The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason

Here then we are first to consider a book, presented to us by a barbarous and ignorant people, written in an age when they were still more barbarous, and in all probability long after the facts which it relates, corroborated by no concurring testimony, and resembling those fabulous accounts, which every nation gives of its origin.

So that, upon the whole, we may conclude, that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity: and whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.