Ricerc@Sapienza

Free thinkers of the 17th century, identified as «erudite libertines», present religion under two aspects: as a product of passions and credulity of man, and as utilization of this product by astute politicians that have deceived men in order to build new societies and empires on the solid base of the religious charisma. The phenomenology of religion delineated by the libertine critique starts from an attentive analysis of belief-formation mechanisms, makes interesting references to mass psychology and reformulates the idea of religion as imposture and instrumentum Regni.