Candide

Voltaire was a man that strongly opposed the aspect of religion. He believed that it was created in order to exploit people, hence his  short novel Candide serves as a satirical story that points out many flaws in the Deism religion. The Deist believe that a higher being created the universe and simply left it to run on its own, such as a clockmaker and a clock. The main character Candide is a young boy that tries to follow in the footsteps of his philosopher role model Pangloss, and Pangloss fully believes that everything in the world is as it should be. This philosophy is tested throughout the story when back to back catastrophic events take place. I somewhat agree with Voltaire's mockery of the idea that every bad circumstance in life serves for some greater purpose. As a christian I believe that God doesn't give us anymore than we can handle, and some incidents in life occur to mold us into a better and stronger person. Yet, that does not mean that I agree with Deist view that God just lets the world run on its own. I think that every human being on this earth has the freedom to make their own decisions and with each decision provokes certain consequences. As with Candide, when he decided to make a move on his crush Cunégonde, he had to suffer the consequences of being banished from the kingdom and everything that happened afterward.  However, in the end of the story,  Dervish's philosophy of work proves to be most sufficient. Dervish proposes the idea to keep working in order to prevent boredom and take care of your responsibilities. This is a good philosophy to live by because hard work does pay off and instead of worrying about the rest of the world if you just focus on yourself and your own responsibilities I believe you will live a happier life :)