The Age of Reason
From SkepticWiki
The Age of Reason was a treatise on religion written by the American revolutionary writer Thomas Paine. It remains influential in the history of skeptical philosophy. The first part of The Age of Reason was written by Paine while in a French prison, under threat of execution for opposing the excesses of the French Revolution. The second part of The Age of Reason, was written a year later, in response to criticism of the first part.
Contents |
[edit] Content
Against Christianity, Paine argues that:
- Scripture, miracles, and human testimony are wholly unreliable vehicles for divine revelation;
- The historical bases of Christianity and Christian scriptures are suspect;
- The Christian scriptures are contradictory to themselves and violate to common morality and natural law;
- The Christian spirtitual economy is contradictory to any reasonable notions of justice;
- The Christian religion developed to gain and secure power and riches for the Church and secular governments.
Paine advocates for Deism, arguing that the physical world constitutes a true divine “revelation”, which can be known through science and reason. He uses examples from geometry to show that it is possible for truth to be revealed unmistakably and undeniably, through reason.
The second part of The Age of Reason is a book-by-book criticism of the provenance and accuracy of the Christian Bible.
[edit] Consequences
Formerly considered one of the great patriots of the American Revolution, Paine was ostracized upon his return to America in 1809, a time of great religious revival in America. His views expressed in The Age of Reason, as well as his friendship with the liberal Thomas Jefferson were inconvenient in the politics of the day, and many of his former friends deserted him.
The Age of Reason was banned in the United Kingdom.
[edit] Quotes
On Divine Revelation
- But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person alone. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.
On Miracles:
- If we are to suppose a miracle to be something so entirely out of the course of what is called nature, … and we see an account given of such a miracle by the person who said he saw it, it raises a question in the mind very easily decided, which is, -- Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie?
On The Bible:
- In many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate than that of being bound up, as they now are, with the trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the Word of God.
On Christian Doctrine:
- …[T]he theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice, and not that of moral justice. If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, … another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.
On Religion:
- All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
