Editing Age of Enlightenment (section)

===Religion===
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|quote=It does not require great art or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The Siam? Yes, without doubt; are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?
|source=Voltaire (1763)<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060107013835/http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.html ''A Treatise on Toleration'']</ref>
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[[File:Voltaire-lisant.jpg|thumb|left|French philosopher [[Voltaire]] argued for [[religious tolerance]].]]

Enlightenment era religious commentary was a response to the preceding century of religious conflict in Europe, especially the [[Thirty Years' War]].<ref>Margaret C. Jacob, ed. ''The Enlightenment: Brief History with Documents,'' Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001, Introduction, pp.&nbsp;1–72.</ref> Theologians of the Enlightenment wanted to reform their faith to its generally non-confrontational roots and to limit the capacity for religious controversy to spill over into politics and warfare while still maintaining a true faith in God. For moderate Christians, this meant a return to simple Scripture. Locke abandoned the corpus of theological commentary in favor of an "unprejudiced examination" of the [[Sola scriptura|Word of God alone]]. He determined the essence of Christianity to be a belief in Christ the redeemer and recommended avoiding more detailed debate.<ref>{{cite book |first=John |last=Locke |title=Reasonableness of Christianity |volume="Preface" The Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures |year=1695}}</ref> [[Anthony Collins (philosopher)|Anthony Collins]], one of the English [[Freethought|freethinkers]], published his "Essay concerning the Use of Reason in Propositions the Evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony" (1707), in which he rejects the distinction between "above reason" and "contrary to reason," and demands that revelation should conform to man's natural ideas of God. In the ''[[Jefferson Bible]],'' Thomas Jefferson went further and dropped any passages dealing with miracles, visitations of angels, and the [[resurrection of Jesus]] after [[Crucifixion of Jesus|his death]], as he tried to extract the practical Christian moral code of the [[New Testament]].<ref>{{cite book |first={{nowrap|R. B.}} |last=Bernstein |title=Thomas Jefferson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4vrD1WKLicwC&pg=PA179 |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=179 |isbn=978-0-19-975844-9}}</ref>

Enlightenment scholars sought to curtail the political power of [[organized religion]] and thereby prevent another age of intolerant religious war.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ole Peter |last1=Grell |last2=Porter |first2=Roy |title=Toleration in Enlightenment Europe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JPTdIQBIvS0C |year=2000 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=1–68 |isbn=978-0-521-65196-7}}</ref> Spinoza determined to remove politics from contemporary and historical theology (e.g., disregarding [[Halakha|Judaic law]]).<ref>[[Baruch Spinoza]], ''Theologico-Political Treatise,'' "Preface," 1677, [http://www.gutenburg.com gutenberg.com]</ref> [[Moses Mendelssohn]] advised affording no political weight to any organized religion but instead recommended that each person follow what they found most convincing.<ref>{{cite web |first=Moses |last=Mendelssohn |title=Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism |year=1783 |url=http://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/mendelssohn1782.pdf}}</ref> They believed a good religion based in instinctive [[morality|morals]] and a belief in God should not theoretically need force to maintain order in its believers, and both Mendelssohn and Spinoza judged religion on its moral fruits, not the logic of its theology.<ref>{{cite book |last=Goetschel |first=Willi |title=Spinoza's Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CYcOfkrduWYC&pg=PA126 |year=2004 |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |page=126 |isbn=978-0-299-19083-5}}</ref>

