User:Jesuselhombremasguapo/sandbox

Origins
François-Marie Arouet was born just at the turn of the 17th Century in 1694 in the city of Paris, France. He was born into a well off, middle class, family and son to the lawyer François Arouet and mother Marie Marguerite d'Aumart(1). He originally studied law, but showed interest in becoming a writer(1). He wrote novels, plays, philosophical essays, histories, and letters, but he was also an esteemed philosopher. One of the great philosophes of the Enlightenment, his work stressed the action of criticism and motivating individuals to use reason as a tool for everyday life.His ideals went against the ideas of fanaticism, idolatry, and superstition in which he sought to crush (2)(YouTube, 2:00). This led him to constantly come into conflicts with religious societies even in his country of France as well as all over Europe. His exiles are well documented, for just at the age of 22 (1716) he was exiled to Tulle for mocking duc D’Orleans, then a year later in 1717, sent to the Bastille (French fortress/ state prison) for “writing libelous poetry”(1). His major work and legacy is in the work of the satirical novella Candide (1759), in which a battle between the ideas of optimism and pessimism mixed in with some parody. It remains one of literatures classics and is a reflection of what Voltaire was truly about. In 1778, he returned home after an exile from Paris and stayed there up until his death on May 30, 1778. Despite all the exiles and troubles he went through, Voltaire is considered by many to be the center of the Age of Enlightenment and has sparked the minds of many in the contemporary society (2)(Youtube, 0:40).

Philosophy
Voltaire was known for his involvement in the support of deism. Along with religious tolerance, Voltaire upheld the idea that having diverse religious society will lead to a more peaceful one (2) (Youtube, 4:22). Deism is “built on the Newtonian world-machine, which suggested the existence of a mechanic (God) who had created the universe (3)”, stepped back from it and let everything develop without him. This put God in a light that many of the churches disagreed with, but it went hand in hand with a fellow philosophe of the time, Sir Isaac Newton. His ideas on natural law gave more validity that the universe was set with certain limitations and rules. Voltaire built on that with his publication of “Elements of the Philosophy of Newton” publish in 1738 (4). Not only was this an opportunity for Voltaire to validate the idea of deism, but it also gave his audience an introduction to the scientific world that Newton provided. His arguments went against God’s involvement in the everyday lives of people, contrary to the Christian belief. His famous quote reads “Jesus might have been a good fellow but he was not divine as Christianity portrayed him as (5)”.

Influence Over Europe
As a philosopher there was constant scrutiny wherever he was, because Voltaire being Voltaire, he liked to cause a ruckus with rational thoughts. Nothing wrong with that unless you're a noble who gets ridiculed about their religion or their way of thinking. Voltaire was arrested and later exiled to England for insulting a French nobleman by the name of Chevalier de Rohan in 1726 (1). He remained in England for 3 years and wrote Letters on the English (1733), which angered the French government and also the Catholic church. Later on he became a member of (Prussia) Frederick The Great’s court in 1750, and then went to Geneva and Ferney to live in exile (1). It is also important to note how foreign people of power viewed Voltaire as a writer and a philosopher. Catherine the Great, who ruled Russia from 1762-1796, wrote to him saying that,

“Since 1746 I have been under the greatest obligations to you. Before that period I read nothing but romances, but by chance your works fell into my hands, and ever since then I have never ceased to read them, and have no desire for books less written than yours, or less instructive (6)”.

That in itself speaks for Voltaire's influence over the people of Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.