Well, I haven't met my quota of offended people this month, so I figured I'd post a mini-essay I wrote over two years ago, for European Studies! :yeah:

Voltaire

“A wise and courageous prince, with money, troops, and laws, can perfectly well govern men without the aid of religion, which was made only to deceive them; but the stupid people would soon make one for themselves, and as long as there are fools and rascals there will be religions. Ours is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and the most bloody that has ever infected the world.”
–Letter to Frederick the Great

Voltaire apparently agrees with Marx in that religion is the opiate of the masses; it is designed only to take their minds off the affairs of the world and let the ruling class go on with business. Voltaire claims that a competent ruler can govern perfectly well without this crutch and have a wonderful country. However, the people have become addicted to their opiate and need a religion to take their minds off the drudgery of life. The rascals take advantage of the fools by creating religion and taking tithes and homage from them while doing little work themselves. Voltaire says that the one Europe created for this purpose was a particularly bad one, filled with strange dogma and so self-righteous that it causes huge amounts of violence in its name.
The resurgence of fundamentalist Christians in America today demonstrates the truth of Voltaire’s idea: a country finally came about where religion was not necessary, not imposed and, after centuries of tweaking, not too heavily encouraged. "The stupid people” reacted to the wane of religion with outrage and fundamentalism became widespread and a strong force in national politics.

Yes, Kundor IS a mean drunk!!!

<refuses to touch the main point of the post...even if she were using a 10ft pole...>

Voltaire was a wise man indeed

Did he have bastards??

Kundor may be a bastard, but I think he's not related to Voltaire :mischief:

Hey, as Voltaire said, I may not believe in what you say, but I'd kill you to defend my right of stopping you from saying it! :mad:

More or less :mischief:

I remember now - book by John Ralston Saul (economist)