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001			76773
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040			_aUtSlPG
041		7	_aen _2iso639-1
050		4	_aBR
100	1		_aNecker, Jacques, _d1732-1804
240	1	0	_aDe l'importance des opinions religieuses. English
245	1	0	_aOf the importance of religious opinions
264		1	_aSalt Lake City, UT : _bProject Gutenberg, _c2025
300			_a1 online resource : _bmultiple file formats
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_acomputer _bc _2rdamedia
338			_aonline resource _bcr _2rdacarrier
500			_aRelease date is 2025-08-31
508			_aRichard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
520			_a"Of the importance of religious opinions" by Jacques Necker is a treatise of moral and political philosophy written in the late 18th century. It contends that religious belief is indispensable to public order and private happiness, countering efforts to ground morality solely in law, reason, or social esteem. The work promises wide scope—from the social uses of worship and relations with sovereigns to arguments for God’s existence, tolerance, and Christian morality. The opening of the treatise presents a translator’s note, a detailed table of contents, and an introduction in which the author, reflecting after public service, argues that administration, law, morality, and religion form one system whose harmony secures social prosperity. He laments fashionable indifference and sets himself between harsh intolerance and flippant unbelief, proposing to test whether a secular “moral catechism” can replace religion. Chapter I asserts that basing virtue on the supposed union of private and public interest fails amid real social inequalities, limited education, and strong passions; laws reach actions but not intentions, whereas religion uniquely addresses imagination, conscience, youth, and the afflicted, offering simple, binding commands and hope beyond the present. At the start of Chapter II, he argues that civil and penal laws and public opinion cannot control hidden or ambiguous wrongs; only conscience, grounded in God, can, and even judges need both statute and inward moral responsibility, while reputation and public rewards are narrow, fallible incentives beside religion’s universal, interior authority. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534			_pOriginally published: _cLondon: J. Johnson, 1788
653			_aChristianity -- Early works to 1800
700	1		_aWollstonecraft, Mary, _d1759-1797
856	4		_uhttps://archive.org/details/religiousopinion00neckuoft
856	4	0	_uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76773
999			_c117498 _d117498