3. What attitude towards princes and established religions does Voltaire invite in his treatment of the war between the Abares and the Bulgarians?

Candide is very much in dialogue with eighteenth-century debates over Christianity, which was evolving in a paradoxically more secular direction away from strict adherence to religious duties and commandments toward a more reason-based approach to ethical behavior.

Voltaire succeeds in making a pointed commentary about the arbitrariness of privilege and wealth, but also misfortune and poverty. In his view, there is about as much nobility in having descended from several thousands years of uninterrupted aristocracy as there is in having caught a venereal disease originally transmitted by the famous explorer of New World.