Desecration Quotes



This famous quotation has been attributed to Voltaire, 1694-1778, and French Philosopher, Denis Diderot, 1713-1784. Most quotation collections erroneously attribute it to Diderot in the version “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” Both Voltaire and Diderot used the quotation as did many others opposed to monarchy and the then repressive church hierarchies. But the origin of the famous phrase was with Meslier. When the priest died, three handwritten manuscripts were found written and signed by him in which he attacked religion in general and the church and the Bible in particular. His Testament was read by Voltaire and Denis Diderot among others and he was very influential in their development as opponents of organized religion.


Perhaps the most famous quotation in all of Political Science is Lord Acton’s observation about power. See {292904}. What is fascinating is that 74 years earlier, Shelly, the most famous of the English Poets expressed the same idea in one of his great poems.


In 1989 the Chicago Institute of the arts exhibited a controversial work where the American flag was draped on the floor that appeared to invite patrons to walk on it. The Senator introduced a bill making it a crime to display the American flag:


The Sultan, led 17 different military expeditions to India to spread the Muslim faith He is one of the few major conquerors of the world who was never defeated in Battle. He conquered the Lahore area and others of India that became Muslim and eventually became Pakistan. He was the first Islamic leader to bear the Title of Sultan demonstrating the separation of the civil power from the Caliph.


This quotation illustrates that the Muslim conquest and attempt to destroy and desecrate the symbols of other religions was not limited to Christianity—it was ALL other religions. In that sense, Christianity and Islam of the period were very similar at the time—intolerance to the point of murder and destruction of any “heathen” religion.