Verses Across™

  • Atheist, agnostic, deist and skeptic writers. Verses Across shows each tradition in its own words. This section holds the classic public-domain writing of those who questioned or rejected religion.

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Freethought · Atheism

Superstition in All Ages 19XXII.—All Which Exists Springs from the Bosom of Matter

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Freethought · Atheism

Superstition in All Ages 19

XXII.—All Which Exists Springs from the Bosom of Matter

KnoopEnglish
Is it not more natural and more intelligible to deduce all which exists, from the bosom of matter, whose existence is demonstrated by all our senses, whose effects we feel at every moment, which we see act, move, communicate, motion, and constantly bring living beings into existence, than to attribute the formation of things to an unknown force, to a spiritual being, who can not draw from his ground that which he has not himself, and who, by the spiritual essence claimed for him, is incapable of making anything, and of putting anything in motion? Nothing is plainer than that they would have us believe that an intangible spirit can act upon matter.

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Sources & credits: Knoop

Knoop — Superstition in All Ages (Jean Meslier, translated by Anna Knoop) (1729). Public Domain. Jean Meslier, translated by Anna Knoop, Superstition in All Ages; public domain in the US; text from Project Gutenberg #17607. Source

Freethought · Atheism

Superstition in All Ages 20

KnoopEnglish