As Eugine_Nier points out, this wasn't so much "we should be better thinkers!" as it was "Let's kill the priests and take their things!"
I don't find any actual contradictions... then again, both the English and French wikipedia pages provide little to no information on their creed, doctrine, and practice, only on their historical circumstances. Let's see what some journals had to say
"France stands apart in the worlds history as the single state which by the decree of her legislative assembly, pronounced there was no God." Blackwoods Magazine Nov. 1870
"On November 26 1793, the convention, of which 17 Bishops and some Clergy were members, decreed the abolition of all religion." The Age of Revolution, W.T.Hutton, Page 156
"In 1793, the decree passed the French Assembly suppressing the Bible. Just three years after, a resolution was introduced into the Assembly going to supersede the decree, and giving toleration to the scriptures. That resolution lay on the table for six months, when it was taken up and passed without a dissenting vote .... On 17th June 1797." George Stoffs, Midnight Cry, Vol 4, Nos.5-6, 47
So, it seems like the French had done something, that, at the time, was truly horrifying to everyone else, ans sent ripples throughout the world. They broke a taboo, they thought the inthinkable and did the impossible. Most of the Google returns for "Culte De La Raison" turn out to be religious pages complaining about it in a horrified tone, when they aren't expressing it in apocalyptic terms (The End Is Nigh!) . Of course, we'd have to wait for over a century before the Bolshevic revolution made "outlawing religion" commonplace.
In a word, in Raising The Sanity Waterline terms, they seem to have wanted to do away with the dead canary but they did little about the gas, confusing the symptoms for the disease. Notic though that this civil cult wasn't merely an artificial creation: Patritotic Fervor was really at an all-time high in France back then, the martyrs of the revolution were adored by the crowds, and a religious sense of nationalism, of a secular sacrality, was everywhere.
For those among you who have watched Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, remember the Republic? Well it's pretty much the same deal.
Raising the sanity waterline is not about imposing decrees to control what people think. It's about encouraging people to understand that they are in control of their own rationality and they should work towards improving it.
... Yeah, I guess imposing "God doesn't exist" by decree, no matter how strongly supported by the population, doesn't make much sense.
And yes, the guys were very clumsy about it, but that's pioneering for you. But I'm really really curious as to what those people's rites consisted of.
I have come to understand that religion is not about belief or dogma at all: those are chosen, picked, and altered, emphasized or forgotten, by the correligionaries, at their own convenience as a society. Religion is about links, about ties, about a community: that's what the word actually means, religation. And those religations, those group-creeds, were imposed by the group on its members. A common reference, a sign of identity, a law they all obey. There was never a law of God, only of men.
If you go at it from that perspective, and see the Cult Of Reason as a purely societal phenomenon with only the trappings of a religion (including the practice of imposing by decree what members of the group should think), then the idea becomes more understandable. The French had slain the King: all is a lie, everything is permitted, so why not kill God too? (it'd take them until the Fifties to actually achieve that task, in their collective minds, but now most Frenchmen are atheists, and aggressively secular to the point of intolerance, and they didn't try to replace it with any new "sacred" thing).
If there is something the opposite of what LW should be, yet could plausibly become, it would be the Cult of Reason.
The cult was an Hébertist project, and they were not exactly nice people. They were the main architects of the Law of Suspects, which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of political enemies during the Reign of Terror.
The cult itself wasn't necessarily as bad, just bizarre (they worshiped a young girl as the personification of "reason"). The worst thing was that they intended on forcing the cult and atheism on everyone in France (and eventually, the world) by physical force if necessary.
You do realize it was a follower of the cult of reason, Robespierre, who was responsible for the reign of terror.
Nope, Robespierre was of the Cult of the Supreme Being, which under him replaced the Cult of Reason, and he strongly rejected their atheism
In the spring of 1794, the Cult of Reason was faced with official repudiation when Robespierre, nearing complete dictatorial power, announced his own establishment of a new, deistic religion for the Republic, the Cult of the Supreme Being.[11] Robespierre denounced the Hébertistes on various philosophical and political grounds, specifically rejecting their atheism. When Hébert, Momoro, Ronsin, Vincent and others were sent to the guillotine on 4 Germinal, Year II (March 24 1794), the cult lost its most influential leadership; when Chaumette and other Hébertistes followed them four days later, the cult effectively ceased to exist. It was officially banned by Napoleon Bonaparte with his Law on Cults of 18 Germinal, Year X.[12]
That, and the Reign of Terror is really overhyped, in many people's minds being like the only period in the Revolution: it lasted only a year and a month. There was lots of stuff before (especially if you start counting from 1789 rather than 93), and lots of stuff after until Napoleon took the helm in 1799, officially ending the First Republic when he became Emperor in 1804. Saying French Revolution = Reign Of Terror is a bit like saying Soviet Russia = Stalinism or USA = Prohibition+ Roaring Twenties + Great Depression. In the anglo-saxon world the French revolution is treated as an awful monstruosity to be avoided at all costs, while the French themselves still see it in a very positive light. (I'd quote [Utena] here as a parable of a nation-scale Coming Of Age Story, but that would be a bit too much.)
This is a bit of a derail, but it'd be hard for a topic about Le Culte de la Raison not to be about the French Revolution too...
In the anglo-saxon world the French revolution is treated as an awful monstruosity to be avoided at all costs, while the French themselves still see it in a very positive light.
For what it's worth, I'm French and have mixed feelings about the revolution. It has quite a few similarities with the Chinese revolution / the Cultural Revolution (I know some people who lived through it), which isn't that glorious seen up close; and countries who didn't get rid of their kings like England seem to be doing quite well too. On the other hand, yay France, boo kings!
If you will forgive the musical interlude:
Momo chez nous en france en liberté malin fraternité l'égalité sur les pieces de monnaie la liberté d'accord mais passons la monnaie l'egalité too much mais pas pour le confort fraternité y en a mais pas pour le porte monnaie mais du travail y'en a pour toi la plonge et au chantier!
That is... actually I was going to try a Cultural Translation), but I gave up mid-way. Emile can attest that this is a tough one. The point this fragment tries to make is that, despite France reclaiming the heritage of the Revolution and Enlightenment, going as far as printing the motto "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" on the money coins, doesn't change the fact that those are money coins: in other words, that the extreme idealism in those words is constantly belied by the daily life. Nevertheless, the fact that the State uses those symbols and ideals as a source of national pride, cohesion, and self-legitimization has the drawback that in every era there are people who actually believe in the stuff, rather than merely Cheering And Professing like they're supposed to, and are ready to go to great lengths to make it real. AFAIK, the USA have the same problem with the Constitution (especially the Second Amendment), the Communists had this with actual communism, the Divine Right monarchies with The Fundamentalists...
To sum it up, as far as I can tell, the French are very proud of the Revolution, and of the Empire too, and some of them may go as far as to think the entire world owes them the gift of enlightenment and liberalism... but don't ask most of them to enact its ideals, especially the politicians. Amirite, Émile?
So... while investigating Wikipedia I found out about an actual Cult. Of Reason. Revolutionary France. From the description, it sounds pretty awesome. Here's he link. Is this denomination usable? Is it useful? Can it be resurrected? Should it be? Is it compatible with what we stand for? Discuss. Also, note that in French "Culte" does not mean "Sect", it means "the act of worshipping".