System of Nature - Preface

"Truth speaks not to those perverse beings:--her voice can only be heard by generous souls accustomed to reflection, whose sensibilities make them lament the numberless calamities showered on the earth by political and religious tyranny--whose enlightened minds contemplate with horror the immensity, the ponderosity of that series of misfortunes which error has in all ages overwhelmed mankind. To error must be attributed those insupportable chains which tyrants, which priests have forged for most nations. To error must be equally attributed that abject slavery into which the people of almost every country have fallen. Nature designed they should pursue their happiness and by the most perfect freedom.--To error must be attributed those religious terrors which, almost every climate, have either petrified man with fear, or caused him to destroy himself for coarse or fanciful beings. 

To error must be attributed those  inveterate hatreds, those barbarous persecutions, those numerous massacres, those dreadful tragedies, of which, under pretext of serving the interests of heaven, the earth has been but too frequently made the theatre. It is error consecrated by religious enthusiasm, which produces that ignorance, that uncertainty in which man ever finds himself with regard to his most evident duties, his clearest rights, the most demonstrable truths. In short, man is almost everywhere a poor degraded captive, devoid of greatness of soul, of reason, or of virtue, whom his inhuman gaolers have never permitted to see the light of day." -Baron d'Halbocc

Strange are the times we live in: Religious fundamentalism is on the rise, medievalism making a comeback, religious terror and tyranny and racism becoming common, and our politics is theater to entertain. And so ever foreign is the candle of rationality, reason, and common sense; the jewels by which the mind is elevated to greatness. It seems to me the masses, overwhelmed by life and dogmatic beliefs and propaganda, want simple solutions to life's complex problems. To escape from reality and into reality shows, facebook sound bytes and tweets, is a path towards destruction.