Why did the French Revolutionary reject religion in favor of reason? If the problem was that they thought the Catholic Church was too in league with the monarchy, why wasn't Protestantism an option?

by mrsaturdaypants
Second_Mate

That's a rather simplistic view. There was no typical "French Revolutionary", hence suggesting that the French Revolutionaries rejected religion is a gross generalisation. Some French Revolutionaries were simply atheists, some were humanists, some were protestants, some were catholics; indeed, some had been priests of the Catholic Church, like Le Bon. Robespierre's view, for example, was a form of deism. The Cult of the Supreme Being was, despite not being christian, still a form of religion, so religion wasn't universally abandoned, despite the de-Christianisation carried out by some fanatics. For more on this, try "The Jacobin Republic" by Bouloiseau.