Freethought Almanac

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February 28: Michel de Montaigne (1533)

It was on this date, February 28, 1533, that French essayist Michel de Montaigne was born. As his famous Essays were published, the 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Massacre was a fresh memory in France, so Montaigne professed to be a Catholic. Yet he made some risky statements in his most famous work:

• Man is certainly stark mad; he cannot make a flea, yet he makes gods by the dozen.

• Men of simple understanding, little inquisitive and little instructed, make good Christians.

• Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know.

Montaigne was a Deist, but he may have been a secret Atheist…

To read more, go to THIS LINK.

Originally published February 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.

Ronald Bruce Meyer

Our Fearless Leader.


Daily Almanac

December 4: Thomas Carlyle

Carlyle abandoned his Christian beliefs in 1818 after reading Gibbon. After further study... Carlyle gave up the Holy Ghost and immortality, as well, adopting a Pantheism like Goethe's.



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