"If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiam or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them, that credulity preserves them; and that custom respects and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests."
- Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789) owner of a salon that served as Diderot's philosophizing grounds

Here here! Diderot is stating what we now all see as obvious - that religion is the tool that the ruling class uses to control the masses. The guilt system that corrals men, tames them, just as the same ruling classes violate every precept of the same religion. (See my psychoanalytical Defenses for more) What was the solution for this universal scam?

"The earth will come into its own only when heaven is destroyed."

In other words, mankind will never grow up until it faces challenges on its own, and tosses away it's juvenile need for an omnipotent god to protect him.

How to Bring This About

Diderot recognized that materialism may be an oversimplification of the world - it may be impossible to reduce the unity of consciousness to matter and motion; but materialism is a good weapon against the church, (the church needs spirit, because the material world disproves their contentions) and must be used till a better explanation (and weapon) is found." (Modern science today most certainly possesses these "better weapons"!)

What Diderot is inferring here is that while the atheist can be at peace with uncertainty, the christian dogmatist cannot. The christian, despite his claim of requiring only "faith" violates this claim instantaneously and immediately - he needs certainty and proof or his worldview collapses!

Diderot felt that the best way to "crush the infamous ones" as Voltaire might say, was to spread knowledge and encourage industry - industry will make for the wealth that brings contentment and peace, and knowledge will make a new and natural morality. He cleary saw that the church feared both such forces - for the happier and more knowledgeable a person is, the less he "needs" the church. Historically, the church stood against both wealth (although the church itself pursued it as vigorously as any robber baron) and knowledge. For evidence, consult the entirety of Candle In The Dark!

The catholic church of his time suppressed these writings, naturally enough. As his comrades abanonded him out of fear, his works became invigorated by his rage - more "Nietzsche-like" if you will.

I know nothing so indecent as these vague declamatnions of the theologians against reason. To hear them one would suppose that men could not enter into the bosom of christianity except as a herd of cattle enters a stable.

Assessment of Diderot

Diderot represents fully the Age of Reason that Thomas Paine called this awakening period of history. He saw that reason was man's greatest ability, and that reason was responsible for the progress and happiness that man achieved. He thought that reason was the ultimate human test of all truth and all good - just as Socrates thought. He saw that the struggle of religion against reason represented a struggle of evil vs good, for religion both feared reason and actively fought against it. (See Augustine, Rousseau, and Kant, amongst others)

For this, I find Diderot a clear precursor to Nietzsche and a brave historical hero.