Religion is consoling only to those who have no embarrassment about it; the indefinite and vague recompense which it promises without giving ideas of it, is made to deceive those who make no reflections on the impatient, variable, false and cruel character which religion gives its god. [….]Nothing, doubtless, but the blindest enthusiasm could induce mortals to place confidence in such a god as the priests have feigned; it is folly alone we must attribute the love some well meaning people profess to the god of the parsons; it is matchless extravagance alone that could prevail on men to reckon on the unknown rewards which are promised them by this religion, at the same time that it assures us that god is the author of grace, but that we have no right to expect any thing from him.
d’Holdbach in Letters to Eugenia
Random thoughts 