Voltaire’s (1694-1778) quarrel with the Catholic Church it appears was that it was a self-serving institution … a worldly body, and not of or for God. As well, the bible to Voltaire was not a divine gift or the ‘word of God’, but rather by and large a metaphor that taught some good lessons. He famously observed "if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him". On the other hand for Aquinas (1225-74) the bible was a sacred doctrine whose sources are self-revelations of God to certain 'select' individuals throughout history. Aquinas apparently denied that human beings have any duty to animals and plants because they are not persons, have no 'souls' and accordingly can be used freely with impunity for consumption. He encouraged people to reproduce with irresponsible abandon without limit viewing it as a basic god-given right. His tenets are still widely believed and practiced without reservation. Voltaire viewed this elitist view of man’s place in nature as profoundly evil. It has to do with choice and action, and the tension in which choices are made which are reckless, irresponsible, suicidal, and indeed ultimately godless.
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| Voltaire deathmask |
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| animals have no 'souls' |
My animus against the Catholics has been due to their efforts to interfere with free speech and free press … everybody in the publishing world knows what an impudent nuisance they have become.
ReplyDeleteSwallowing the New Testament as factual and moral truth seems to me an awful price to pay for becoming Catholic … Christianity seems to me the worst imposture of any of the religions I know of. Even aside from the question of faith, the morality of the Gospel seems to me absurd. If one combs out the contradictory passages in which Jesus appears as an arrogant and militant Jewish moralist, as Trotsky tried to do, you get a doctrine of weakness and non-resistance which, if followed by the inhabitants of the supposedly Christian countries, would not allow them to survive ten years. It does not imply Christian tendencies that one tries to cultivate kindness and respect for the rights of others – qualities, as a matter of fact, for which I am not always remarkable and which I do not regard as always important; qualities which besides, Christianity did not invent and for which the Catholic has, especially , not been remarkable. 1951
The Aquinas-inspired self-serving Catholic dogma that humans are superior over nature persists even to this day. In his 2010 New Year's Day statement [Caritas In Veritate, 7Jul09] the Pope incredibly took direct aim at the view that the Universe (Nature) and God are identical, criticizing it as "seeing the source of man’s salvation in nature”. I suspect most catholics aren’t aware of this and even those who are don’t (or won’t) understand the dangerous absurdity of it. Like the Pope’s recent decree that condom use in AID-plagued Africa was a sin, this piece of reckless dogmatic crap is frankly genocidal, a far more grievous sin if such could be measured.
ReplyDeleteUntil one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened
ReplyDeleteVoltaire is a pseudonym. He explained in a note to a friend: "I was so unhappy under the name d'Arouet that I took another, primarily so that I would cease to be confused with the poet Roi." Indeed, Voltaire is additionally known to have used at least 178 separate pen names during his lifetime.
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