American Minute - Nov. 21 - Voltaire

American Minute
with
Bill Federer

French author Voltaire was born NOVEMBER 21, 1694.

Yale president Timothy Dwight wrote of Voltaire in his Address "Duty of Americans at the Present Crisis," July 4, 1798, published in Encyclopedia Britannica's Annals of America:

"About the year 1728, Voltaire, so celebrated for his wit and brilliancy and not less distinguished for his hatred of Christianity and his abandonment of principle, formed a systematical design to destroy Christianity and to introduce in its stead a general diffusion of irreligion and atheism...

The principal parts were:...compilation of the Encyclopedia in which the doctrines Christian theology were rendered absurd...Overthrow religious orders...Fabrication of books against Christianity, such as excite doubt."

Timothy Dwight continued:

"Formation of a secret Academy of which Voltaire was the standing president and in which books were formed, altered, forged, imputed as posthumous to deceased writers of reputation."

Bruce Barton, a U.S. Congressman and New York advertising executive, wrote:

"Voltaire spoke of the Bible as a short-lived book. He said that within a hundred years it would pass from common use. Not many people read Voltaire today, but his house has been packed with Bibles as a depot of a Bible society."