All prophets are imposters. Mahomet may have begun as an enthusiast,
enamored of his own ideas; but he was soon led away by his reveries; he
deceived himself in deceiving others; and finally supported a doctrine
which he believed to be good, by necessary imposture. Socrates, who
pretended to have a familiar spirit, must have been a little crazy, or a
little given to swindling. As for Moses, he is a myth, a form of the
Indian Bacchus. The Koran (and consequently the Bible) may be judged by
the ignorance of physics which it displays. "This is the touchstone of
the books which, according to false religions, were written by the
Deity, for God is neither absurd nor ignorant." Several volumes are
devoted by Voltaire to showing the inconsistencies, absurdities and
atrocities of the Old and New Testaments, and the abominations of the
Jews.

The positive religious opinions of Voltaire are less important than
his negations, for the work of this great writer was mainly to
destroy. He was a theist, of wavering and doubtful faith. He was well
aware that any profession of atheism might be dangerous, and likely to
injure him at court and with some of his friends. He thought that
belief in God and in a future life were important to the safety of
society, and is said to have sent the servant out of the room on one
occasion when one of the company was doubting the existence of the
Deity, giving as a reason that he did not want to have his throat
cut. Yet it is probable that his theism went a little deeper than
this. He says that matter is probably eternal and self-existing, and
that God is everlasting, and self-existing likewise. Are there other
Gods for other worlds? It may be so; some nations and some scholars
have believed in the existence of two gods, one good and one
evil. Surely, nature can more easily suffer, in the immensity of