If we coolly examine these threatenings, we shall find, they always
suppose the thing in question. They must first prove the existence
of a God, before they assure us, it is safest to believe, and horrible
to doubt or deny his existence. They must then prove, that it is
possible and consistent, that a just God cruelly punishes men for
having been in a state of madness, that prevented their believing
the existence of a being, whom their perverted reason could not conceive.
In a word, they must prove, that an infinitely just God can infinitely
punish the invincible and natural ignorance of man with respect
to the divine nature. Do not theologians reason very strangely?
They invent phantoms, they compose them of contradictions; they
then assure us, it is safest not to doubt the existence of these
phantoms they themselves have invented. According to this mode of
reasoning, there is no absurdity, which it would not be more safe
to believe, than not to believe.

All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God. Are they
then criminal on account of their ignorance? At what age must they
begin to believe in God? It is, you say, at the age of reason.
But at what time should this age commence? Besides, if the profoundest
theologians lose themselves in the divine nature, which they do not
presume to comprehend, what ideas must man have of him?


31. Men believe in God only upon the word of those, who have no more
idea of him than themselves. Our nurses are our first theologians.
They talk to children of God as if he were a scarecrow; they teach
them from the earliest age to join their hands mechanically. Have
nurses then more true ideas of God than the children whom they teach
to pray?