RE: Voltaire on Islam
June 16, 2016 at 10:02 am
(This post was last modified: June 16, 2016 at 10:06 am by Homeless Nutter.)
(June 16, 2016 at 9:15 am)Rhythm Wrote: [...]Voltaire was a racist shithead who didn't think much of turks, but what do you think regarding his opinion -of islam-?
I think Voltaire was on thin ice, being a free-thinker, non-believer in a country ruled by a catholic despot, who's power and authority supposedly came from god. He obviously had to present islam in the worst possible way, using words like "satanic", in order to placate his catholic patrons, especially that his opinion of - say - christianity, or judaism wasn't really all that different from what he wrote about islam, so it would be very dangerous for him to appear objective.
Quote:In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire#Religious_views
La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde.[111]
"Our [religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. … My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out.."[112][113]
"The most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world" - well that seems to make christianity worse than even islam in Voltaire's mind.
Don't get me wrong - I don't like islam at the best of times, but I don't see how the Voltaire quote from hundreds of years ago brings anything into the discussion about islam in particular, since he was anti-religion in general.
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." - George Bernard Shaw
