Notwithstanding the bloody tragedies which religion has so often caused in this world, we are constantly told that there can be no morality without religion.  If we judge theological opinions by their effects, we would be right in assuming that all morality is perfectly incompatible with the religious opinions of men.  “Imitate God,” is constantly repeated to us.  Ah! what morals would we have if we should imitate this God!  Which God should we imitate?  Is it the deist’s God?  But even this God can not be a model of goodness for us.  If He is the author of all, He is equally the author of the good and of the bad we see in this world; if He is the author of order, He is also the author of disorder, which would not exist without His permission; if He produces, He destroys; if He gives life, He also causes death; if He grants abundance, riches, prosperity, and peace, He permits or sends famines, poverty, calamities, and wars.  How can you accept as a model of permanent beneficence the God of theism or of natural religion, whose favorable intentions are at every moment contradicted by everything that transpires in the world?  Morality needs a firmer basis than the example of a God whose conduct varies, and whom we can not call good but by obstinately closing the eyes to the evil which He causes, or permits to be done in this world.

Shall we imitate the good and great Jupiter of ancient Paganism?  To imitate such a God would be to take as a model a rebellious son, who wrests his father’s throne from him and then mutilates his body; it is imitating a debauchee and adulterer, an incestuous, intemperate man, whose conduct would cause any reasonable mortal to blush.  What would have become of men under the control of Paganism if they had imagined, according to Plato, that virtue consisted in imitating the gods?

Must we imitate the God of the Jews?  Will we find a model for our conduct in Jehovah?  He is truly a savage God, really created for an ignorant, cruel, and immoral people; He is a God who is constantly enraged, breathing only vengeance; who is without pity, who commands carnage and robbery; in a word, He is a God whose conduct can not serve as a model to an honest man, and who can be imitated but by a chief of brigands.

Shall we imitate, then, the Jesus of the Christians?  Can this God, who died to appease the implacable fury of His Father, serve as an example which men ought to follow?  Alas! we will see in Him but a God, or rather a fanatic, a misanthrope, who being plunged Himself into misery, and preaching to the wretched, advises them to be poor, to combat and extinguish nature, to hate pleasure, to seek sufferings, and to despise themselves; He tells them to leave father, mother, all the ties of life, in order to follow Him.  What beautiful morality! you will say.  It is admirable, no doubt; it must be Divine, because it is impracticable for men.  But does not this sublime morality tend to render virtue despicable?  According