Cult of Reason

The Cult of Reason (French: Culte de la Raison)^{[note 1]} was France's first established state-sponsored atheistic religion, intended as a replacement for Roman Catholicism during the French Revolution. After holding sway for barely a year, in 1794 it was officially replaced by the rival deistic Cult of the Supreme Being, promoted by Robespierre.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] Both cults were officially banned in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte with his Law on Cults of 18 Germinal, Year X.^[5]

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^ Chapters in Western civilization, Volume 1. Columbia University Press. 2012. p. 465. Holbach carried the cult of reason and nature to its culmination in an atheistic denial of the deists' Supreme Being, and made the most influential attack on rational religion ...
^ Flood, Gavin (2012). The Importance of Religion: Meaning and Action in Our Strange World. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1405189712. During the French Revolution in 1793 the Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris was rededicated to the Cult of Reason, an atheistic doctrine intended to replace Christianity.
^ Baker, Keith M. (1987). University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, Volume 7: The Old Regime and the French Revolution. University of Chicago Press. p. 384. ISBN 978-0226069500. In May, he proposed an entire cycle of revolutionary festivals, to begin with the Festival of the Supreme Being. This latter was intended to celebrate a new civil religion as opposed to Christianity as it was to the atheism of the extreme dechristianizers (whose earlier Cult of Reason Robespierre and his associates had repudiated).
^ McGrath, Alister (2008). The Twilight Of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. Random House. p. 45. ISBN 978-1407073767. He was an active member of the faction that successfully campaigned for the atheistic 'Cult of Reason', which was officially proclaimed on November 10, 1793.
^ Doyle 1989, p. 389

[2] Chapters in Western civilization, Volume 1. Columbia University Press. 2012. p. 465. Holbach carried the cult of reason and nature to its culmination in an atheistic denial of the deists' Supreme Being, and made the most influential attack on rational religion ...

[3] Flood, Gavin (2012). The Importance of Religion: Meaning and Action in Our Strange World. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1405189712. During the French Revolution in 1793 the Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris was rededicated to the Cult of Reason, an atheistic doctrine intended to replace Christianity.

[4] Baker, Keith M. (1987). University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization, Volume 7: The Old Regime and the French Revolution. University of Chicago Press. p. 384. ISBN 978-0226069500. In May, he proposed an entire cycle of revolutionary festivals, to begin with the Festival of the Supreme Being. This latter was intended to celebrate a new civil religion as opposed to Christianity as it was to the atheism of the extreme dechristianizers (whose earlier Cult of Reason Robespierre and his associates had repudiated).

[5] McGrath, Alister (2008). The Twilight Of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World. Random House. p. 45. ISBN 978-1407073767. He was an active member of the faction that successfully campaigned for the atheistic 'Cult of Reason', which was officially proclaimed on November 10, 1793.

[DOYLE-6] Doyle 1989, p. 389

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