Poetry of Atheism

In this spot I will share some of my favourite atheist (or otherwise unorthodox) poetry.

Please feel free to leave any type of comment, whether positive or negative; whether to give useful advice or to commend my spirit to Hell. At this early stage I’m open to any interested reader…

For the inaugural posting I thought I’d share a few stanzas from the French atheist poet Sylvain Marechal, who wrote these lines in the late 1700s, but didn’t publish them during his lifetime.

From “Fragments from a Philosophical Poem” (my own (sloppy, metre-less) translation), the first of 40 or so fragments…

 

FRAGMENT 1

“World, who made you?  Who lit up the sun?

“Whom do you owe your life to, Man? Who made everyone?

“Does the universe have only chance for its Lord?

“Chance is just a word…”

     But what is God–something more?

Nothing is unborn; nothing dies not; everything is chained,

All of it to a game of change,

By turns, material otherwise wrought,

Vegetates inside plants, but in Man forms his thoughts:

Everything gets dressed up, puts on, in the same object,

You find, at the same time a principle, an effect:

By its own influence, nature works on it,

And ever takes new forms as fit:

The elements, friends and rivals at once,

Tend to the same goals by contrary laws.

To contain order, or see war in its power;

On Earth, the attack and defense is observed

Perfect balance and of good and crime;

And life and death, all is of equal esteem.

The weak is always the victim of the strong:

Thus, as always, the universe goes along.

     Within a dark dilemma, this professor of no consequence

Comes to me to talk of a God, of a Being of Intelligence,

Who made all for the best, Master of all that is.

“There is no doubt: a First Cause exists;

“Everything says, There is a God; everything on the Earth and up over;

“Of the seasons and days the miraculous order

“Of opposite creatures, astonishing accord;

“Of the plan that rules all, the infinite word.

“Go from one pole to the other and from the mountainous mists,

“Descend, hardy mortal, to the profound abyss;

“Everything shows our eyes, shouts with a voice of thunder,

“That there is a God, author of all these wonders.”

 

If God exists, everything should attest it:

If God exists, could anyone doubt it? 

Has geometry ever had an heretic?

Does a reckoner need a stick,

To prove that a triangle always has three sides?

Or that two plus two are four? Besides,
If a God existed, everything would be well, without doubt:
Next to Good is Evil; but crowding in upon my route,
The fears, the boredoms, under a thousand aspects diverse,
Make me a prison for me out of this beautiful universe.
What! below the gaze of a God, vice is ennobled again,
And the wise man, meanwhile, vegetates, forgotten!
The generous transports of proud patriotism,
Give place to the cold calculations of sterile egoism!
See how, below the gaze of God, everywhere self-interest reigns,
And modest virtue invites a disgusted glance!
If God exists, as confessed by Socrates,
Such a God should have saved him from his ungrateful country…
If God existed, would Nero have been born?
………
If God existed, would so many fanatic cases,
These charlatans in our public places,
Would they in His name sell their magic rings,
Smothering Reason beneath their reasonings,
Fooling the good faith of the all too gullible mob,

And seeing it tremble at their feet beneath their rod?

If God were, the people without error

Of a universal worship would render Him honours,

And beside the same altar, always from intellect,

Would praise His power and bless His goodness.

If a God existed, would the opulent guilty man

Dare to fix an insolent glance

Upon the righteous, oppressed man, the wise man who, instead of arms,

Has but his own tears, innocence and his heart? 

In vain should I be opposed by the laws of the world that’s to come:
Why permit a crime? Just to punish someone?
Should God be pleased to count victims?
He should be great enough to prevent crimes: 
Whatever may come, on this terrestrial clod,
Miserable virtue attests against a God.

(Original is online at: http://gallica.bnf.fr/)