Voltaire
Voltaire (pen name of François-Marie Arouet) (1694-1778) was a leading philosopher in the Enlightenment, advocating freedom everywhere and emphasizing his form of reason. He was a deist who rejected Christianity and criticized organized religion. Voltaire is sometimes called the "Father of the Enlightenment."
A Frenchman, he wrote "Candide," in which Voltaire described many bad things that happen to Candide in order to make the point that the world could be a better place. Increased freedom was Voltaire's way of improving things.
The late historian Kenneth Clarke described him as possibly the most intelligent man to have ever lived.
Voltaire on Religion
In his Philosophical Dictionary, he fantasizes a conversation in which he asks a spirit "Tell me if there have been peoples other than the Christians and the Jews in whom zeal and religion wretchedly transformed into fanaticism, have inspired so many horrible cruelties." The spirit replies "Yes, the Mohammedans were sullied with the same inhumanities, but rarely; and when one asked amman, pity, of them, and offered them tribute, they pardoned.As for the other nations there has not been one right from the existence of the world which has ever made a purely religious war."[1]
Regarding Islam, he said, "I TELL you again, ignorant imbeciles, whom other ignoramuses have made believe that the Mohammedan religion is voluptuous and sensual, there is not a word of truth in it; you have been deceived on this point as on so many others." [2]