Our god believers tell us that we are gods’ special creation, that everything that has happened since the beginning of time was to culminate in man, who they tell us is at the apex of nature. To this claim, d’Holdbach has such a beautiful response.
This dogma[that of the immortality of the soul] was received with avidity, because it flattered the desires, and especially the vanity of man, who arrogated to himself a superiority above all the beings that enjoy existence, and which he would pass by and reduce to mere clay; who believed himself the favourite of god, without ever taxing his attention with this other fact- that god makes him every instant experience vicissitudes, calamities and trials, as all sentient natures experience; that god made him, in fine, to undergo death or dissolution, which is an invariable law that all that exists must find verified.
We have been accused of degrading man by comparing him to other brutes, to say that he is just an animal albeit with intelligence which most members of its species seem to have in less capacities to the brutes in question or if they have, they never get to use. To this charge, he responds thus
it is unnecessary to tell me that we degrade man when we compare him with the beasts, deprived of souls and intelligence; this is no leveling doctrine, but one which places him exactly where nature places him, but from which his puerile vanity has unfortunately driven him. All beings are equal; under various and different forms they act differently; they are governed in their appetites and passions by laws which are invariably the same for all of the same species; everything which is composed of parts will be dissolved; every thing which has life must part with it at death; all men are equally compelled to submit to this fate; they are equal at death, although during life their power, their talents and especially their virtues, established a marked difference, which, though real, is only momentary.
He then writes about the absurdity of the trinity. He writes
the first of these mysteries is the trinity, which supposes that one god, self existent, who is pure spirit, is, nevertheless, composed of three divinities, which have obtained the names of persons. These three gods, who are designated under the respective names of the father, son and holy ghost, are, nevertheless, but one god only. The three persons are equal in power, in wisdom, in perfections; yet the second is subordinate to the first, in consequence of which he was compelled to become a man, and be the victim of the wrath of his father. This is what the priests call the mystery of the incarnation. Notwithstanding his innocence, his perfection, his purity, the son of god became the object of the vengeance of a just god, who is the same as the son in question, but who would not consent to appease himself but by the death of his own son, who is a portion of himself. The son of god, not content with becoming man, died without having sinned, for the salvation of men who had sinned. God preferred to the punishment of imperfect beings, whom he did not choose to amend, the punishment of his only son, full of divine perfections. The death of god became necessary to reclaim the human kind from the slavery of satan, who without that would not have quit his prey, and who has been found sufficiently powerful against the omnipotent to oblige him to sacrifice his son. This is what the priests designate by the name of the mystery of redemption.
Random thoughts 