WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Voltaire’s works, especially his private letters, frequently urge the reader: “écrasez l’infâme", or “crush the infamous". The phrase refers to contemporaneous abuses of power by royal and religious authorities, and the superstition and intolerance fomented by the clergy.

Detailed explanation-2: -He often ridiculed the Old Testament clearly in order to destroy it as a basis for the New Testament. Voltaire believed that organized religion was a plague that had to be eliminated for the Enlightenment to succeed.

Detailed explanation-3: -Voltaire believed that the most inhuman crimes were caused by religion. He claimed that what the Church called sin, the government deemed crime. Voltaire’s writings criticized this relationship and called for a separation between Church and State.