Baron d'Holbach — French Author died on December 29, 1789

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon. He was well known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature... (wikipedia)

Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.
To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: They have need only of common sense.
When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths or to reject absurdities and palpable contradictions.
If God be an infinite being, there cannot be, either in the present or future world, any relative proportion between man and his God. Thus, the idea of God can never enter the human mind.
Religion unites man with God, or forms a communication between them; yet do they not say, 'God is infinite?' If God be infinite, no finite being can have communication or relation with him.