Several novel ideas about religion developed with the Enlightenment, including [[deism]] and talk of [[atheism]]. According to [[Thomas Paine]], deism is the simple belief in [[Creator deity|God the Creator]] with no reference to the Bible or any other miraculous source. Instead, the deist relies solely on personal reason to guide his [[creed]],<ref>Thomas Paine, ''Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion,'' 1804, Internet History Sourcebook</ref> which was eminently agreeable to many thinkers of the time.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ellen Judy |last1=Wilson |first2=Peter Hanns |last2=Reill |title=Encyclopedia Of The Enlightenment |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t1pQ4YG-TDIC&pg=PA148 |year=2004 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |page=148 |isbn=978-1-4381-1021-9}}</ref> Atheism was much discussed, but there were few proponents. Wilson and Reill note: "In fact, very few enlightened intellectuals, even when they were vocal critics of Christianity, were true atheists. Rather, they were critics of [[Orthodoxy|orthodox]] belief, wedded rather to skepticism, deism, vitalism, or perhaps pantheism."{{sfn|Wilson|Reill|2004|p=26}} Some followed [[Pierre Bayle]] and argued that atheists could indeed be moral men.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pagden |first=Anthony |title=The Enlightenment: And Why it Still Matters |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GnURng7tsWIC&pg=PA100 |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=100 |isbn=978-0-19-966093-3}}</ref> Many others like Voltaire held that without belief in a God who punishes evil, the moral order of society was undermined; that is, since atheists gave themselves to no supreme authority and no law and had no fear of eternal consequences, they were far more likely to disrupt society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Brown |first=Stuart |title=British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment: Routledge History of Philosophy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EoIafbj8pFgC&pg=PA256 |year=2003 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=256 |isbn=978-0-415-30877-9}}</ref> Bayle observed that, in his day, "prudent persons will always maintain an appearance of [religion]," and he believed that even atheists could hold concepts of honor and go beyond their own self-interest to create and interact in society.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bayle |first=Pierre |title=A general dictionary: historical and critical: in which a new and accurate translation of that of the celebrated Mr. Bayle, with the corrections and observations printed in the late edition at Paris, is included; and interspersed with several thousand lives never before published. The whole containing the history of the most illustrious persons of all ages and nations particularly those of Great Britain and Ireland, distinguished by their rank, actions, learning and other accomplishments. With reflections on such passages of Bayle, as seem to favor scepticism and the Manichee system |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qmNZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA778 |year=1741 |page=778}}</ref> Locke said that if there were no God and no divine law, the result would be moral anarchy: every individual "could have no law but his own will, no end but himself. He would be a god to himself, and the satisfaction of his own will the sole measure and end of all his actions."<ref name="Nuovo 2003">{{cite web |last1=Nuovo |first1=Victor |title=God, Locke and Equality: Christian Foundations of Locke's Political Thought |url=https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/god-locke-and-equality-christian-foundations-of-locke-s-political-thought/ |website=Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews |publisher=University of Notre Dame |access-date=15 April 2025 |date=4 May 2003 |type=book review}}</ref>

====Separation of church and state====
{{Main|Separation of church and state|Separation of church and state in the United States}}
The "Radical Enlightenment"{{sfn|Israel|2011|pp=11}}{{sfn|Israel|2010|p=19}} promoted the concept of separating church and state,{{sfn|Israel|2010|pp=vii–viii}} an idea that is often credited to Locke.<ref name=AFP>Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God.'' Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, p. 29 ("It took [[John Locke]] to translate the demand for liberty of conscience into a systematic argument for distinguishing the realm of government from the realm of religion.")</ref> According to his principle of the social contract, Locke said that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he said must therefore remain protected from any government authority.

These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with the social contract, became particularly influential in the [[Thirteen Colonies|American colonies]] and the drafting of the United States Constitution.<ref>Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God.'' Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, p. 29</ref> In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, Thomas Jefferson calls for a "wall of separation between church and state" at the federal level. He previously had supported successful efforts to disestablish the [[Church of England]] in Virginia<ref>[[#Ferling2000|Ferling, 2000]], p. 158</ref> and authored the [[Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom]].<ref>[[#Mayer|Mayer, 1994]] p. 76</ref> Jefferson's political ideals were greatly influenced by the writings of Locke, Bacon, and Newton,<ref>[[#Kayes|Hayes, 2008]], p. 10</ref> whom he considered the three greatest men that ever lived.<ref>[[#Cogliano|Cogliano, 2003]], p. 14</ref>