Morality as attitude
-is opposed to our taste nowadays.

This is ALSO an advance,
as it was an advance in our fathers
that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste,

including the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion
(and all that formerly belonged to freethinker- pantomime).

It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit,
to which Puritan litanies, moral sermons,
and goody- goodness won’t chime.

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Helen Zimmern, aphorism 216

Turning these words over in my mind, I wondered, exactly what did Voltaire have to say about religion? This is what I found:

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.

Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.

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

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.

There is much more but this is enough. Nothing has changed with respect to Christianity, since Voltaire. Indeed Christians are certain of the unchanging nature of their deity. That is their point. Christians alone have no need to change since they possess “the truth”.  An arrogant point of view, no doubt, unless that is what you happen to believe. Then you’d be oblivious to your own overweening ignorance,…

Let us be human, is attributed to Wittgenstein. THAT ought to be enough.

Sadly it isn’t.

How about a tune?  This is the one we need.  The incomparable Whitney Houston, I Wanna Dance With Somebody.