Voltaire: Écrasez l'Infâme from Against the Faith

clipped from www.positiveatheism.org Voltaire: Écrasez l'Infâme by Jim Herrick excerpted from his 1985 book Against the Faith Index: Historical Writings (Voltaire) Index: Historical Writings (Biographies) Home to Positive Atheism See also: Voltaire by Clarence Darrow See also: Voltaire 1894 by Robert Green Ingersoll See also: Voltaire, The Incomparable Infidel by Joseph Lewis See also: Voltaire by Thomas S. Vernon Voltaire (1694-1778) advanced no startlingly original ideas which challenged religious belief. He was a deist rather than a fully-fledged atheist. He was not a philosopher in the common usage of the word and had little patience with metaphysics or system-building -- the 'metaphysico-theologico-cosmolonigology' of Pangloss in Candide He was primarily a man of letters and ideas, immersed in the arguments and public affairs of his time and would most have wished to have been remembered as the author of successful tragedies and epic poems He approved the social usefulness of religion and believed passionately in justice

He approved the social usefulness of religion and believed passionately in justice and tolerance; above all he is remembered as the flail of superstition in general and of the Catholic Church in particular.