François-Marie Arouet, known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
Voltaire first addresses religion in Letters 1–7. He specifically talks about Quakers (1–4), Anglicans (5), Presbyterians (6), and Socinians (7). In the Letters 1-4, Voltaire describes the Quakers, their customs, their beliefs, and their...
The story is organized into seven brief chapters. The first describes Micromégas, whose name literally means "small-large", an inhabitant of a planet orbiting the star Sirius. Micromégas stands 120,000 royal feet tall and his circumfere...
The Dictionnaire philosophique is an encyclopedic dictionary published by the Enlightenment thinker Voltaire in 1764. The alphabetically arranged articles often criticize the Roman Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam, and other institutions.
