If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made
for their destruction. In proportion as man taught himself, his strength
and his resources augmented with his knowledge; science, the arts,
industry, furnished him assistance; experience reassured him or procured
for him means of resistance to the efforts of many causes which ceased
to alarm as soon as they became understood. In a word, his terrors
dissipated in the same proportion as his mind became enlightened. The
educated man ceases to be superstitious.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism