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Many other examples exist -- conciliarism, infant baptism (not to mention the eternal fates of infants who die without Baptism), innerancy of the Bible, necessity of explicit faith in Jesus, venial versus mortal sin, eternal security ("Once saved, always saved."), predestination, universal salvation, etc., etc. As for burning heretics, such as episodic. Jon Hus was burned at the behest of the Council of Constance under Pope Martin V, but Pope John Paul II, 500 years after Hus' immolation apologized to modern-day Bohemia for his condemnation. And, so, was Hus a heretic or not?
The basic doctrines (the most basic tenets of orthodoxy) were well established. The creed was established and remained ... and still remains the same.
The argument over the "filioque" clause, was over HOW TO EXPRESS, (not whether) Jesus' divinity and "progression" from the Father. Not *if* he "proceeds". How to say it.
The examples you give (without the dates you were asked to give) are minor.
They do not involve the major tenets of orthodoxy. Whether Hus was a heretic or not is not a question relating to the major tenets of orthodoxy, but an authority question.
No one says nothing ever changed. Orthodoxy DEVELOPED, but it was far from the chaos you claim, and the major tenets were established, PROVEN be the creeds they recited together every week for centuries. So yeah. You're doing a reductio ad absurdam.
(April 29, 2020 at 12:07 pm)Drich Wrote: From the beginning it was never meant to be an orthodox Christianity, as there are no master list of Christian laws, as there were with the Jews. Think about it they just came of a few 1000 years of structured Judaism, the apostles knew how to structure an orthodox religious system. But rather than have one single agree upon book of the law, each epistle to each church is it's own self contain book of law given to a specific region dealing with unique problems. Meaning rules for one church say like the church at Rome need not apply to a more mature church say in Corinth. Rather the church has 2 laws. Love God with all you being and your neighbor as yourself. this would flesh out in different ways for all the different cultures which is why we are told to do our best for God and each other rather than have a set standard some could not meet while out could easily meet the min requirements.
That's hilarious. The fool who has never once even taken ONE class in the subject thinks he's competent to speak on a subject of which he is completely ignorant. You have no clue what was "meant" from any beginning, AND you posted no reference. Who "meant" this fairy tale you cooked up Drippy ? The apostles knew nothing. They were ignorant fishermen, (if there even were twelve anything). You are totally wrong. IN the epistles they argue where they got their gospels from, and Paul goes to great lengths to SAY where he got his, and to reference where .. (I see you never actually read his letters). They DID expect there to one general church AND they had meetings (some day when you go to school you'll learn about the early *councils*).
"The Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council was held in Jerusalem around AD 50. It is unique among the ancient pre-ecumenical councils in that it is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later ecumenical councils and a key part of Christian ethics. The council decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the Law of Moses, including the rules concerning circumcision of males. The Council did, however, retain the prohibitions on eating blood, meat containing blood, and meat of animals that were strangled, and on fornication and idolatry, sometimes referred to as the Apostolic Decree or Jerusalem Quadrilateral.
Accounts of the council are found in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 (in two different forms, the Alexandrian and Western versions) and also possibly in Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2.[1] Some scholars dispute that Galatians 2 is about the Council of Jerusalem (notably because Galatians 2 describes a private meeting) while other scholars dispute the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles."
So yeah, Dripshit, your crap is totally BOGUS. You made it up, as you are a totally ignorant fool, who actually knows NOTHING about this subject.
Agreement and orthodoxy was important to the early communities.
In fact it was so important SINCE the very beginning, that there were many councils held ... to denounce what they felt were all kinds of heresies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_ch...cumenical)
the Council of Rome of 155
the Council of Rome of 193
the Council of Ephesus of 193
the Council of Carthage of 251
the Council of Iconium of 258[13]
the Council of Antioch of 264
the Councils of Arabia of 246–247
the Synod of Elvira of 306
the Council of Carthage of 311
the Synod of Neo-Caesarea of c. 314
the Synod of Ancyra of 314
the Synod of Arles of 314
Then there were seven ecumenical councils :
First Council of Nicaea (325)
First Council of Constantinople (381)
First Council of Ephesus (431)
Council of Chalcedon (451)
Second Council of Constantinople (553)
Third Council of Constantinople (680–681)
Second Council of Nicaea (787)
So yeah, Christianity always cared about orthodoxy.
Drippy...go get an education before you make a fool of yourself. even further.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
(May 3, 2020 at 11:37 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Whether Hus was a heretic or not is not a question relating to the major tenets of orthodoxy, but an authority question.
LOL @Drich arguing Voltaire and getting it so very wrong. Must hurt his brain to have somebody believe in god but not Christianity.
"What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."
- Voltaire
"Man has always stood in need of a curb; and though it was certainly very ridiculous to sacrifice to fauns, satyrs, and naïads, yet it was more reasonable and advantageous to adore even those fantastic images of the deity than to be given up to atheism. An atheist of any capacity, and invested with power, would be as dreadful a scourge to the rest of mankind as the most bloody enthusiast."
- Voltaire
FYI: Those are primary sources.
And normally I wouldn't sully my screen with it, but even Conservapedia denied you three times:
"Voltaire was very critical of religion, and has been variously categorized as an atheist or an agnostic, though in reality he was a deist. A death-bed admonition to a priest attempting to convert him that "Now is no time to be making new enemies" has also been misconstrued as meaning he was a satanist, though evidence exists to show he was truly a deist. Although he was a deist, Voltaire actually described himself as a theist."
- Conservapedia entry for Voltaire
You're actually a less reliable authority on Voltaire than Conservapedia, which is a damned low bar to writhe your way under.
(April 28, 2020 at 12:15 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Why should I care what Voltaire's opinions on the future were or what happened to his house. There was no way to determine the percentage of atheists around the world in his day, where did you get 3.5% from?
because he was king atheist and started the movement and grandfather the same BS arguments you guys still use
Acutally Voltaire was a deist. He believed in a god that got the ball rolling and then got out of Dodge, a non interventionist god who started the universe then sat back to see what eventuated. Definitely not an atheist.
Also, atheism is as old as religion, hell even some religions (mainly centered around India and China) are themselves atheistic. In the classical west the first atheist school of philosophy was the Greek school of the atomists, who were the first to describe the world without any reference to god (and likely amongst the earliest preludes to modern science), there were plays written about atheists and eventually Greek philosophy resulted in Epicurus, the one person most rightly deserving of the title "grandfather of atheism". Epicurus died c. two millenia before Voltaire was born.
But you don't care about reality. It contradicts the fantasy world built inside your head.
May 4, 2020 at 12:47 pm (This post was last modified: May 4, 2020 at 1:43 pm by Drich.)
(April 30, 2020 at 12:05 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote:
(April 29, 2020 at 1:31 pm)Drich Wrote: again voltare was an atheist his own quotes and stance against the church proove that see some of the other quotes i posted.
You can have contempt for organized religion without being an atheist, Drich. The definition of atheist is not 'someone who has contempt for religion'.
That Voltaire's house was ever the headquarters of the Geneva Bible Society is a myth if not a 'pious fraud'.
Your source says 226,000 were atheists in 1900. Out of 1.6 billion that would be 0.14%. The definition of atheist is not 'someone who is not religious'.
And he goes straight to Conservapedia for his claim that there is an Atheist Movement. I should get a prize for predicting that. The convention is American Atheists, an organization founded by Madelyn Murray O'Hair in 1963. It has a membership of about 3,500; out of at least a million atheists in America (probably more like 25 million but I'd rather err on the conservative side). American Atheists is a club, not a movement.
(April 29, 2020 at 3:41 pm)Drich Wrote: sorry sport i studied this guy. he was mockingly a deist because he did not have the balls to wear the social stigma that came with being labeled an atheist back then. one could be ban from shops public services like police protection and even having been accused of dark magic. deism was the safest thing this guy could align himself with ans still carry out his attacks on god and the church as his 'nod to god' came in the way of a naturalism where he assigned the title to fit the engine that ran the natural world. IE god to him was not a deity but more of a source of power or energy. Plus on his death bed he refused God stating he at this point would not want to make any more enemies.s just you playing amature anthopologist
being apposed to God does. most of you are not atheist by definition either you all share more with voltare than you will ever admit in that you hate God, not that you do not believe in him. people who do not believe do not waist their time arguing for years over their same points. this is hatred that fuels this passion.
Whatever you want to call voltare he is the father of the movement now known as atheism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire#Religious_views
globb. that is not the proper 1763 quote.
The following is the proper quote: It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God? But these people despise us; they treat us as idolaters! Very well! I will tell them that they are grievously wrong. It seems to me that I would at least astonish the proud, dogmatic Islam imam or Buddhist priest, if I spoke to them as follows: "This little globe, which is but a point, rolls through space, as do many other globes; we are lost in the immensity of the universe. Man, only five feet high, is assuredly only a small thing in creation. One of these imperceptible beings says to another one of his neighbors, in Arabia or South Africa: 'Listen to me, because God of all these worlds has enlightened me: there are nine hundred million little ants like us on the earth, but my ant-hole is the only one dear to God; all the other are cast off by Him for eternity; mine alone will be happy, and all the others will be eternally damned." They would then interrupt me, and ask which fool blabbed all this nonsense. I would be obliged to answer, "You, yourselves." I would then endeavor to calm them, which would be very difficult.
The dude is making fun of Buddhist and Muslims. As everything i just quoted is his version of a over simplifies summary of what he thinks they believe, and when he serves it to them in this way, he mocks their preceived response.
This is what you 'good people' do all the time.
I do not need a commentator to think for me. i have spent time in the study of voltare which is why i can run through you guys like water through single ply toilet paper. I understand your foundations even if you do not.
Disputed
here sport.. this is a map from town town genva to the actual house: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Geneva,+...d46.207642
here is a link to the bible society so you can scheduled a tour and buy a bible at their gift shop. https://www.bible-society.org/
doesn't seem disputed to me, unless you mean to say it is shut down at this moment due to covid-19
You studied this guy so much that you know what he said was not what he meant, despite scholars and biographers of Voltaire disagreeing with you. Didn't study him as much as you, eh?
From the Wikipedia article you sourced:
In 1760, Voltaire left Les Délices for Ferney in France, and the house was then occupied by the Tronchin family. In the 1830s, when Colonel Henri Tronchin (1794–1865)[2][3] was a lay president of the recently founded Evangelical Society of Geneva,[4][5] Les Délices is reported to have been used as a repository for Bibles.[6] In view of Voltaire's skeptical attitude to Christianity and its Bible, this ironic report continues to be widely circulated and embellished by religious apologists.[7] Contrary to popular belief,[8][9] Les Délices has never been occupied by the current incarnation of the Geneva Bible Society, which was only founded in 1917.[10]
Italics mine.
everything you said here has already been refuted even by the quoted section of voltares own words in the 1786 tretis that proves him to be an atheist in word and in thought.
His official position as a deist was so he would not be shunned by society. treated as a satanist/put his life in danger.
again already refuted not going to rehash. if you want to talk about those point then please bring them up.
(May 1, 2020 at 8:10 am)Jehanne Wrote:
(April 30, 2020 at 12:56 pm)Drich Wrote: In short the gospel is bunk because the oldest copy was written after the rest of the bible was written and compiled into a singular book. then sometime later (100 year or so) the gospel of thomas supposedly hits the scene but is never used or spoken of till 1945?!?!
is you stuped?
Drich,
This is why I have difficulty continuing to "dialogue" with you (emphasis mine):
This appears to be a reference to saying 4 of Thomas, although the wording differs significantly. Origen listed the "Gospel according to Thomas" as being among the heterodox apocryphal gospels known to him (Hom. in Luc. 1).
In the 4th and 5th centuries, various Church Fathers wrote that the Gospel of Thomas was highly valued by Mani. In the 4th century, Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned a "Gospel of Thomas" twice in his Catechesis: "The Manichæans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which being tinctured with the fragrance of the evangelic title corrupts the souls of the simple sort."[23] and "Let none read the Gospel according to Thomas: for it is the work not of one of the twelve Apostles, but of one of the three wicked disciples of Manes."[24] The 5th-century Decretum Gelasianum includes "A Gospel attributed to Thomas which the Manichaean use" in its list of heretical books.[25]
and the reason i have great hardship continuing a dialog with most of you is that you not smart enough in this case to understand the difference between the gospel of Thomas being REFERENCED, DISCUSSED, MENTIONED In the writing of Hippolytus of Rome AND M.F.-ing Copy of the Gospel. Because a Reference is not a copy.
but here's the thing that make this whole process infuriating. you can even decipher the difference between a 2nd century mentioning which again is not the same as a full copy of the work and a 1945 claim that some random document which is again a fragment at best of some other Coptic/Gnostic work which happens to be called the gospel of Thomas!!! let round up and say there is a full one thousand and nine hundred years between the mentioning of the gospel of Thomas and the actual copy they are calling complete (which again it is not as it is only saying from supposedly Christ, but no identification of who Christ is or why he should be listen to? Even if you take the date of this work back to the 4th century there is a 200 year gape between the mentioning of the gospel and this copy. which again only appears 100 years after the bible has already been written and compiled.
do you see now?
Supposedly this work of Thomas came before the gospel but without the other gospels and how each of the others actual canonical gospels set up who Christ is
none of the supposed book of Thomas makes any sense.
How about before you put your foot in your mouth next time ask a question as to why i said what i said if it does not make sense. after 25 years of daily study and teaching on this subject. it is ok for you to assume i might know something more than you do. So if i say something that you do not understand it is probably because i have a better understanding or at least more information.
or i could be 100% wrong but when you ask a question you have me commit to my understanding. if and when i do and you are right you will have me dead to rights.
(May 3, 2020 at 11:37 am)Bucky Ball Wrote:
(April 29, 2020 at 12:16 am)Jehanne Wrote: I'll give you just one example, out of many:
Many other examples exist -- conciliarism, infant baptism (not to mention the eternal fates of infants who die without Baptism), innerancy of the Bible, necessity of explicit faith in Jesus, venial versus mortal sin, eternal security ("Once saved, always saved."), predestination, universal salvation, etc., etc. As for burning heretics, such as episodic. Jon Hus was burned at the behest of the Council of Constance under Pope Martin V, but Pope John Paul II, 500 years after Hus' immolation apologized to modern-day Bohemia for his condemnation. And, so, was Hus a heretic or not?
The basic doctrines (the most basic tenets of orthodoxy) were well established. The creed was established and remained ... and still remains the same.
The argument over the "filioque" clause, was over HOW TO EXPRESS, (not whether) Jesus' divinity and "progression" from the Father. Not *if* he "proceeds". How to say it.
The examples you give (without the dates you were asked to give) are minor.
They do not involve the major tenets of orthodoxy. Whether Hus was a heretic or not is not a question relating to the major tenets of orthodoxy, but an authority question.
No one says nothing ever changed. Orthodoxy DEVELOPED, but it was far from the chaos you claim, and the major tenets were established, PROVEN be the creeds they recited together every week for centuries. So yeah. You're doing a reductio ad absurdam.
(April 29, 2020 at 12:07 pm)Drich Wrote: From the beginning it was never meant to be an orthodox Christianity, as there are no master list of Christian laws, as there were with the Jews. Think about it they just came of a few 1000 years of structured Judaism, the apostles knew how to structure an orthodox religious system. But rather than have one single agree upon book of the law, each epistle to each church is it's own self contain book of law given to a specific region dealing with unique problems. Meaning rules for one church say like the church at Rome need not apply to a more mature church say in Corinth. Rather the church has 2 laws. Love God with all you being and your neighbor as yourself. this would flesh out in different ways for all the different cultures which is why we are told to do our best for God and each other rather than have a set standard some could not meet while out could easily meet the min requirements.
That's hilarious. The fool who has never once even taken ONE class in the subject thinks he's competent to speak on a subject of which he is completely ignorant. You have no clue what was "meant" from any beginning, AND you posted no reference. Who "meant" this fairy tale you cooked up Drippy ? The apostles knew nothing. They were ignorant fishermen, (if there even were twelve anything). You are totally wrong. IN the epistles they argue where they got their gospels from, and Paul goes to great lengths to SAY where he got his, and to reference where .. (I see you never actually read his letters). They DID expect there to one general church AND they had meetings (some day when you go to school you'll learn about the early *councils*).
"The Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council was held in Jerusalem around AD 50. It is unique among the ancient pre-ecumenical councils in that it is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later ecumenical councils and a key part of Christian ethics. The council decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the Law of Moses, including the rules concerning circumcision of males. The Council did, however, retain the prohibitions on eating blood, meat containing blood, and meat of animals that were strangled, and on fornication and idolatry, sometimes referred to as the Apostolic Decree or Jerusalem Quadrilateral.
Accounts of the council are found in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 (in two different forms, the Alexandrian and Western versions) and also possibly in Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2.[1] Some scholars dispute that Galatians 2 is about the Council of Jerusalem (notably because Galatians 2 describes a private meeting) while other scholars dispute the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles."
So yeah, Dripshit, your crap is totally BOGUS. You made it up, as you are a totally ignorant fool, who actually knows NOTHING about this subject.
Agreement and orthodoxy was important to the early communities.
In fact it was so important SINCE the very beginning, that there were many councils held ... to denounce what they felt were all kinds of heresies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_ch...cumenical)
the Council of Rome of 155
the Council of Rome of 193
the Council of Ephesus of 193
the Council of Carthage of 251
the Council of Iconium of 258[13]
the Council of Antioch of 264
the Councils of Arabia of 246–247
the Synod of Elvira of 306
the Council of Carthage of 311
the Synod of Neo-Caesarea of c. 314
the Synod of Ancyra of 314
the Synod of Arles of 314
Then there were seven ecumenical councils :
First Council of Nicaea (325)
First Council of Constantinople (381)
First Council of Ephesus (431)
Council of Chalcedon (451)
Second Council of Constantinople (553)
Third Council of Constantinople (680–681)
Second Council of Nicaea (787)
So yeah, Christianity always cared about orthodoxy.
Drippy...go get an education before you make a fool of yourself. even further.
1
(May 4, 2020 at 6:10 am)Nomad Wrote:
(April 28, 2020 at 3:50 pm)Drich Wrote: because he was king atheist and started the movement and grandfather the same BS arguments you guys still use
Acutally Voltaire was a deist. He believed in a god that got the ball rolling and then got out of Dodge, a non interventionist god who started the universe then sat back to see what eventuated. Definitely not an atheist.
Also, atheism is as old as religion, hell even some religions (mainly centered around India and China) are themselves atheistic. In the classical west the first atheist school of philosophy was the Greek school of the atomists, who were the first to describe the world without any reference to god (and likely amongst the earliest preludes to modern science), there were plays written about atheists and eventually Greek philosophy resulted in Epicurus, the one person most rightly deserving of the title "grandfather of atheism". Epicurus died c. two millenia before Voltaire was born.
But you don't care about reality. It contradicts the fantasy world built inside your head.
in this text Voltaire's philosophical dictionary volume two (what he really means when he says he is a deist among other contradictory statements he makes about himself to be able to function in a theistic society.) pronounces "there is no God." then explains why he as an atheist can never pronounce this publicly.
history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volathe2.html
in the following voltare mocks what people believe about God then mocks how he describe to the preceived evil voltare sees in the nature of God he said anyone with sense would proclaim there is no God but the religious bigot or fear of persecution would have the wiser atheist remain silent or burned over a slow fire as a hertic.
If there are atheists, whom must one blame, if not the mercenary tyrants of souls, who, making us revolt against their knaveries, force a few weak minds to deny the God whom these monsters dishonour. How many times have the people's leeches brought oppressed citizens to the point of revolting against their king! Men fattened on our substance cry to us: "Be persuaded that a she-ass has spoken; believe that a fish has swallowed a man and has given him up at the end of three days safe and sound on the shore; have no doubt that the God of the universe ordered one Jewish prophet to eat excrement (Ezekiel), and another prophet to buy two whores and to make with them sons of whoredom (Hosea). These are the very words that the God of truth and purity has been made to utter; believe a hundred things either visibly abominable or mathematically impossible; unless you do, the God of pity will burn you, not only during millions of thousands of millions of centuries in the fire of hell, but through all eternity, whether you have a body, whether you have not." These inconceivable absurdities revolt weak and rash minds, as well as wise and resolute minds. They say: "Our masters paint God to us as the most insensate and the most barbarous of all beings; therefore there is no God; but they should say: therefore our masters attribute to God their absurdities and their furies, therefore God is the contrary of what they proclaim, therefore God is as wise and as good as they make him out mad and wicked. It is thus that wise men account for things. But if a bigot hears them, he denounces them to a magistrate who is a watchdog of the priests; and this watchdog has them burned over a slow fire, in the belief that he is avenging and imitating the divine majesty he outrages.
Remember dont be a dumb ass and bring up some 3rd person wiki commentary. These are voltare's own words and trump anything you have to say, or anything any expert has to say. now keep in mind this is the 2nd or 3rd quote i have provided that has him admit/demonstrate his atheism.
and his own words why he pretends to be a deist.
the argument is over people.
(April 30, 2020 at 12:53 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Did Voltaire say the words 'I do not believe God is real'?
He had an altar in his home in Ferney with the dedication Erexit deo Voltaire (Raised for God by Voltaire). And he used the Watchmaker Argument to argue for design.
in the post above he is quoted in saying both:
therefore God is the contrary of what they proclaim,
May 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm (This post was last modified: May 4, 2020 at 2:09 pm by Drich.)
(April 30, 2020 at 4:55 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: That's about par for your general overestimation of your own mental acuity.
nope, i know im a dummy which is why i look everything up and have three points of reference to every claim i make. that my friend is why i also trump you guys even when you are not capable of understanding i won.
you and the rest are falling for fake history. it is revisionist bs trying to white wash evil men so as to adopt their evil ways without the stigma that they died with. Voltaire was an evil man, but modern atheism has adopted his method of challenging God morality. so to us to point back tot he father of your atheism and say look this is where you get your arguments and these are the reason voltare failed historically these are the reason you fail... Has you guys scrambling to rewrite history...
but note, all you d-bags have are historical commentary trying to desperately convince you this man was a saint... I have been pulling quotes from voltare's own private and public works and addresses. Your commentators are lying, if voltare's actual body of work is read. but the commentator know none of you guys will even need to read what voltare said when they can fill you full of lies and you will never even question them
I provided his real world work read it for yourself. He said God does not exist but can not proclaim it because they would burn him at the stake. This information is almost 30 years old to me, and i knew or remember from then his anti God anti Semitic quotes. but loophole away from being prosecuted by the church under this greater idea of deism the Franklin and others were supposed to be apart of. they thought that these great mind would unlock some greater form of worship. but then like now atheism is just an excuse to kill god in one's head to be drilled or to drill someone in the can.
When we learn of voltare it was not through commentary we read his works, so none of you is going to drop some wiki commentary and bully me into thinking like the sheep you all have become. i know this man's work, and he was a monster in word thought and deed.
(April 30, 2020 at 7:13 pm)SUNGULA Wrote:
Quote:cute, but this is not how research works. you have tertiary sources trying to topple evidence use from a verified primary source. Primary source in this case being a paper/tretis written by Voltaire himself which directly contradicts things people/fake news says about him. His words correctly and contextually quoted will ALWAYS Trump someone else's thoughts on the man. your source work is garbage. it is third hand information while i am quoting Voltaire himself. you can just by your word think it carries enough weight to dismiss a direct quote. it doesn't my post and the quote with the citation stand.
if you want to argue this go write a peer reviewed paper with BS tertiary sourced material and come back to me. because you are effective using an editorial in the enquirer/a tabloid to refute a recorded and well documented statement from the source himself.
Oh dear you want to talk about citations .Perhaps you shouldn't brag to loudly on that front because your track record thus far isn't good . For starters you provided no citation for your claim about Voltaire's deathbed quote let alone anything peer reviewed .Nor did you provide any for Voltaire's suppose hidden atheism .I on the other hand provided 3 sources that challenge the story that you provided no refutation for . Jus saying i'm right and your wrong isn't a refutation
Quote:f you have ever properly studied the man and read his works and the thing he himself said like the quoted tretis of 1763 his acceptance to 'god' was a farce to allow him to not be ostracized in his community. in the quoted i gave yesterday He himself said that if: "This little globe, which is but a point, rolls through space, as do many other globes; we are lost in the immensity of the universe. Man, only five feet high, is assuredly only a small thing in creation. One of these imperceptible beings says to another one of his neighbors, in Arabia or South Africa: 'Listen to me, because God of all these worlds has enlightened me:there are nine hundred million little ants like us on the earth, but my ant-hole is the only one dear to God; all the other are cast off by Him for eternity; mine alone will be happy, and all the others will be eternally damned." They would then interrupt me, and ask which fool blabbed all this nonsense. I would be obliged to answer, "You, yourselves." I would then endeavor to calm them, which would be very difficult.
HE IS MOCKING PEOPLE AND THEIR IDEA OF GOD!
How could he mock them if he believed in any form of God?!?!
Can't you see into his words and meaning or are you too ignorantly stuck in today's dialect to see his intentions? the blue he appeals to the vastness of space and man's scientific understanding of it all even the religious people could understand this. then in green he points to how small and insignificant man is.in the red he speaks OF ALL GOD BELIEVING MEN Who claim to represent the one true God. The dark blue bold is voltare mocking the doctrines of salvation by saying out of the hundred millions of different views it is my colony of ant my religious sect that has God care for us while damning everyone else! In the black bold underline this is the dig this is the zing this is the stinger. In that religious people are so stupid that they in his analogy would not see themselves as the small little ant who would claim the God of the vast universe would only bless their little hole/colony. that if he told the Theists this they would form a mob that would be difficult to calm down.
If dude was not an atheist why is he using the VERY SAME BS Arguments you yourself have made as an atheist? why does he draw a line between believers in God and mocks them, their doctrine and their understanding of how random life is? why is he speaking for a scientifically enlighten position and not defending his knowledge of God. Answer he was a atheist in deeds but not proclamation. he was a coward this work among several other prove this.
None of the quotes you provided prove he was an atheist .His mockery of organized religion and doctrinal conceptions of god does not make him an atheist .Furthermore i see no reason you couldn't believe in a god and mock it so this isn't a point either , And yes both i and Voltaire may use similar methods but from two different position .So i'm afraid you have failed to establish Voltaire's atheism and merely demonstrated his disdain for organized religion and their concepts of god not god itself or his disbelief for that matter .Ultimately your whole case grinds down to"if Voltaire was a theist he would agree with ou doctrines and wouldn't mock them " This doesn't follow.
Quote:as point out above it does. as all religions were included in the quote. if he were apart of any religious movement then he would not defer his knowledge base to the science of the time, rather than doctrine. As then Science was a clown school farce of intellect. that the church was the supreme authority in education knowledge and learning. all major universities Harvard Yale oxford Dartmouth all of them had religious based/filtered curriculum. Voltaire unprecedentedly took scientific fact out of the religiously filtered education system, and for the first time used science to separate himself from God.
Before this science was sponsored by the church and was a study in how god worked. Men like Voltaire are seen as the fathers of modern atheism because they took science from the church and used it to create a divide between the knowledge of science and God. his 1763 tretis is a example of this.
This again isn't a case . Because Voltaire wanted to move science and education outside the grasp of he church and didn't want it wedded to theological doctrines and filters does not make him an Atheist( This assumes a theist should desire this ) And again splitting the Church from science does not make him the farther of modern Atheism sorry your case remains unmade .
Quote:and your has you ignorantly posting tertiary source material IN VOLUME to try and refute a direct primary source. This would indicate you are not even smart enough to have this conversation let alone be in a position to grade or judge someone else's work. Yet i had the good grace to see past your personal failing and lack of or the inability you have to identify and rank evidence properly. Rather i held you hand and explained to you your failings as a intelligent man.
educate yourself before you speak to me moron:
As for your contined mocking of my sources so far your sources have either
Worked against your point
Not actually proved the thing you insist it does
Contridicts other sources you used
Or attacked a claim i never made
And sticks and stones (Lectures me about sources when he himself cited a source that said opposite of what he was claiming because he didn't read past the first paragraph )
Quote:citation please
like this: Several examples of his slanderous words against the Christian faith and the Bible are cited.
In 1764 he wrote, “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764). “We are living in the twilight of Christianity” (Philosophical Dictionary). In a 1767 letter to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, he wrote: “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world…My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise of extirpating the world of this infamous superstition.”[2] Voltaire ended every letter to friends with “Ecrasez l’infame” (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). In his pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) he attacked viciously the Old Testament, biblical miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, the Christian God, the virgin birth and Christ’s death on the cross. Of the Four Gospels he wrote, “What folly, what misery, what puerile and odious things they contain [and the Bible is filled] with contradictions, follies, and horrors”[3]. Voltaire regarded most of the doctrines of the Christin faith – the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Trinity, Communion – as folly and irrational. And finally, “To invent all those things [in the Bible], the last degree of rascality. To believe them, the extreme of brutal stupidity!”[/url] Many more such quotes could be cited as to Voltaire’s disdain for Christianity, but those will suffice. Voltaire’s writings were so divisive that in 1754 Louis XV banned him from Paris. Relocating in December 1754 to Geneva, Switzerland, he purchased a beautiful chateau called Les Delices (The Delights). He lived there for five years until 1760 when as the result of his antagonistic writings and plays attacking Christianity, he was virtually driven from Geneva by the Calvinist Reformers. To escape the pressure from the Calvinists, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, France, where the controversial Frenchmen lived for eighteen years until the end of his life in 1778 at age 83. He continued to write until his hand was stilled in death.
Now the question arises as to the veracity of what some call an “apocryphal story.” While Voltaire’s disdain for the Bible is evident, did he ever make such a prediction and did any Bible Society ever use either of his residences, from where he wrote his blasphemous words against the Bible and the Christianity, as a warehouse to store Bibles? The answer to that question is an emphatic, “YES!”
So i imagine you have abandoned your four previous poor sources and instead have replace them with an apologetics site that clearly an agenda (interesting you get to appeal to a pro Christian site but when i do it my site is butthurt ). Alrighty you still lose i'm afraid .Firstly i don't remember ever proclaiming he was a Christian and yes i imagine his harsh words for h church got him in a lot of trouble but that doesn't make him an Atheist .Secondly i already conceded that it was used as a bible repository in my last response but pointed out that according to one of he links on the wikipedia article you cited it was temporary .I also point out you made a series of other claims about the house so there is that . As i already said though the Christian obsession with something so petty is sad .
So ultimately
You failed to prove Voltaire's atheism
You are a hypocrite on sources
And i can only assume your either pig headed or dishonest .Anyone i gave you another chance at a conversation .You failed .Don't respond to me any further i have no more time to waste on you (ignored )
want the truth? here is a synopsis with more than 20 primary sources that prove everything claimed.
not the list of primary sources at the bottom bee-otch
A story which Christian apologists have told for years involves the French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778). The story purports that Voltaire, in his voluminous writings against Christianity and the Bible, predicted in 1776, “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” As the story alleges, within fifty years after his death, in an ironic twist of Providence, the very house in which he once lived and wrote was used by the Evangelical Society of Geneva as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts and the printing presses he used to print his irreverent works was used to print Bibles. The story has been used repeatedly through the years by Christians as an example of the enduring intrinsic quality of the Bible and the futility of those who oppose the Inspired Volume.
For years there have been those who dispute this story as to its validity. Humanists, rationalists, agnostics, and atheists have called it an apocryphal story fabricated by Christians to bolster their argument that the Bible is inspired and possesses an intrinsic quality that enables it to withstand attacks by unbelievers. David Ross wrote an article in the Journal of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists, vol. 77, no. 1, Autumn 2004, entitled “Voltaire’s House and the Bible Society,” in which he went to great lengths to dismiss the story as having any real basis in fact. Ross contends the story has been either fabricated or it began as a misunderstanding and has spread. Ross’ article and others like it are of such a convincing nature that books like Introduction to the Bible by Norman Geisler and William Nix, left it out of later editions.
The question to consider, is there any validity to the story? Did Voltaire ever make such a prediction? Is there proof that the home in which Voltaire once lived, that after his death, was used as a storehouse for Bibles? After much research, this writer has come to the conclusion that the story is true and that those who seek to discredit the story do so because it gives credence to the argument of apologists of God’s providential preservation of His Word.
Voltaire was born in Paris, France in 1694. As a philosopher, historian and free thinker, he became a most influential and prolific writer during what has been called the Age of Enlightenment. From the beginning, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for criticisms toward the government. He twice served brief prison sentences in the Bastille for being critical of a Regent. His first literary work appeared in 1718. During his life he wrote more than 20,000 letters and some 2,000 pamphlets and books and was a successful playwriter. While a Deist, he vehemently opposed the Christian faith and wrote many rather scoffing works expressing his disdain for the faith and the Bible. His railings against Christianity are filled with poisonous venom, calling the Christian faith the “infamous superstition.”
Several examples of his slanderous words against the Christian faith and the Bible are cited.
In 1764 he wrote, “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764). “We are living in the twilight of Christianity” (Philosophical Dictionary). In a 1767 letter to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, he wrote: “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world…My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise of extirpating the world of this infamous superstition.”[2] Voltaire ended every letter to friends with “Ecrasez l’infame” (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). In his pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) he attacked viciously the Old Testament, biblical miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, the Christian God, the virgin birth and Christ’s death on the cross.Of the Four Gospels he wrote, “What folly, what misery, what puerile and odious things they contain [and the Bible is filled] with contradictions, follies, and horrors”[3]. Voltaire regarded most of the doctrines of the Christin faith – the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Trinity, Communion – as folly and irrational.[4] And finally, “To invent all those things [in the Bible], the last degree of rascality. To believe them, the extreme of brutal stupidity!”
Many more such quotes could be cited as to Voltaire’s disdain for Christianity, but those will suffice. Voltaire’s writings were so divisive that in 1754 Louis XV banned him from Paris. Relocating in December 1754 to Geneva, Switzerland, he purchased a beautiful chateau called Les Delices (The Delights). He lived there for five years until 1760 when as the result of his antagonistic writings and plays attacking Christianity, he was virtually driven from Geneva by the Calvinist Reformers. To escape the pressure from the Calvinists, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, France, where the controversial Frenchmen lived for eighteen years until the end of his life in 1778 at age 83. He continued to write until his hand was stilled in death.
Now the question arises as to the veracity of what some call an “apocryphal story.” While Voltaire’s disdain for the Bible is evident, did he ever make such a prediction and did any Bible Society ever use either of his residences, from where he wrote his blasphemous words against the Bible and the Christianity, as a warehouse to store Bibles? The answer to that question is an emphatic, “YES!”
The second part of the story will be dealt with first.
In August 1836, only fifty-eight years after Voltaire’s death, Rev. William Acworth of the British and Foreign Bible Society saw with his own eyes Voltaire’s former residence in Geneva, Switzerland, Les Delices, being used as a “repository for Bibles and Religious tracts.” The house at this time was occupied by Colonel Henri Tronchin (1794-1865), who served as the president of the Evangelical Society of Geneva from 1834-39.[6] The Tronchin family had long had associations with Voltaire that could be traced back to the 18th century. One of Henri Tronchin’s ancestor’s, Francis Tronchin, was Voltaire’s doctor. The Tronchin’s were prominent and wealthy residents of Geneva and even helped finance Voltaire in the publishing of some of his works.
While the Tronchin family was prominent and wealthy citizens of Geneva, they were not predominately spiritual. However, though it is not known exactly when, Henri Tronchin came to faith in Christ and embraced Protestantism. Studying literature at the Academy of Geneva, he later served as artillery captain on horseback in the Dutch army. Eventually rising in ranks to lieutenant-colonel of artillery, he married in 1824. A superb organizer and a great leader, he helped found the Evangelical Society of Geneva (c1833). He served as president of the Society from 1834 to 1839. Born 100 years after Voltaire, and occupying the former home of the infamous infidel, Tronchin used the spacious house to store Bibles and Gospel tracts. Rev. William Acworth of Queens College, Cambridge, appointed an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1829, was an eye witness to the stored Bibles and Gospel tracts.
In The Missionary Register for 1836 of the BFBS, Acworth is recounting his travels in the spread of the Gospel. Having traveled over 2,000 miles in France on the business of the Society, in the summer of 1836 his travels took him to Switzerland in August of that year. Acworth recounts:
I went through Geneva, and was much refreshed by meeting the Committee of the Evangelical Society, with whose proceedings and objects I was so much gratified, that I wrote to this Society to make a liberal grant of 10,000 copies of the French Scriptures to promote the objects of that Society. Our committee have only granted 5,000; but I have no doubt they will, err long, send the other 5,000. Before I left Geneva, my friend observed. “Probably you will like to see the house where Voltaire lived, and where he wrote his plays.” Prompted by the spirit of curiosity, so characteristic of an Englishman, to visit the house of the celebrated infidel, I was about to put on my hat to walk into the county, when he said, “It is not necessary you should put on your hat” and he introduced me over the threshold of one room to another, and said, “tis the room where Voltaire’s play were acted for the amusement to himself and his friend.” And what was my gratification in observing that that room had been converted into sort of Repository for Bibles and Religious Tracts. Oh! my Christ Friends, that the spirit of infidelity had been there, to witness the results of other vaticinations [acts of prophesying] respecting the downfall of Christianity! I know that Voltaire said, that he was living “in the twilight of Christianity” but blessed be God! It was the twilight of the morning, which will bring on the day of universal illumination.
Only fifty-eight years after his death the former home of Voltaire in Geneva, Switzerland, was indeed serving as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts. While the Evangelical Society of Geneva did not actually purchase the house, Henri Tronchin, president of the Society, resided in the house, and used some of the rooms to store Bibles which Voltaire so vehemently opposed and prophesied Christianity’s downfall! Yes, an ironic twist of divine Providence.
Let it also be noted, only sixteen years after Voltaire’s death, in 1794, the presence of the Bible began making in-roads in the town where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, Ferney, France. On the very printing presses which Voltaire employed to print his irreverent works was used to print editions of the Bible and which were printed on paper that “been especially made for a superior edition of Voltaire’s works. The Voltaire project failed, and the paper was bought and devoted to a better purpose [of printing Bibles]!”
In the book Letters from an Absent Brother, by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, which chronicles his travels through parts of Netherlands, Switzerland, Northern Italy, and France, he writes to his sister from Geneva on Wednesday evening, seven o’clock, October 1, 1823, concerning the distribution of Bibles in the town where Voltaire once lived: When I arrived at Paris, one of the first things I heard was that a Bible society had been established at Ferney, chiefly by the aid of Baron de Stael. What a noble triumph for Christianity over this daring infidel. One of the first effect of the revival of true religion or even of sound learning in France, I should think would be to lower the credit of this profligate, crafty, superficial, ignorant, incorrect writer. What plea can wit or cleverness, or the force of satire or the talent of ridicule or a fascinating style, or the power of brilliant description, form, in a Christian country, for a man who employed them all, with a bitterness or ferocity, of mind amounting to almost madness, against the Christian religion and the person of our Saviour.
That a Bible society had been established in Ferney, France to help financially in the printing of Bible’s in the town where Voltaire once resided, is confirmed in the 1824 Report of the Protestant Bible Society at Paris containing the following sentence: A newly established branch at Ferney formerly the residence of Voltaire, has sent its first remittance, a sum of 167 francs.
Further proof that the printing presses Voltaire once used to print his blasphemous works is contained in a transcript from the Quarterly Papers of the American and Foreign Bible Society of 1837: A Bible Society was some years since established at Ferney, once the residence of Voltaire—the prince of infidels. This noble enterprise for the propagation of the Christian religion is said to have commenced by Baron de Stael, and a few zealous Christians in that place. In the history of Bible Societies, this is truly a memorial event. That the antidote should issue from the very spot where the poison of infidelity for so many years disseminated; and the advocates of Christianity should in that very place print and circulate the sacred volume, as a sufficient shield against misrepresentations sophistry which he had there assailed divine revelation, are the events which the brilliant Frenchman would have pronounced impossible.
In 1845 Bibles were still being printed on printing presses Voltaire once employed in Ferney, France. The 1846 anniversary address of The American and Foreign Bible Society, Rev. Charles G. Sommers gave a stirring report on how the Bible was making penetration into various places around the world. When speaking about the Scriptures advancements in countries around the world (including France) in the previous year of 1845, Rev. Sommers stated,
“Much has indeed been accomplished, but much more remains to be done for the millions who are still without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. It is true, indeed, and we thank God, that in nine years this Society has printed one million of books in forty-nine different languages, but hundreds of millions must be distributed among the famishing myriads of our race. By what other means can we hope to arrest the progress of infidelity and Romanism; now marching in triumph over the fields of our fair inheritance? When Pythagoras and Confucius were filling Europe and Asia with heresies, God raised up Ezra, the prophet, to compile and publish the books of the Old Testament, as an antidote to their delusions. And when Voltaire, Diderot, D’Alembert and Rousseau were laboring to crush the bleeding cause of Christ, God raised up against them the standard of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and it is a cause for grateful exultation that the same printing press which was employed to scatter the blasphemous tracts of the prince of French philosophers, has since been used at Ferney (France), to print the Word of God. The black confederacy raised their bulwarks to impede the march of truth, but they would have been equally successful, had they forged chains to bind the lightning, that cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, as the precursor of the coming of the Son of man. Voltaire boasted that he had seen the twilight of Christianity, and that the pall of an endless night would soon cover it forever. Yes, sir, he did see the twilight, but he was mistaken as to the hour of the day—it was the twilight of morning, pouring its effulgence over the brim of the horizon of the nineteenth century, which he mistook for the rays of a setting sun.”
Having established that Bibles were actually stored in Voltaire’s former Geneva residence and were being printed on printing presses he once employed in Ferney, France, did he ever make such a prediction that one hundred years after his death the Bible would no longer be read? A man who wrote 20,000 letters in his lifetime, it would be impossible to know all the statements he wrote or spoke. However, it was generally acknowledged and understood by those near the time Voltaire lived that he had made such a prediction either verbally or in writing which may no longer exist. Rev. Acworth in 1836, only fifty-eight years after Voltaire’s death, referred to the infidel’s “vaticinations [act of prophesying] respecting the downfall of Christianity! Such a remark indicates it was common knowledge that such a bold prediction had been made by Voltaire. In 1849, only seventy-one years after Voltaire’s death, William Snodgrass, an officer of the American Bible Society, stated in the giving of ABS’s annual report that “the committee had been able to redeem their pledge by sending $10,000 to France, the country of Voltaire, who predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as relic of antiquity.” Again, such a remark indicates it was commonly acknowledged that Voltaire had made such a prediction.
Found in an interpretative book on many of the works of Voltaire published in 1823, only forty-five years after his death, the author, a contemporary of the Frenchman, details the fact that he brutishly sought to inspire contempt for the Christian faith and saw himself more influential than Martin Luther and John Calvin! Voltaire wanted a “religion to be without code, without laws, without dogma, without authority” and “laughed all these Christians who believed their religion was truly divine.” The author states that Voltaire in his fight against Christianity would stop “at nothing to annihilate” the Christian faith. It is obvious those in Voltaire’s day believed his efforts were for the purpose of dismantling Christianity.
While this writer could not find the exact quote that usually accompanies the story, similar quotes could be found. In an 1855 biography of Voltaire, the author quotes him as stating in a letter to a friend, “It is impossible that Christianism survives.”[17] In an effort to assist in bringing about what he perceived would hurry the demise of “Christianism,” in 1776, at age 82, Voltaire brought to a culmination his disdain for the Bible when he published La Bible Enfin Expliquée (The Bible Fully Explained).[18] The two-volume work was Voltaire’s commentary on the whole Bible. His purpose in writing was to “make the whole building [of Christianity] crumble.”[19] Writing with feigned credulity in a satirical and scoffing manner, he wrote viciously, mockingly critical and skeptically of practically every book and verse in the Bible. His sought to expose, as he saw it, the foolishness and irrationality of belief in the Bible. Of his massive tome, in which he derided the Bible on every page, he stated, “The subject is now exhausted: the cause is decided for those who are willing to avail themselves of their reason and their lights, and people will no more read this [Bible].”
From such an arrogant declaration it is clear Voltaire delusionally believed as a result of his La Bible Enfin Expliquée, he had struck a death blow to the Bible’s believability and the sun was setting on the Book’s influence and in time the Volume would become irrelevant. However, instead of the Bible becoming irrelevant and no longer believed, the Inspired Volume begins to increase in circulation… his former house, only fifty-eight years after his death, being used as a storehouse to house Bibles and Gospel tracts and printing presses he once employed to print his anti-Christian sentiments was being used to print Bibles!
Like all stories that are repeated over the years, the exact details and wording may vary, but it seems clear the key components of the story are very much true. The story of Voltaire serves as an example and a reminder that the foolish predictions and efforts of man to extinguish the Bible will come to naught. No skeptic’s scoffing hammer has ever made a dent in the Eternal Anvil of God’s Word. To those who attempt to do so, Jesus emphatically declares, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
Amen!
Notes
Norman Geisler and William Nix, Introduction to the Bible, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1968), 124.
Sarah Coakley, Faith, Rationality and the Passions, (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 37.
Voltaire, Trans. Joseph McCabe, Selected Works of Voltaire, “The Sermon on the Fifty,” (London: Watts & Co., 1911), 178-180.
Voltaire, ed. H.I. Wolff, Philosophical Dictionary, “Arius,” (New York, 1924), 253.
Quote of Voltaire from his work God and Man, chapter xliv, found in James Parton, Life of Voltaire, Vol. II, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1881), 429.
[6] Stelling-Michaud, Suzanne, Le livre du Recteur de l’Académie de Genève (1559-1878) (Vol 6). Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1980, 72; also, Jean-Yves Carluer, “Henri Tronchin,” December 16, 2017, (Accessed March 12, 2019). In 1929 the Les Delices property was purchased by the city of Geneva, and now houses the Institute et Musee Voltaire, a museum founded in 1952 dedicated to the life and works of Voltaire.
On Voltaire’s relations with the Tronchin family, see Deidre Dawson, Voltaire’s Correspondence: An Epistolary Novel (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 101–126; also, George Valbert, “The Genevese Councilor François Tronchin and his relations with Voltaire”, The Revue des Deux Mondes, 1895, 205-216
William Canton, A History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1845-1926, (London: J. Murray, 1903), 98.
The Missionary Register for 1836, William Acworth, “Bible Notices in Switzerland and Italy,” (London: L&G Seeley, 1836), 352.
The Gentleman s Magazine, July, August, September 1794; Samuel Bagster, The Bible of Every Land (London, 1860), 167. Curiously enough, Bibles were printed on paper, which, according to Hannah More, had been specially made for a superior edition of Voltaire’s works. The Voltaire project failed, and the paper was bought and devoted to this better purpose. Monthly Extracts, 1848, August, p. 793.
Daniel Wilson, “Letters from an Absent Brother, (London, 1824), 187.
Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Vol. 7, 1822, 1823, 1824, (London: J.S. Hughes, 1824), 17-18.
Quarterly Papers of the American and Foreign Bible Society, No 11, New York, July 1837, “Bible Society at Ferney,” 21-22.
Ninth Annual Report of the American and Foreign Bible Society, Presented at New York, May 15, 1846, (New York: John Gray, 1846), 48.
Annual Report of the American Bible Society, 1849, Appendix, 98.
Claude Francois Nonnottee, Erreurs de Voltaire, (Paris, 1823), 285-305.
Eugene Noel, Voltaire, (Paris: F. Chamerot, 1855), 99.
Arnold Ages, “The Technique of Biblical Criticism: An Inquiry into Voltaire’s Satirical Approach in La Bible Enfin Expliquée,” A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, September 6, 2013, 67-79.
Voltaire, La Bible Enfin Expliquée, (Alondres), 1776, 2.
Voltaire, La Bible Enfin Expliquée, (Alondres), 1776; also; James Parton, Life of Voltaire, Vol. II, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1881), 543.
(April 28, 2020 at 3:50 pm)Drich Wrote: because he was king atheist and started the movement and grandfather the same BS arguments you guys still use
Acutally Voltaire was a deist. He believed in a god that got the ball rolling and then got out of Dodge, a non interventionist god who started the universe then sat back to see what eventuated. Definitely not an atheist.
Also, atheism is as old as religion, hell even some religions (mainly centered around India and China) are themselves atheistic. In the classical west the first atheist school of philosophy was the Greek school of the atomists, who were the first to describe the world without any reference to god (and likely amongst the earliest preludes to modern science), there were plays written about atheists and eventually Greek philosophy resulted in Epicurus, the one person most rightly deserving of the title "grandfather of atheism". Epicurus died c. two millenia before Voltaire was born.
But you don't care about reality. It contradicts the fantasy world built inside your head.
but he wasn't. i have primary source quotes from Voltaire himself what do you have wiki commentary?
May 4, 2020 at 4:00 pm (This post was last modified: May 4, 2020 at 5:29 pm by The Architect Of Fate.)
(May 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm)Drich Wrote:
(April 30, 2020 at 4:55 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: That's about par for your general overestimation of your own mental acuity.
nope, i know im a dummy which is why i look everything up and have three points of reference to every claim i make. that my friend is why i also trump you guys even when you are not capable of understanding i won.
you and the rest are falling for fake history. it is revisionist bs trying to white wash evil men so as to adopt their evil ways without the stigma that they died with. Voltaire was an evil man, but modern atheism has adopted his method of challenging God morality. so to us to point back tot he father of your atheism and say look this is where you get your arguments and these are the reason voltare failed historically these are the reason you fail... Has you guys scrambling to rewrite history...
but note, all you d-bags have are historical commentary trying to desperately convince you this man was a saint... I have been pulling quotes from voltare's own private and public works and addresses. Your commentators are lying, if voltare's actual body of work is read. but the commentator know none of you guys will even need to read what voltare said when they can fill you full of lies and you will never even question them
I provided his real world work read it for yourself. He said God does not exist but can not proclaim it because they would burn him at the stake. This information is almost 30 years old to me, and i knew or remember from then his anti God anti Semitic quotes. but loophole away from being prosecuted by the church under this greater idea of deism the Franklin and others were supposed to be apart of. they thought that these great mind would unlock some greater form of worship. but then like now atheism is just an excuse to kill god in one's head to be drilled or to drill someone in the can.
When we learn of voltare it was not through commentary we read his works, so none of you is going to drop some wiki commentary and bully me into thinking like the sheep you all have become. i know this man's work, and he was a monster in word thought and deed.
(April 30, 2020 at 7:13 pm)SUNGULA Wrote: Oh dear you want to talk about citations .Perhaps you shouldn't brag to loudly on that front because your track record thus far isn't good . For starters you provided no citation for your claim about Voltaire's deathbed quote let alone anything peer reviewed .Nor did you provide any for Voltaire's suppose hidden atheism .I on the other hand provided 3 sources that challenge the story that you provided no refutation for . Jus saying i'm right and your wrong isn't a refutation
None of the quotes you provided prove he was an atheist .His mockery of organized religion and doctrinal conceptions of god does not make him an atheist .Furthermore i see no reason you couldn't believe in a god and mock it so this isn't a point either , And yes both i and Voltaire may use similar methods but from two different position .So i'm afraid you have failed to establish Voltaire's atheism and merely demonstrated his disdain for organized religion and their concepts of god not god itself or his disbelief for that matter .Ultimately your whole case grinds down to"if Voltaire was a theist he would agree with ou doctrines and wouldn't mock them " This doesn't follow.
This again isn't a case . Because Voltaire wanted to move science and education outside the grasp of he church and didn't want it wedded to theological doctrines and filters does not make him an Atheist( This assumes a theist should desire this ) And again splitting the Church from science does not make him the farther of modern Atheism sorry your case remains unmade .
As for your contined mocking of my sources so far your sources have either
Worked against your point
Not actually proved the thing you insist it does
Contridicts other sources you used
Or attacked a claim i never made
And sticks and stones (Lectures me about sources when he himself cited a source that said opposite of what he was claiming because he didn't read past the first paragraph )
And lastly
So i imagine you have abandoned your four previous poor sources and instead have replace them with an apologetics site that clearly an agenda (interesting you get to appeal to a pro Christian site but when i do it my site is butthurt ). Alrighty you still lose i'm afraid .Firstly i don't remember ever proclaiming he was a Christian and yes i imagine his harsh words for h church got him in a lot of trouble but that doesn't make him an Atheist .Secondly i already conceded that it was used as a bible repository in my last response but pointed out that according to one of he links on the wikipedia article you cited it was temporary .I also point out you made a series of other claims about the house so there is that . As i already said though the Christian obsession with something so petty is sad .
So ultimately
You failed to prove Voltaire's atheism
You are a hypocrite on sources
And i can only assume your either pig headed or dishonest .Anyone i gave you another chance at a conversation .You failed .Don't respond to me any further i have no more time to waste on you (ignored )
want the truth? here is a synopsis with more than 20 primary sources that prove everything claimed.
not the list of primary sources at the bottom bee-otch
A story which Christian apologists have told for years involves the French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778). The story purports that Voltaire, in his voluminous writings against Christianity and the Bible, predicted in 1776, “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” As the story alleges, within fifty years after his death, in an ironic twist of Providence, the very house in which he once lived and wrote was used by the Evangelical Society of Geneva as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts and the printing presses he used to print his irreverent works was used to print Bibles. The story has been used repeatedly through the years by Christians as an example of the enduring intrinsic quality of the Bible and the futility of those who oppose the Inspired Volume.
For years there have been those who dispute this story as to its validity. Humanists, rationalists, agnostics, and atheists have called it an apocryphal story fabricated by Christians to bolster their argument that the Bible is inspired and possesses an intrinsic quality that enables it to withstand attacks by unbelievers. David Ross wrote an article in the Journal of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists, vol. 77, no. 1, Autumn 2004, entitled “Voltaire’s House and the Bible Society,” in which he went to great lengths to dismiss the story as having any real basis in fact. Ross contends the story has been either fabricated or it began as a misunderstanding and has spread. Ross’ article and others like it are of such a convincing nature that books like Introduction to the Bible by Norman Geisler and William Nix, left it out of later editions.
The question to consider, is there any validity to the story? Did Voltaire ever make such a prediction? Is there proof that the home in which Voltaire once lived, that after his death, was used as a storehouse for Bibles? After much research, this writer has come to the conclusion that the story is true and that those who seek to discredit the story do so because it gives credence to the argument of apologists of God’s providential preservation of His Word.
Voltaire was born in Paris, France in 1694. As a philosopher, historian and free thinker, he became a most influential and prolific writer during what has been called the Age of Enlightenment. From the beginning, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for criticisms toward the government. He twice served brief prison sentences in the Bastille for being critical of a Regent. His first literary work appeared in 1718. During his life he wrote more than 20,000 letters and some 2,000 pamphlets and books and was a successful playwriter. While a Deist, he vehemently opposed the Christian faith and wrote many rather scoffing works expressing his disdain for the faith and the Bible. His railings against Christianity are filled with poisonous venom, calling the Christian faith the “infamous superstition.”
Several examples of his slanderous words against the Christian faith and the Bible are cited.
In 1764 he wrote, “The Bible. That is what fools have written, what imbeciles commend, what rogues teach and young children are made to learn by heart” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, 1764). “We are living in the twilight of Christianity” (Philosophical Dictionary). In a 1767 letter to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, he wrote: “Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world…My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise of extirpating the world of this infamous superstition.”[2] Voltaire ended every letter to friends with “Ecrasez l’infame” (crush the infamy — the Christian religion). In his pamphlet, The Sermon on the Fifty (1762) he attacked viciously the Old Testament, biblical miracles, biblical contradictions, the Jewish religion, the Christian God, the virgin birth and Christ’s death on the cross.Of the Four Gospels he wrote, “What folly, what misery, what puerile and odious things they contain [and the Bible is filled] with contradictions, follies, and horrors”[3]. Voltaire regarded most of the doctrines of the Christin faith – the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Trinity, Communion – as folly and irrational.[4] And finally, “To invent all those things [in the Bible], the last degree of rascality. To believe them, the extreme of brutal stupidity!”
Many more such quotes could be cited as to Voltaire’s disdain for Christianity, but those will suffice. Voltaire’s writings were so divisive that in 1754 Louis XV banned him from Paris. Relocating in December 1754 to Geneva, Switzerland, he purchased a beautiful chateau called Les Delices (The Delights). He lived there for five years until 1760 when as the result of his antagonistic writings and plays attacking Christianity, he was virtually driven from Geneva by the Calvinist Reformers. To escape the pressure from the Calvinists, Voltaire moved across the border to Ferney, France, where the controversial Frenchmen lived for eighteen years until the end of his life in 1778 at age 83. He continued to write until his hand was stilled in death.
Now the question arises as to the veracity of what some call an “apocryphal story.” While Voltaire’s disdain for the Bible is evident, did he ever make such a prediction and did any Bible Society ever use either of his residences, from where he wrote his blasphemous words against the Bible and the Christianity, as a warehouse to store Bibles? The answer to that question is an emphatic, “YES!”
The second part of the story will be dealt with first.
In August 1836, only fifty-eight years after Voltaire’s death, Rev. William Acworth of the British and Foreign Bible Society saw with his own eyes Voltaire’s former residence in Geneva, Switzerland, Les Delices, being used as a “repository for Bibles and Religious tracts.” The house at this time was occupied by Colonel Henri Tronchin (1794-1865), who served as the president of the Evangelical Society of Geneva from 1834-39.[6] The Tronchin family had long had associations with Voltaire that could be traced back to the 18th century. One of Henri Tronchin’s ancestor’s, Francis Tronchin, was Voltaire’s doctor. The Tronchin’s were prominent and wealthy residents of Geneva and even helped finance Voltaire in the publishing of some of his works.
While the Tronchin family was prominent and wealthy citizens of Geneva, they were not predominately spiritual. However, though it is not known exactly when, Henri Tronchin came to faith in Christ and embraced Protestantism. Studying literature at the Academy of Geneva, he later served as artillery captain on horseback in the Dutch army. Eventually rising in ranks to lieutenant-colonel of artillery, he married in 1824. A superb organizer and a great leader, he helped found the Evangelical Society of Geneva (c1833). He served as president of the Society from 1834 to 1839. Born 100 years after Voltaire, and occupying the former home of the infamous infidel, Tronchin used the spacious house to store Bibles and Gospel tracts. Rev. William Acworth of Queens College, Cambridge, appointed an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1829, was an eye witness to the stored Bibles and Gospel tracts.
In The Missionary Register for 1836 of the BFBS, Acworth is recounting his travels in the spread of the Gospel. Having traveled over 2,000 miles in France on the business of the Society, in the summer of 1836 his travels took him to Switzerland in August of that year. Acworth recounts:
I went through Geneva, and was much refreshed by meeting the Committee of the Evangelical Society, with whose proceedings and objects I was so much gratified, that I wrote to this Society to make a liberal grant of 10,000 copies of the French Scriptures to promote the objects of that Society. Our committee have only granted 5,000; but I have no doubt they will, err long, send the other 5,000. Before I left Geneva, my friend observed. “Probably you will like to see the house where Voltaire lived, and where he wrote his plays.” Prompted by the spirit of curiosity, so characteristic of an Englishman, to visit the house of the celebrated infidel, I was about to put on my hat to walk into the county, when he said, “It is not necessary you should put on your hat” and he introduced me over the threshold of one room to another, and said, “tis the room where Voltaire’s play were acted for the amusement to himself and his friend.” And what was my gratification in observing that that room had been converted into sort of Repository for Bibles and Religious Tracts. Oh! my Christ Friends, that the spirit of infidelity had been there, to witness the results of other vaticinations [acts of prophesying] respecting the downfall of Christianity! I know that Voltaire said, that he was living “in the twilight of Christianity” but blessed be God! It was the twilight of the morning, which will bring on the day of universal illumination.
Only fifty-eight years after his death the former home of Voltaire in Geneva, Switzerland, was indeed serving as a storehouse for Bibles and Gospel tracts. While the Evangelical Society of Geneva did not actually purchase the house, Henri Tronchin, president of the Society, resided in the house, and used some of the rooms to store Bibles which Voltaire so vehemently opposed and prophesied Christianity’s downfall! Yes, an ironic twist of divine Providence.
Let it also be noted, only sixteen years after Voltaire’s death, in 1794, the presence of the Bible began making in-roads in the town where he spent the last eighteen years of his life, Ferney, France. On the very printing presses which Voltaire employed to print his irreverent works was used to print editions of the Bible and which were printed on paper that “been especially made for a superior edition of Voltaire’s works. The Voltaire project failed, and the paper was bought and devoted to a better purpose [of printing Bibles]!”
In the book Letters from an Absent Brother, by Daniel Wilson, Bishop of Calcutta, which chronicles his travels through parts of Netherlands, Switzerland, Northern Italy, and France, he writes to his sister from Geneva on Wednesday evening, seven o’clock, October 1, 1823, concerning the distribution of Bibles in the town where Voltaire once lived: When I arrived at Paris, one of the first things I heard was that a Bible society had been established at Ferney, chiefly by the aid of Baron de Stael. What a noble triumph for Christianity over this daring infidel. One of the first effect of the revival of true religion or even of sound learning in France, I should think would be to lower the credit of this profligate, crafty, superficial, ignorant, incorrect writer. What plea can wit or cleverness, or the force of satire or the talent of ridicule or a fascinating style, or the power of brilliant description, form, in a Christian country, for a man who employed them all, with a bitterness or ferocity, of mind amounting to almost madness, against the Christian religion and the person of our Saviour.
That a Bible society had been established in Ferney, France to help financially in the printing of Bible’s in the town where Voltaire once resided, is confirmed in the 1824 Report of the Protestant Bible Society at Paris containing the following sentence: A newly established branch at Ferney formerly the residence of Voltaire, has sent its first remittance, a sum of 167 francs.
Further proof that the printing presses Voltaire once used to print his blasphemous works is contained in a transcript from the Quarterly Papers of the American and Foreign Bible Society of 1837: A Bible Society was some years since established at Ferney, once the residence of Voltaire—the prince of infidels. This noble enterprise for the propagation of the Christian religion is said to have commenced by Baron de Stael, and a few zealous Christians in that place. In the history of Bible Societies, this is truly a memorial event. That the antidote should issue from the very spot where the poison of infidelity for so many years disseminated; and the advocates of Christianity should in that very place print and circulate the sacred volume, as a sufficient shield against misrepresentations sophistry which he had there assailed divine revelation, are the events which the brilliant Frenchman would have pronounced impossible.
In 1845 Bibles were still being printed on printing presses Voltaire once employed in Ferney, France. The 1846 anniversary address of The American and Foreign Bible Society, Rev. Charles G. Sommers gave a stirring report on how the Bible was making penetration into various places around the world. When speaking about the Scriptures advancements in countries around the world (including France) in the previous year of 1845, Rev. Sommers stated,
“Much has indeed been accomplished, but much more remains to be done for the millions who are still without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world. It is true, indeed, and we thank God, that in nine years this Society has printed one million of books in forty-nine different languages, but hundreds of millions must be distributed among the famishing myriads of our race. By what other means can we hope to arrest the progress of infidelity and Romanism; now marching in triumph over the fields of our fair inheritance? When Pythagoras and Confucius were filling Europe and Asia with heresies, God raised up Ezra, the prophet, to compile and publish the books of the Old Testament, as an antidote to their delusions. And when Voltaire, Diderot, D’Alembert and Rousseau were laboring to crush the bleeding cause of Christ, God raised up against them the standard of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and it is a cause for grateful exultation that the same printing press which was employed to scatter the blasphemous tracts of the prince of French philosophers, has since been used at Ferney (France), to print the Word of God. The black confederacy raised their bulwarks to impede the march of truth, but they would have been equally successful, had they forged chains to bind the lightning, that cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, as the precursor of the coming of the Son of man. Voltaire boasted that he had seen the twilight of Christianity, and that the pall of an endless night would soon cover it forever. Yes, sir, he did see the twilight, but he was mistaken as to the hour of the day—it was the twilight of morning, pouring its effulgence over the brim of the horizon of the nineteenth century, which he mistook for the rays of a setting sun.”
Having established that Bibles were actually stored in Voltaire’s former Geneva residence and were being printed on printing presses he once employed in Ferney, France, did he ever make such a prediction that one hundred years after his death the Bible would no longer be read? A man who wrote 20,000 letters in his lifetime, it would be impossible to know all the statements he wrote or spoke. However, it was generally acknowledged and understood by those near the time Voltaire lived that he had made such a prediction either verbally or in writing which may no longer exist. Rev. Acworth in 1836, only fifty-eight years after Voltaire’s death, referred to the infidel’s “vaticinations [act of prophesying] respecting the downfall of Christianity! Such a remark indicates it was common knowledge that such a bold prediction had been made by Voltaire. In 1849, only seventy-one years after Voltaire’s death, William Snodgrass, an officer of the American Bible Society, stated in the giving of ABS’s annual report that “the committee had been able to redeem their pledge by sending $10,000 to France, the country of Voltaire, who predicted that in the nineteenth century the Bible would be known only as relic of antiquity.” Again, such a remark indicates it was commonly acknowledged that Voltaire had made such a prediction.
Found in an interpretative book on many of the works of Voltaire published in 1823, only forty-five years after his death, the author, a contemporary of the Frenchman, details the fact that he brutishly sought to inspire contempt for the Christian faith and saw himself more influential than Martin Luther and John Calvin! Voltaire wanted a “religion to be without code, without laws, without dogma, without authority” and “laughed all these Christians who believed their religion was truly divine.” The author states that Voltaire in his fight against Christianity would stop “at nothing to annihilate” the Christian faith. It is obvious those in Voltaire’s day believed his efforts were for the purpose of dismantling Christianity.
While this writer could not find the exact quote that usually accompanies the story, similar quotes could be found. In an 1855 biography of Voltaire, the author quotes him as stating in a letter to a friend, “It is impossible that Christianism survives.”[17] In an effort to assist in bringing about what he perceived would hurry the demise of “Christianism,” in 1776, at age 82, Voltaire brought to a culmination his disdain for the Bible when he published La Bible Enfin Expliquée (The Bible Fully Explained).[18] The two-volume work was Voltaire’s commentary on the whole Bible. His purpose in writing was to “make the whole building [of Christianity] crumble.”[19] Writing with feigned credulity in a satirical and scoffing manner, he wrote viciously, mockingly critical and skeptically of practically every book and verse in the Bible. His sought to expose, as he saw it, the foolishness and irrationality of belief in the Bible. Of his massive tome, in which he derided the Bible on every page, he stated, “The subject is now exhausted: the cause is decided for those who are willing to avail themselves of their reason and their lights, and people will no more read this [Bible].”
From such an arrogant declaration it is clear Voltaire delusionally believed as a result of his La Bible Enfin Expliquée, he had struck a death blow to the Bible’s believability and the sun was setting on the Book’s influence and in time the Volume would become irrelevant. However, instead of the Bible becoming irrelevant and no longer believed, the Inspired Volume begins to increase in circulation… his former house, only fifty-eight years after his death, being used as a storehouse to house Bibles and Gospel tracts and printing presses he once employed to print his anti-Christian sentiments was being used to print Bibles!
Like all stories that are repeated over the years, the exact details and wording may vary, but it seems clear the key components of the story are very much true. The story of Voltaire serves as an example and a reminder that the foolish predictions and efforts of man to extinguish the Bible will come to naught. No skeptic’s scoffing hammer has ever made a dent in the Eternal Anvil of God’s Word. To those who attempt to do so, Jesus emphatically declares, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
Amen!
Notes
Norman Geisler and William Nix, Introduction to the Bible, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1968), 124.
Sarah Coakley, Faith, Rationality and the Passions, (MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 37.
Voltaire, Trans. Joseph McCabe, Selected Works of Voltaire, “The Sermon on the Fifty,” (London: Watts & Co., 1911), 178-180.
Voltaire, ed. H.I. Wolff, Philosophical Dictionary, “Arius,” (New York, 1924), 253.
Quote of Voltaire from his work God and Man, chapter xliv, found in James Parton, Life of Voltaire, Vol. II, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1881), 429.
[6] Stelling-Michaud, Suzanne, Le livre du Recteur de l’Académie de Genève (1559-1878) (Vol 6). Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1980, 72; also, Jean-Yves Carluer, “Henri Tronchin,” December 16, 2017, (Accessed March 12, 2019). In 1929 the Les Delices property was purchased by the city of Geneva, and now houses the Institute et Musee Voltaire, a museum founded in 1952 dedicated to the life and works of Voltaire.
On Voltaire’s relations with the Tronchin family, see Deidre Dawson, Voltaire’s Correspondence: An Epistolary Novel (New York: Peter Lang, 1994), 101–126; also, George Valbert, “The Genevese Councilor François Tronchin and his relations with Voltaire”, The Revue des Deux Mondes, 1895, 205-216
William Canton, A History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1845-1926, (London: J. Murray, 1903), 98.
The Missionary Register for 1836, William Acworth, “Bible Notices in Switzerland and Italy,” (London: L&G Seeley, 1836), 352.
The Gentleman s Magazine, July, August, September 1794; Samuel Bagster, The Bible of Every Land (London, 1860), 167. Curiously enough, Bibles were printed on paper, which, according to Hannah More, had been specially made for a superior edition of Voltaire’s works. The Voltaire project failed, and the paper was bought and devoted to this better purpose. Monthly Extracts, 1848, August, p. 793.
Daniel Wilson, “Letters from an Absent Brother, (London, 1824), 187.
Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Vol. 7, 1822, 1823, 1824, (London: J.S. Hughes, 1824), 17-18.
Quarterly Papers of the American and Foreign Bible Society, No 11, New York, July 1837, “Bible Society at Ferney,” 21-22.
Ninth Annual Report of the American and Foreign Bible Society, Presented at New York, May 15, 1846, (New York: John Gray, 1846), 48.
Annual Report of the American Bible Society, 1849, Appendix, 98.
Claude Francois Nonnottee, Erreurs de Voltaire, (Paris, 1823), 285-305.
Eugene Noel, Voltaire, (Paris: F. Chamerot, 1855), 99.
Arnold Ages, “The Technique of Biblical Criticism: An Inquiry into Voltaire’s Satirical Approach in La Bible Enfin Expliquée,” A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, September 6, 2013, 67-79.
Voltaire, La Bible Enfin Expliquée, (Alondres), 1776, 2.
Voltaire, La Bible Enfin Expliquée, (Alondres), 1776; also; James Parton, Life of Voltaire, Vol. II, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co, 1881), 543.
(May 4, 2020 at 6:10 am)Nomad Wrote: Acutally Voltaire was a deist. He believed in a god that got the ball rolling and then got out of Dodge, a non interventionist god who started the universe then sat back to see what eventuated. Definitely not an atheist.
Also, atheism is as old as religion, hell even some religions (mainly centered around India and China) are themselves atheistic. In the classical west the first atheist school of philosophy was the Greek school of the atomists, who were the first to describe the world without any reference to god (and likely amongst the earliest preludes to modern science), there were plays written about atheists and eventually Greek philosophy resulted in Epicurus, the one person most rightly deserving of the title "grandfather of atheism". Epicurus died c. two millenia before Voltaire was born.
But you don't care about reality. It contradicts the fantasy world built inside your head.
but he wasn't. i have primary source quotes from Voltaire himself what do you have wiki commentary?
Oh dear where to begin
1. None of these sources demonstrate Voltaire's atheism only his disdain for organized religion as i have acknowledged already .That doesn't make him an atheist so no.
2. I already acknowledged it it was used as a bible repository 2 comments ago. That wasn't what i was objecting to so nope failure again (it
's also ironic you use a source now that calls out one of the earlier sources you used ) ,And repeat i find it hilarious just how petty Christians can be .
3. You use of good sources now doesn't excuse your earlier sources nor does it take away from my criticism of them above .(I find it funny you insult wiki's when you used one earlier)
So overall a great deal of copy and paste for no reward .So maybe tone down the bluster bee-otch
And thanks for the lesson on the truth lololololol
Quote:nope, i know im a dummy which is why i look everything up and have three points of reference to every claim i make. that my friend is why i also trump you guys even when you are not capable of understanding i won.
Well this isn't the case
Quote:you and the rest are falling for fake history. it is revisionist bs trying to white wash evil men so as to adopt their evil ways without the stigma that they died with. Voltaire was an evil man, but modern atheism has adopted his method of challenging God morality. so to us to point back tot he father of your atheism and say look this is where you get your arguments and these are the reason voltare failed historically these are the reason you fail... Has you guys scrambling to rewrite history...
1. Questioning religious morality doesn't make one evil
2.He is not the farther of modern atheism and because some arguments we make are similar does not mean we got them from him
3. You point about history is nonsense Voltaire's faults as person are well acknowledged by historians
Quote:but note, all you d-bags have are historical commentary trying to desperately convince you this man was a saint... I have been pulling quotes from voltaire's own private and public works and addresses. Your commentators are lying, if voltaire's actual body of work is read. but the commentator know none of you guys will even need to read what voltaire said when they can fill you full of lies and you will never even question them
No here has tried painting him as a saint nor do we even care if he was .The res is conspiracy tripe .
Quote:I provided his real world work read it for yourself. He said God does not exist but can not proclaim it because they would burn him at the stake. This information is almost 30 years old to me, and i knew or remember from then his anti God anti Semitic quotes. but loophole away from being prosecuted by the church under this greater idea of deism the Franklin and others were supposed to be apart of. they thought that these great mind would unlock some greater form of worship. but then like now atheism is just an excuse to kill god in one's head to be drilled or to drill someone in the can.
You provided quotes hat don't in fact do that . In fact the only truthful thing in this paragraph is his criticisms of religious conceptions of god and his Anti semitism which was a common as grass at the time he lived .
Quote:When we learn of voltare it was not through commentary we read his works, so none of you is going to drop some wiki commentary and bully me into thinking like the sheep you all have become. i know this man's work, and he was a monster in word thought and deed.
Lol he might not have been a saint but he was not a monster either
(and for fuck sake can you learn to spell his name properly)
"Change was inevitable"
Nemo sicut deus debet esse!
“No matter what men think, abortion is a fact of life. Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?” –SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
May 4, 2020 at 4:50 pm (This post was last modified: May 4, 2020 at 5:10 pm by Bucky Ball.)
Drich
Quote:1
I knew you were neither capable nor competent to respond to even one point I made.
Thanks for proving yet again what a mental midget you are, and that you have not one shred of education in these topics.
You're so far over your head, you drowned a few years ago.
No converts today for Drip Shit.
Oh well.
Dripshit is a deist also, not a theist.
He doesn't know what those words mean.
He outed himself in this thread.
One cannot underestimate his level of education.
He does pretty well for completing 4th Grade.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
Quote:but he wasn't. i have primary source quotes from Voltaire himself what do you have wiki commentary?
Accept none of you quotes do this .
"Change was inevitable"
Nemo sicut deus debet esse!
“No matter what men think, abortion is a fact of life. Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?” –SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
May 4, 2020 at 4:58 pm (This post was last modified: May 4, 2020 at 5:23 pm by Bucky Ball.)
(May 3, 2020 at 10:03 pm)Jehanne Wrote:
(May 3, 2020 at 11:37 am)Bucky Ball Wrote: Whether Hus was a heretic or not is not a question relating to the major tenets of orthodoxy, but an authority question.
Quote:2. To eradicate heresies, especially those spread by John Wyclif in Britain and by John Hus and Jerome of Prague in Bohemia.
Do you regard Arianism as being a form of "orthodox" Christianity?
All heretics refuse to accept the authority as constituted by wider communities.
I could care less about all the various little heresies THAT DIED OUT.
Were these heresies incorporated into church doctrine ? No.
You seem to be unable to see the forest for the trees.
The fact is, the Nicaean Creed is still the same and still recited by most Christians.
You've actually made my point for me.
Of course there were heresies. That in no way means the church in general accepted them.
The fact that there were all kinds of heresies that arose, but were rejected, as not comporting with what the church's
doctrines, demonstrates that there WAS a body of belief they felt was not in agreement with the core beliefs.
Heresies are no threat to orthodoxy if they are rejected.
If you have examples of heresies that were ACCEPTED by the main bodies of the churches, let's see them.
Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. - Joseph Campbell
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