Two things spoil the beauty of a religion: words of order and words of hate. A fanatic will immediately object, “It is the duty of the righteous to hate what is evil!” Oh, but of course, my friend! And bad, of course, are they!… If we analyze the destructive and pernicious effects of religions, if we try to understand why so many corpses and so much blood have been shed under the pretext of praising and honoring them, we will see that everything goes back to the lamentable tone in which several of their pages were written. The tone of order degrades the believer to a servant, and the pride of the servant requires him to demand from others the same servile posture, even if he is not ordered to do so. What can we say about hate?… an evil quality, responsible for blinding man and tearing his humanity from him, an inciter of pride and ignorance, a catalyst for a worse human being. Religions debase themselves from the moment they start talking about adherents and not adherents.
Words of Order and Words of Hate
