He only believes in God and fears Him in the hour of supreme cowardice, when death opens before him the bottomless pit of nothingness, and his pride as a rational animal revolts against the complete extinction of his being.
He wishes his soul to be immortal, and so he accepts the religious phantasies of heaven and hell.

The Church, fearing the irreligiousness of health, has occupied, as you say, all the avenues of life, so that no man shall accustom himself to live without her, appealing solely to her in the hour of death.

The dead provide much money, they are her best asset; but she wishes equally to reign over the living.

Nothing escapes her despotism and her spying.

She insinuates herself into all human concerns from the greatest to the most insignificant, she interferes in both public and private life; she baptizes the child when it comes into the world, accompanies the child to school, monopolises love, declaring it shameful and abominable if it does not submit to her benediction, and divides the earth into two categories--the consecrated, for those who die in her bosom, and the dunghill in the open air for the heretic.