Notes

Voltaire's critiques of religion and the church are centered around the hypocrisy of religious figures and structures. Whenever officials are introduced within Candide, they can be seen acting against rules imposed by the church, such as the Pope having children despite celibacy being a part of his role within the church. Another example also includes the friar, who haggles a horse and ends up purchasing it at a much lower price than originally intended. These actions are against the church's teachings, and as figures of authority they should be expected to follow them, however Voltaire uses these incidents to ridicule the church and point out corruption within church officials. Hume, on the other hand, views religion from a more ideological perspective. His critiques stem from skepticism in that religion is much too reliant on miracles, without any physical evidence being able to prove them. He finds that miracles contradict the rules of nature, and as such shouldn't be possible within the material world. As such, we should not believe in them, seeing that it cannot be justified in any means. Both Hume and Voltaire's critiques are similar in the sense that it both aims towards inconsistencies founded within religion, however Voltaire's arguments are based in issues within power structures and authority figures within religion, whereas Hume's argument is centered around beliefs and the ideologies.

In Candide, Voltaire criticizes the religious beliefs during that time. He criticized the corruption of the Catholic church as he did not like how it was very influential over the people and how they would falsely judge them. He gives off many examples to show how the church was really like this. For example, the story of about the daughter of a wealthy pope showed the corruption of the Catholic clergy just because he was a person who was supposed to be celibate but instead, he had a daughter which meant he was not following the example of Christ.

On the other hand, Hume also criticizes religion, but it differs from Voltaire’s ideas.  Hume’s argument towards religion was that miracles were a violation to the laws of nature. He said that we should not believe in them because they could not be justified especially not by witnesses. He states how often having the sensation of surprise and wonder usually ends up leading to unreasonable beliefs which is something that obviously was not good. One final thing that Hume says it that every religion believes what they want and what in one might be considered a miracle in another it could be considered something else. Both Hume and Voltaire had their own criticisms on religion but in the end, they did differ from each other.

One of Voltaire’s most prominent critiques on religion is the hypocrisy used by church leaders to act in the same ways that they preach to their followers not to do. He writes this satirical piece to highlight certain issues that he sees occurring, not only in the church, but the effects it has on the followers. A most obvious example of this may be how people are burned to death if they happen to disagree with church beliefs (Auto-da-fé). If the church and religion have a goal to preach God’s word and treat all brothers and sisters with respect, yet they result to violence as a solution to their disagreements, then there is no reason for followers to be truly obedient to their authority; if the church will not follow their own beliefs, why would everyone else have to? Voltaire also pokes fun at this concept by creating the utopic Eldorado to have no violence or disputes WITHOUT any kind of organized religion. He may be asserting that people may be happier without such restrictive religions.

In comparison to Hume, the critiques from the two authors appear very distinct as Voltaire criticizes the structural aspect of religion whereas Hume critiques the overall existence of religion and God, but in some ways Voltaire appears to have another critique as well very similar to the one given by Hume. Voltaire includes the character Pangloss in which this character embodies pessimism and criticizes whether the world we live in truly is “the best of all possible worlds.” The argument is then made that, if it believed that God is a perfect being, then he does not make mistakes and would only create the best possible world, but if the world is NOT the best possible world, then what is this God people believe in and does he even really exist then?