Volataire

[Israel Chai]

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Quotes_about_Voltaire

I've been having a good time reading this page since I got a quote from it. Some of what he says is in Gemarra. At the end I was very interested to see a quote about him showing the difference in the ideology that has morphed into New Age thought which the Nazis espoused of the nihilists.

"O Voltaire! O humaneness! O nonsense! There is something about "truth", about the search for truth; and when a human being is too human about it- "il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien" [In English he is saying "he's only looking for truth so that he can do good with it"]- I bet he finds nothing.

    Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Trns: Walter Kauffmann"

[Ulli]

He was a hater of all religious people. He was a hater of God. I have read his conversations with king Frederik of Prussia. Towards religious Jews he was very hostile in a very unpolite and wicked way. But against Christians and Muslims too. Only if you give up the idea of God in general he would accept you. A perfect Demonrat.

[Israel Chai]

Huh. From the quotes there they make it look like he believes in G-d. Tricky. Well I guess the rule is there's chochmah among the nations but no Torah.

[Ulli]

Huh. From the quotes there they make it look like he believes in G-d. Tricky. Well I guess the rule is there's chochmah among the nations but no Torah.

Not at all. For him it is all a fairy tale for stupid uneducated people. He makes no difference between the religions.

[Zelhar]

Voltaire or Nietzsche?

He was a hater of all religious people. He was a hater of God. I have read his conversations with king Frederik of Prussia. Towards religious Jews he was very hostile in a very unpolite and wicked way. But against Christians and Muslims too. Only if you give up the idea of God in general he would accept you. A perfect Demonrat.

[Israel Chai]

Voltaire or Nietzsche?

He seems to be saying Voltaire. So how come he keeps saying he believes in G-d then? What was his G-d?

[Binyamin Yisrael]

He seems to be saying Voltaire. So how come he keeps saying he believes in G-d then? What was his G-d?

Nietzsche wrote a book claiming G-d is "dead" Chas VeShalom. His age was when the Germans invented racial Anti-Semitism. Since they stopped believing in religion, they could no longer hate Jews for the crime of "deicide", so they needed a new reason to hate Jews. So they hated Jews for being Semites. Anti-Semites actually were then ones to invent the name Anti-Semite. Hitler was inspired by the Germans of the 1800's.

[Israel Chai]

Nietzsche wrote a book claiming G-d is "dead" Chas VeShalom. His age was when the Germans invented racial Anti-Semitism. Since they stopped believing in religion, they could no longer hate Jews for the crime of "deicide", so they needed a new reason to hate Jews. So they hated Jews for being Semites. Anti-Semites actually were then ones to invent the name Anti-Semite. Hitler was inspired by the Germans of the 1800's.

I see him as the final plunge in the enlightenment curve. People were freeing themselves of the intellectual and spiritual oppression of the Catholic church, and their minds were filled with ideas of freedom. Eventually they started taking themselves too seriously and decided their philosophy was the ultimate pursuit and not the good that they could now be free to do. When what matters is only knowledge, life and its true purpose seem trivial to you. It's kind of like the world of spiritual ideas of Kaballah, when you're nowhere near the spiritual level to be there, except if you get lost there it's one of the three worlds of tuma chas v' shalom and not somewhere higher.

[Ulli]

He seems to be saying Voltaire. So how come he keeps saying he believes in G-d then? What was his G-d?

Yes Voltaire. He had no God.

I like science, but I hate "enlightment" It is pure rebellion. You have to know your place as human.

[Israel Chai]

Yes Voltaire. He had no God.

I like science, but I hate "enlightment" It is pure rebellion. You have to know your place as human.

Here he indicates he believes in G-d: Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature [of d'Holbach] — after the recipe for making eels from flour — is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried to prove the impossibility.

"It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels."

"A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity"

"Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees. "

"I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: "O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!" God granted it."

All those he indicates belief in the divine.

Another:

""If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it."

Uh just found this one. So he's a super-ignorant Jew-hater that thinks Jews go around bragging that they "killed the messiah" all day because all he knows about Jews is the nonsense Catholics say: "All of the other people have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race. " Clearly indicates he had major religious bias, and was obviously Catholic in his understanding of the world.

"I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition."

"All philosophical sects have run aground on the reef of moral and physical ill. It only remains for us to confess that God, having acted for the best, had not been able to do better. "


So I don't like him anymore, but clearly not an atheist.

[Zelhar]

I think enlightenment is vastly superior to the backwardness that preceded it. Specifically in Germany, and really all of Europe, there were religious wars, like the 30 years war. Religious persecutions, serfdom... there were cruel and unjust punishments like burning at the stake for witchcraft.  The economy and science could not progress because of the backwardness and religious intolerance.

