Currently I just started plowing through The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of writings with atheistic and agnostic messages edited together by modern day crusader against all that is (un)Holy, Christopher Hitchens. The sampled works range from the Roman philosopher Lucretius all the way to modern day Dutch feminist and critic of Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I'm sure I'll be adding quotes from a number of sections in this impressive collection, but I'll begin with where I've most recently finished, a section of Thomas Hobbes Leviathan.
For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto, or shall arrive hereafter, it is impossible for a man, who continually endeavoureth to secure himself against the evil he fears, and procure the good he desireth, not to be in a perpetual solicitude of the time to come; so that every man, especially those that are over-provident, are in an estate like to that of Prometheus. For as Prometheus (which, interpreted, is the prudent man) was bound to the hill Caucasus, a place of large prospect, where an eagle, feeding on his liver, devoured in the day as much as was repaired in the night: so that man, which looks too far before him in the care of future time, hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by fear of death, poverty, or other calamity; and has no repose, nor pause of his anxiety, but in sleep...
...And in these four things, opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion; which, by reason of the different fancies, judgements, and passions of several men, hath grown up into ceremonies so different that those which are used by one man are for the most part ridiculous to another...
...For seeing all formed religion is founded at first upon the faith which a multitude hath in some one person, whom they believe not only to be a wise man and to labour to procure their happiness, but also to be a holy man to whom God Himself vouchsafeth to declare His will supernaturally, it followeth necessarily when they that have the government of religion shall come to have either the wisdom of those men, their sincerity, or their love suspected, or that they shall be unable to show any probable token of divine revelation, that the religion which they desire to uphold must be suspected likewise and (without the fear of the civil sword) contradicted and rejected.
-"Of Religion", Leviathan; Thomas Hobbes
There is some ambiguity about Hobbes' exact stance on religion considering the precarious situation he was in during the English Civil War. Hobbes makes clear reference to the Judaic-Christian faith as being different from what he entitles as the Gentile faiths with the former being born from divine revelation and the later created by man and his fear. However, the trick is noticed by the reader who observes how Hobbes never really makes a distinction between the false prophets of revelation and those supposedly truly in communication with God. The planting of kind words for the Judea-Christian tradition would save Hobbes from being out-right labelled an atheist (a punishable crime at the time), but clearly Hobbes seems to feel Religion is an institution of the state born from taking advantage of the populaces fears and ignorance. This is a theme central to most later atheistic attacks against religion and shows very prominently in the works of Marx and Freud.
Here is a link to the whole of "Of Religion" from Leviathan(as a part of the whole text).
Note: this is not me!
