Justine

Frequently we hear the passions declaimed against by unthinking orators who forget that these passions supply the spark that sets alight the lantern of philosophy; who forget that 'tis to impassioned men we owe the overthrow of all those religious idiocies wherewith for so long the world was plagued. 'Twas nought but the fires of emotion cindered that odious scare, the Divinity, in whose name so many throats were cut for so many centuries; passion alone dared obliterate those foul altars. Ah, had the passions rendered man no other service, is this one not great enough to make us indulgent toward the passions' mischievous pranks?

Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade
Justine
Page 88

Interesting to see how the great materialist philosopher de Sade dealt with the question of religion in the late 1700s: already he viewed it to be past tense, the playground of fools and exploiters. So if he saw religion as defunct by 1790 (Justine was already in the public domain by then) why is it still with us? What needs does it satisfy that other philosophies do not?

Mostly, this is to try out a new program, Blog Entry Poster for Linux, that I just downloaded and installed. Seems to be extremely simple and effective. Been having problems with Scribefire under Shiretoko, so thought I'd try this.