God & Human Beings

First English Translation

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• Publisher: Prometheus
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN:
  9781616143275
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Philosophers

In this little-known work by Voltaire (1694-1778)-now available in English for the first time- the famous French philosophe and satirist presents a wide-ranging and acerbic survey of religion throughout the world. Written toward the end of his life in 1769, the work was penned in the same decade as some of his more famous works-the Philosophical Dictionary, Questions on Miracles, and Lord Bolingbroke''s Important Examination-all of which questioned the basic tenets of Christianity.Voltaire called himself a deist and thus he professed belief in a supreme deity. But he was always sharply critical of institutional Christianity, especially its superstitions, the hypocrisy of its clergy, and its abuse of political power. Both his deism and his critical attitude toward Christianity are manifest in God and Human Beings, which is, in effect, one of the first works of comparative religion. Comparing Christianity to the more ancient belief systems of the Jews, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Arabs, he notes a common tendency to worship one supreme god, despite the host of subordinate deities in many of these religions. He also critiques the many superstitions and slavish rituals in religion generally, but he emphasizes that in this respect Christianity is no better than other faiths. Thus, the clergy''s claim that Christianity is God''s supreme revelation to humanity has no basis from an objective perspective. This first English translation of a classic critique of religion includes an introduction by writer, scholar, and editor S. T. Joshi, who wrote the article on Voltaire in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (edited by Tom Flynn). Anticipating many of the themes of the later Higher Criticism and rationalist critiques of religion, this incisive, witty treatise by the great French skeptic will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in the philosophy of religion, intellectual history, or the Enlightenment.

Table of contents

• Translator’s Note on the Text
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Our Crimes and Stupidities
• Chapter 2: Remedy Approved by the Body of Doctors against the Above Sicknesses
• Chapter 3: A God among All Civilized Nations
• Chapter 4: On Ancient Worship and Firstly in China
• Chapter 5: On India, Brahmins, and Their Theology, Imitated Very Late by the Jews and Then by the Christians
• Chapter 6: On Metempsychosis, Burning Widows, Francis Xavier, and Warburton
• Chapter 7: On the Chaldeans
• Chapter 8: On the Persians and Zoroastrians
• Chapter 9: On the Phoenicians and Sanchuniathon, before the Time of Moses
• Chapter 10: On the Egyptians
• Chapter 11: On the Arabs and Bacchus
• Chapter 12: On the Greeks, Socrates, and the Double Doctrine
• Chapter 13: On the Romans
• Chapter 14: On the Jews and Their Origin
• Chapter 15: When Did the Jews Start Living in Cities, When Did They Write, and When Did They Have a Fixed and Permanent Religion?
• Chapter 16: What Was the Religion of the Jews at First?
• Chapter 17: Continual Change in the Jewish Religion to the Time of the Captivity
• Chapter 18: Customs of the Jews
• Chapter 19: The Jewish Religion on the Return from the Captivity in Babylon
• Chapter 20: The Immortality of the Soul Is Not Stated or Even Presumed in Any Place in the Jewish Law
• Chapter 21: That the Jewish Law Is the Only One in the Universe That Ordained Human Sacrifice
• Chapter 22: Reasons of Those Who Claim That Moses Cannot Have Written the Pentateuch
• Chapter 23: If Moses Existed
• Chapter 24: On a Very Curious Life of Moses Written by the Jews after the Captivity
• Chapter 25: On the Death of Moses
• Chapter 26: If the History of Bacchus Is Taken from That of Moses
• Chapter 27: On the Cosmogony Attributed to Moses and the Flood
• Chapter 28: On the Plagiarisms Blamed on the Jews
• Chapter 29: On the Worship of the Jews and Their Conduct after the Captivity up to the Reign of the Idumean Herod
• Chapter 30: On the Customs of the Jews under Herod
• Chapter 31: On Jesus
• Chapter 32: Research on Jesus
• Chapter 33: On the Morality of Jesus
• Chapter 34: On the Religion of Jesus
• Chapter 35: On the Manners of Jesus, the Establishment of the Sect of Jesus, and Christianity
• Chapter 36: Innumerable Frauds of the Christians
• Chapter 37: On the Causes of the Progress of Christianity, On the End of the World and the Resurrection Announced about Its Time
• Chapter 38: Platonic Christians—the Trinity
• Chapter 39: On Christian Dogma Absolutely Different from That of Jesus
• Chapter 40: On Christian Disputes
• Chapter 41: On the Customs of Jesus and the Church
• Chapter 42: On Jesus and the Murders Committed in His Name
• Chapter 43: Honest Propositions
• Chapter 44: How We Should Pray to God
• Axioms
• Addendum of the Translator