Yes Voltaire. He had no God.

I like science, but I hate "enlightment" It is pure rebellion. You have to know your place as human.

[Israel Chai]

I think enlightenment is vastly superior to the backwardness that preceded it. Specifically in Germany, and really all of Europe, there were religious wars, like the 30 years war. Religious persecutions, serfdom... there were cruel and unjust punishments like burning at the stake for witchcraft.  The economy and science could not progress because of the backwardness and religious intolerance.

The 70s had some similar elements, and while almost everyone Orthodox was condemning everything, the Rebbe said that finally people are beginning to see that they can be what they want. So it's like don't throw the baby out with the bath water, clearly with Volataire here he wasn't talking to any Jew regularly to actually think that, so maybe we should be showing people good examples of things they can make themselves into.

[Kahane-Was-Right BT]

From what I remember of a few Voltaire works I had to read in college, he had a very unfavorable opinion of Jewish people.  Bigtime hater.

[Ulli]

Here he indicates he believes in G-d: Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one. What is most repellent in the System of Nature [of d'Holbach] — after the recipe for making eels from flour — is the audacity with which it decides that there is no God, without even having tried to prove the impossibility.

"It is very strange that men should deny a creator and yet attribute to themselves the power of creating eels."

"A false science makes atheists, a true science prostrates men before the Deity"

"Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees. "

"I always made one prayer to God, a very short one. Here it is: "O Lord, make our enemies quite ridiculous!" God granted it."

All those he indicates belief in the divine.

Another:

""If God did not exist, he would have to be invented." But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it."

Uh just found this one. So he's a super-ignorant Jew-hater that thinks Jews go around bragging that they "killed the messiah" all day because all he knows about Jews is the nonsense Catholics say: "All of the other people have committed crimes, the Jews are the only ones who have boasted about committing them. They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not some day become deadly to the human race. " Clearly indicates he had major religious bias, and was obviously Catholic in his understanding of the world.

"I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition."

"All philosophical sects have run aground on the reef of moral and physical ill. It only remains for us to confess that God, having acted for the best, had not been able to do better. "


So I don't like him anymore, but clearly not an atheist.

After I have read your quotes I have to withdraw my statement, that he had no God. Perhaps he was a kind of deist. But what it is for a kind of God if he rejects the scriptures as superstition and attacks all people who belive in it. I think today we can only know God by the scriptures that he gave us. If we say this are fairy tales then we know Him not.

[Ulli]

I think enlightenment is vastly superior to the backwardness that preceded it. Specifically in Germany, and really all of Europe, there were religious wars, like the 30 years war. Religious persecutions, serfdom... there were cruel and unjust punishments like burning at the stake for witchcraft.  The economy and science could not progress because of the backwardness and religious intolerance.

No I don't agree. Don't be offended. I know that you think a little bit more liberal. But the execution of witches is wanted by God. I remember very much how the witch of Endor was terrified as she found out, that the king was coming to her. Of cause she feared punishment because of the law.

The problem was in my oppinion the influence of the catholic church and the hiding of scipture from the people. Even Luther who was a vile anti-semite and also cruel to gentiles started as a catholic monk.

The best ideas of Europe started in the 16th and 17th century. Enlightment brought us on the other side the French Revolution, Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler.

[Zelhar]

It's nothing to be offended about, we have a difference of opinion. And I may be factually wrong sometimes. I think the founding of the United States and its principles are part of the "Enlightenment". Various reformations and revolutions in Europe are also at least in part motivated by enlightened ideas. You can argue something like enlightenment -> secularism -> French/Russian style revolutions but I think it's not the only result.

No I don't agree. Don't be offended. I know that you think a little bit more liberal. But the execution of witches is wanted by God. I remember very much how the witch of Endor was terrified as she found out, that the king was coming to her. Of cause she feared punishment because of the law.

The problem was in my oppinion the influence of the catholic church and the hiding of scipture from the people. Even Luther who was a vile anti-semite and also cruel to gentiles started as a catholic monk.

The best ideas of Europe started in the 16th and 17th century. Enlightment brought us on the other side the French Revolution, Napoleon, Stalin and Hitler.

[Israel Chai]

After I have read your quotes I have to withdraw my statement, that he had no God. Perhaps he was a kind of deist. But what it is for a kind of God if he rejects the scriptures as superstition and attacks all people who belive in it. I think today we can only know God by the scriptures that he gave us. If we say this are fairy tales then we know Him not.

Maybe he really did have no G-d and just said that and the stuff about Jews to cover his tracks with the Catholic majority, but that's a stretch.