The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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You have understood me The beginning of the Bible contains the whole psychology of the priest—The priest knows only one great danger, and that is science,—the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,—a man must have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to “pursue knowledge” ... “_Consequently_ man must be made unhappy,”—this has been the argument of the priest of all ages.—You have already divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must first have come into the world:—“sin.” ... The notion of guilt and punishment, the whole “moral order of the universe,” was invented against science,—against the deliverance of man from the priest.... Man must _not_ cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it inwards into himself; he must not as a learner look cleverly and cautiously _into_ things; he must not see at all: he must _suffer._ ... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every minute.—Away with doctors!
What is needed is a Saviour!—The notion of guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of “grace,” of “salvation” and of “forgiveness”—all _lies_ through and through without a shred of psychological reality—were invented in order to destroy man’s _sense of causality:_ they are an attack on the concept of cause and effect!—And _not_ an attack with the fist, with the knife, with honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A _priests_ attack! A _parasite’s_ attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches!—... When the natural consequences of an act are no longer “natural,” but are thought to be conjured up by phantom concepts of superstition, by “God,” by “spirits,” and by “souls,” as merely moral consequences, in the form of rewards, punishments, hints, and educational means,—then the whole basis of knowledge is destroyed,—_then the greatest crime against man has been perpetrated._—Sin, I repeat, this form of self-pollution _par excellence_ on the part of man, was invented in order to make science, culture and every elevation and noble trait in man quite impossible; by means of the invention of sin the priest is able to _rule._
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.