kindred." As he was returning with his whole family, and
with all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a
wrestle with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking
of the day, and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked
him who he was. Jacob told Him his name; and He said: "Thy name shall be
called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with
God and with men, and hast prevailed."
This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine
Revelations. We can judge of the others by these. Now, what appearance
of Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain? As if
some foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France,
and, after seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should
claim that God had appeared to them in their country, that He had told
them to go into France, and that He would give to them and to their
posterity all the beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this
kingdom which extend from the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea;
that He would make an everlasting alliance with them, that He would
multiply their race, that He would make their posterity as numerous as
the stars of Heaven and as the sands of the sea, etc., who would not
laugh at such folly, and consider these strangers as insane fools!
Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by
these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to
the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had. As to the
institution of bloody sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to
God. As it would be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of
this kind of sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters
xxv., xxvii., xxyiii., and xxix.]
Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring God by
tearing into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under
the pretext of offering them as sacrifices to Him? And even now, how is
it that our Christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please
God the Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son,
in remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He
died? Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of
mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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