Voltaire On Religion Analysis

After the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution occurred people started to realize that there are other ways to do things than how they have been done for centuries. With the new way of thinking about religion and science people started to think about how they think in general. The “Enlightenment” was a time when people questioned; how they interact with others and how they should live their life contrary to how they have been. In particular religion was one of the strong traditions that was uprooted in this time, as seen in the two excerpts written by Thomas Jefferson and Francois Voltaire. This new way of thinking moved religion from the top of the list, as it was in the Reformation, to the back burner and it was evident in European countries.
When Voltaire touches on the subject of religion during his piece, he claims that religion is for personal satisfaction in areas …show more content…
He starts with explaining how religion and spiritual life occurs in you mind for the most part and in your being. With this he claims that men are not able to submit their conscious to the state, it is impossible, so the state has not right to try and impose on it (Jefferson). From there he states that, if religion occurs in the conscience then it doesn’t affect anything outside of that being, to demonstrate he is accredited with a famous line, “ it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg…”(Jefferson). This view opposes the basic views of the reformation in the idea that religion is a community event when in fact it doesn’t concern anyone but the individuals themselves. On the subject of religious intolerance by Christians, Jefferson refers to the time of the Roman Empire, “ Had the Roman empire not allowed free inquiry, Christianity could never have been introduce” (Jefferson). Claiming that if a religion performed intolerance to the Christians as they have been, then they never would have existed in the first