The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (icecream ebook reader TXT) ๐
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The Age of Reason is an important work in the American Deist movement. Paine worked on it continually for more than a decade, publishing it in three parts from 1794 through 1807. It quickly became a best-seller in post-Revolution America, spurring a revival in Deism as an alternative to the prevailing Christian influence.
In clear, simple, and often funny language, Paine attempts to dissect the Bibleโs supposed inaccuracies and hypocrisies. He portrays the Bible as a human construct, full of illogic, errors, and internal inconsistencies, as opposed to it being a text born of divine inspiration. On those arguments he pivots to decrying not just Christianity, but organized religion as a whole, as a human invention created to terrorize and enslave. Instead of accepting organized religion, he states that โhis mind is his own churchโ and that man must embrace reason.
While these arguments werenโt new to the wealthy and educated class of the era, they were new to the poor masses. The book was at first distributed as cheap unbound pamphlets, making it easily accessible to the poor; and Paineโs simple language was written in way the poor could understand and sympathize with. This made the powerful very nervous, and, fearing that the book could cause a potential revolution, Paine and his publishers were suppressed.
Paine wrote The Age of Reason while living in Paris. In France, its thesis wasnโt revolutionary enough for the bloodthirsty Jacobins; he was imprisoned there for ten months and only escaped execution through a stroke of luck. Meanwhile in Britain, the government considered the pamphlets seditious. British booksellers and publishers involved in printing and distributing the pamphlets were repeatedly tried for seditious and blasphemous libel, with some even receiving sentences of hard labor.
Paine began writing Part III after escaping France for America, but even the American elite thought the book too scandalous, with Thomas Jeffersonโhimself a Deistโadvising Paine not to publish. Paine listened to Jeffersonโs advice and held off publishing Part III for five years before publishing extracts as separate pamphlets. For that reason, Part III is not a concrete publication, but rather an arrangement of several loosely-related pamphlets organized at the discretion of an editionโs editor.
Once it was in the hands of Americans, it sparked a revival in Deism in the United States before being viciously attacked from all sides. Paine earned a reputation as an agitator and blasphemer that stuck to him for the rest of his life.
Despite The Age of Reasonโs harsh receptionโor perhaps, because of it, and the controversy and discussion it causedโit achieved a popularity in England, France, and America that gave it incredible influence in those nationโs perspectives on organized religion.
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- Author: Thomas Paine
Read book online ยซThe Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (icecream ebook reader TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Thomas Paine
The words in Isaiah 11:3, โThe voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, โPrepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,โโโ are in the present tense, and consequently not predictive. It is one of those rhetorical figures which the Old Testament authors frequently used. That it is merely rhetorical and metaphorical, may be seen at the 6th verse: โAnd the voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass.โ This is evidently nothing but a figure; for flesh is not grass, otherwise than a figure; or metaphor, where one thing is put for another. Besides which, the whole passage is too general and declamatory to be applied exclusively to any particular person or purpose.
I pass on to the eleventh chapter.
In this chapter Mark speaks of Christ riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he does not make it the accomplishment of a prophecy, as Matthew has done; for he says nothing about a prophecy. Instead of which, he goes on the other tack, and in order to add new honors to the ass, he makes it to be a miracle; for he says, verse 2, it was a colt whereon never man sat; signifying thereby, that as the ass had not been broken, he consequently was inspired into good manners, for we do not hear that he kicked Jesus Christ off. There is not a word about his kicking in all the four Evangelists.
I pass on from these feats of horsemanship, performed upon a jackass, to the l5th chapter.
At the 24th verse of this chapter, Mark speaks of parting Christโs garments and casting lots upon them, but he applies no prophecy to it as Matthew does. He rather speaks of it as a thing then in practice with executioners, as it is at this day.
At the 28th verse of the same chapter, Mark speaks of Christ being crucified between two thieves: that, says he, The Scriptures might be fulfilled which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. The same thing might be said of the thieves. The expression is in Isaiah 53:12. Grotius applies it to Jeremiah. But the case has happened so often in the world, where innocent men have been numbered with transgressors, and is still continually happening, that it is absurdity to call it a prophecy of any particular person. All those whom the church calls martyrs were numbered with transgressors. All the honest patriots who fell upon the scaffold in France, in the time of Robespierre, were numbered with transgressors; and if he himself had not fallen, the same case, according to a note in his own handwriting, had befallen me; yet I suppose the bishop will not allow that Isaiah was prophesying of Thomas Paine.
These are all the passages in Mark which have any reference to prophecies.
Mark concludes his book by making Jesus to say to his disciples, 16:15, โGo ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned (fine Popish stuff this). And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.โ
Now the bishop, in order to know if he has all this saving and wonder-working faith, should try those things upon himself. He should take a good dose of arsenic, and, if he please, I will send him a rattlesnake from America! As for myself, as I believe in God, and not at all in Jesus Christ, nor in the books called the Scriptures, the experiment does not concern me.
I pass on to the book of Luke.
The Book of LukeThere are no passages in Luke called prophecies, excepting those which relate to the passages I have already examined.
Luke speaks of Mary being espoused to Joseph, but he makes no reference to the passages in Isaih, as Matthew does. He also speaks of Jesus riding into Jerusalem upon a colt, but he says nothing about a prophecy. He speaks of John the Baptist, and refers to the passage in Isaiah of which I have already spoken.
At the 13th chapter, verse 31, he says โThe same day there came certain of the Pharisees, saying unto him (Jesus), Get thee out, and depart hence, for Herod will kill thee. And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.โ
Matthew makes Herod to die whilst Christ was a child in Egypt, and makes Joseph to return with the child on the news of Herodโs death, who had sought to kill him. Luke makes Herod to be living and to seek the life of Jesus after Jesus was thirty years of age; for he says, 3:23, โAnd Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.โ
The obscurity in which the historical part of the New Testament is involved with some respect to Herod, may afford to priests and commentators a plea, which to some may appear plausible, but to none satisfactory, that the Herod of which Matthew speaks, and the Herod of which Luke speaks, were different persons. Matthew calls Herod a king; and Luke 3:1 calls Herod tetrarch (that is, governor) of Galilee. But there could be no such person as a King Herod, because the Jews and their country were then under the
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