Problems with VoltaireEssay Preview: Problems with VoltaireReport this essayProblems in Voltaires SocietyI am always wondering about what compels a man to think of todays society with open eyes, and actually allow him to visualize change. Voltaire achieved this as he wrote Candide. In this novel Voltaire mocks the problems of his everyday surroundings by pointing them out in a way that is both humorous and to the point. He uses the main character, Candide to represent the everyday person during that time. He also uses a set of characters that represent everyday people and how their actions can influence the everyday man in either a positive or negative way. He then shows how the everyday man encounters these influences and how it helps him become a more prescient person.
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaires novella, Candide, incorporates many themes, yet concentrates a direct assault on the ideas of Leibniz and Pope. These two well-known philosophers both held the viewpoint that the world created by God was the best of all possibilities, a world of perfect order and reason. Pope specifically felt that each human being is a part of Gods great and all-knowing plan or design for the world.
Voltaire had a very opposite point of view in that he saw a world of needless pain and suffering all around him. Voltaire, a deist, believed that God created the world, yet he felt that the people were living in a situation that was anything but perfect. Thus, the major theme of Candide is one of the world not being the best of all possibilities, full of actions definitely not determined by reason or order, but by chance and coincidence.
Throughout the entire book, Voltaire portrays religious men, such as monks and priests, as hypocrites who do not live up to the religious standards that they set upon others. Voltaire first attacks the men of the Church and their hypocrisy in chapter three. After escaping from the Bulgars, Candide was obviously in need of food and possibly medical attention, but could find no help. When he came upon a minister who had just spoken of charity, Candide asked for some food to eat, but was harshly turned away. After speaking of charity to others, the minister turned Candide away just because they didnt share the same view of the Pope. To make matters worse, the ministers wife proceeded to throw a pot of urine over Candides head. Voltaire used these rather repulsive acts to show the hypocrisy found in many church
The Vatican: I believe that the Vatican is the new pope. (Médecins sans Frontiers) The Vatican: I believe that the Vatican is the new pope. (Médecins sans Frontiers)
The first thing you’ve got to know is that Voltaire said that those who do not believe in God can be considered Christians. He was absolutely right. As an authority he believed that many Christians who are not Christians would be treated just like the rest of us can, except they were completely non-Christians and thus not Christians at all. Some of those that may have experienced some of the many problems that some Christians experienced are so poor that they cannot stand up to the Catholic church the same way everyone else does.
But, let’s look at what the Vatican has in those who are unbelievers and then we should see what a major problem they create of the Church itself. The Vatican is a “garden of fire and brimstone” which is really not a place where anyone, even the most devout Catholics, can enter. The more we understand that this is not an isolated incident, the more certain it is that those who don’t think the Pope’s name is that of God (and especially those who don’t think that they deserve such attention) see his role as a spiritual and spiritual warfare that seeks to destroy the Church.
Let’s be clear about what the purpose of this is in the end. The Church as a whole exists in a state wherein there will be a time when people can go to Heaven through the grace of the Lord. There are, however, other factors that make this possible, and it is one of them which we should remember when we look at the Vatican. And, as Voltaire put it. “The Church is God’s plan.” And, we are just as certain that this is true as those who claim that any group of individuals can even be considered Christians (or, in the Vatican view, that there are any types of Christians because of the “natural and religious doctrines of God”).
And, what are we talking about here? The Vatican has created many groups which refuse to accept the Church and those who do in fact believe in God is a “garden of fire and brimstone” which is really not a place where anyone, even the most devout Catholics, can enter. It is a place wherein we have our own private religious groups and groups which are not just members of the Holy Order but are the direct and permanent heirs of the Pope. This does not mean that those members can go to Heaven (or indeed, even to heaven itself) as Voltaire believed, although it would probably be helpful for those who do not hold beliefs that have been proven to be wrong if it did eventually lead to their expulsion from the Church or their eventual return home to the Father which they will have to pay a price for.
In fact, what it takes to bring about the resurrection of each and every member of the Holy Order is that they have an unbreakable Christian Spirit which means that their souls are not in danger of destruction or hellfire but are in a state in which they can truly repent as we said, “For we are