Along with many other Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire was a deist. Like other deists, Voltaire believed in God, but not in the traditional Christian conceptions. He saw God as similar to a clockmaker. God made the universe and then let it operate on its own. God did not intervene in human affairs. Further, the universe ran according to basic laws, and humans could understand these laws using reason rather than faith.
Voltaire's beliefs in natural rights and religion combined to make him a strong defender of religious tolerance, the idea that people should be allowed to follow their chosen beliefs without fear of exile, jail, or other punishment. Voltaire's views were controversial. To call someone "tolerant" was a criticism that they lacked strong religious beliefs. Even in Great Britain, the country Voltaire admired, Roman Catholics could not serve in Parliament or attend the most prestigious universities. However, over the following century, Voltaire's progressive ideas on tolerance would slowly become common.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Another major French philosopher of the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) felt that both reason and civilization destroyed the best in human beings. While many felt that society was improving, Rousseau believed that people had been better off living in what he called a state of nature: in small, agricultural communities without elaborate institutions of government, religion, and industry. There, people's inherent, or inborn, goodness was not spoiled. He described people in societies without elaborate civilizations as "noble savages." Rousseau believed the noble savage was generous, free, spontaneous, and sincere.
Rousseau realized that it was impossible for people to return to this pre- existing state of nature. However, he believed that the basic goodness of the noble savage survived and that children demonstrated it. Therefore, adults should strive to educate children in such a way as to preserve their unspoiled state. Children should be allowed to develop naturally rather than be tightly controlled. How is this context significant to understanding his writing? (short sentence) written like a 8th grader