I knew about the fictional Cyrano de Bergerac from the play about the love struck poet. I recently learned about the real life Cyrano and his short life as an atheist libertine. Dangerous lifestyle practices in the 17th century.
A few quotes from a play he penned " Le Pédantjoué " :
“What, then, are these gods? The offspring of our fears; pretty nothings that we adore without knowing why… Gods whom man has made, and who never made man.”
And on immortality:
“One hour after death our vanished soul will be that which it was an hour before life.”
Here are a couple of links to interesting articles about him :
http://www.atheology.ca/cyrano/
http://ezinearticles.com/?Cyrano-De-Bergerac:-Boldest-Atheist-Ever!&id=8...
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Cyrano de Begerac's response to Pascal's Wager ( from his sci-fi novel "The Other World" 1657) :
"I ask you only why you find the belief inconvenient. I'm quite sure you can find no reason. Since it can only be useful, why do you not let yourself be persuaded? If God exists and you don't believe in Him, you will have made a mistake and disobeyed the commandment to believe in Him. If there is no God, you won't be any better off than the rest of us."
"Oh yes I will be better off than you," he answered, "because if there is no God, the game is tied. But, on the contrary, if there is one, I can't have offended something I thought did not exist. Sin requires knowing or willing. Don't you see? Even the least wise would not take offense if some uncouth man insulted him as long as the man hadn't intended to, or had mistaken him for someone else, or wine had loosened his tongue. All the more reason then to ask: will God, who is all-imperturbable, get mad at us for not having recognized Him when He, himself, has denied us the means of knowing Him?
"But by all you believe, my little animal, if belief in God were so necessary and were of eternal importance to us, would God himself not infuse in everyone enlightenment as bright as the Sun, which hides from no one? Do we pretend that God wants to play hide-and-seek with us, like children calling 'Peekaboo, I see you!'? Does God put on a mask and then take it off? Does He disguise himself to some and reveal himself to others? That would be a God who is either silly or malicious.
Yea i like his answer, thanks for the contribution.
yea i had similar thoughts about cannot offend something you thought did not exist.
Adding to that note is the fact that you get absolved from all sins from all gods if you are an atheist, thus avoiding the need to guess the right god from 1000's of other gods.
Truly an atheist to be recognized, no matter how late on.
Good old Cyrano. I wonder why we never discussed the subject. Guess he felt he needed a more appropriate audience?
Edit: BTW, I wanted to thank Chimp3 for the links. Very interesting person.