If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him

“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” (‘Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer’) Voltaire (b1694)

• He became hugely wealthy by exploiting a flaw in the French lottery
• He helped popularize the famous tale about Sir Isaac Newton and the apple
• He set up a successful watchmaking business in his old age.

Contrary to the popular myth, Voltaire wasn’t an atheist at all, while it was true that he opposed religious fanaticism. It is no accident that one of his favorite sayings was the aphorism, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” (‘Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer’)

Best of all possible worlds, in the philosophy of the early modern philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the thesis that the existing world is the best world that God could have created.

This quote itself was countered by the 19th-century anarchist Mikhail Bakunin during his exile in his book God and the State with “If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him

Voltaire vs Rousseau