“But unlike the editors of Charlie Hebdo, these men did not wear their irreligiosity on their sleeves. Cremonini’s motto was “think inwardly as you like, but conform outwardly to custom.” Public irreligion, Cremonini understood, was too dangerous, as the executions of Etienne Dolet (in Paris in 1546) and Cesare Vanini (in Toulouse in 1619) made all too clear. Skepticism was therefore limited to trusted and learned circles.”
I can confirm that this is true about the French. For instance if you read THE UNFINISHED SYSTEM OF NONKNOWLEDGE by Bataille, he is really having fun with the clerics and the ideology whilst dismantling it by putting it into secular terms. For instance he insists on the benefits of “sinning”. He uses the same language but means something else, and he really gets the dogmatists worked up in trying to correct his terminology. Of course we, the readers, ought to know it is a joke, albeit a very serious one because it is Bataille’s attempt to use the existing religious framework to install a mode of thinking that will be entirely godless and (in this sense) natural.
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