Voltaire

François Marie Arouet, 1694-1778

l'Infâme

Eradicate the Infamous was Voltaire's criptic comment on the Inquisions and corrupt Clergy of the Middle Ages.

The industrial revolution started in Itally, spread to England, Holland and France and only much later to Germany and Russia. Voltaire lived during a period when the church still wielded much power in France and with the next door neighbour Spain firmly gripped in the Theocratic Darkness of the Middle Ages.

Here are a few famous quips by this remarkable historian and immensely wealthy industrialist.

Voltaire on Religion

What! Have you no monks to teach, to dispute, to govern, to intrigue and to burn people who do not agree with them?

Which is more dangerous: fanaticism or atheism? Fanaticism is certainly a thousand times more deadly; for atheism inspires no bloody passion whereas fanaticism does; atheism is opposed to crime and fanaticism causes crimes to be committed.

It is reported in the supplement of the council of Nicea (325AD) that the fathers, being very perplexed to know which were the cryphal or apocryphal books of the Old and New Testaments, put them all pell-mell on an altar, and the books to be rejected fell to the ground. It is a pity that this eloquent procedure has not survived.

If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities.

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.

'Nuff sed.