The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine (icecream ebook reader TXT) 📕
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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 Bible’s 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 “his mind is his own church” and that man must embrace reason.
While these arguments weren’t 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 Paine’s 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 wasn’t 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 Jefferson—himself a Deist—advising Paine not to publish. Paine listened to Jefferson’s 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 edition’s 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 Reason’s harsh reception—or perhaps, because of it, and the controversy and discussion it caused—it achieved a popularity in England, France, and America that gave it incredible influence in those nation’s perspectives on organized religion.
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- Author: Thomas Paine
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I will here subjoin the 19th Psalm, which is truly Deistical, to show how universally and instantaneously the works of God make themselves known, compared with this pretended salvation by Jesus Christ.
Psalm 19th—“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy-work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”
Now, had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost 2,000 years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
I have now, reader, gone through all the passages called the prophecies of Jesus Christ, and shown there is no such thing.
I have examined the story told of Jesus Christ, and compared the several circumstances of it with that revelation, which, as Middleton wisely says, God has made to of his power and wisdom in the structure of the universe, and by which everything ascribed to him is to be tried. The result is, that the story of Christ has not one trait, either in its character, or in the means employed, that bears the least resemblance to the power and wisdom of God, as demonstrated in the creation of the universe. All the means are human means, slow, uncertain, and inadequate to the accomplishment of the end proposed; and therefore the whole is a fabulous invention, and undeserving of credit.
The priests of the present day profess to believe it. They gain their living by it, and they exclaim against something they call infidelity. I will define what it is. He that believes in the story of Christ is an infidel to God.
Contradictory Doctrines Between Matthew and MarkIn the New Testament, Mark 16:16, it is said, “He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” This is making salvation, or, in other words, the happiness of man after this life, to depend entirely on believing, or on what Christians call faith.
But the 25th chapter of The Gospel according to Matthew makes Jesus Christ to preach a direct contrary doctrine to The Gospel according to Mark; for it makes salvation or the future happiness of man, to depend entirely on good works; and those good works are not good works done to God, for he needs them not, but good works done to man.
The passage referred to in Matthew is the account there given of what is called the last day, or the day of judgment, where the whole world is represented to be divided into two parts, the righteous and the unrighteous, metaphorically called the “sheep” and the “goats.”
To the part, called the righteous, or the sheep, it says, “Come ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Here is nothing about believing in Christ—nothing about that phantom of the imagination called “faith.” The works here spoken of are works of humanity and benevolence, or, in other words, an endeavor to make God’s creation happy. Here is nothing about preaching and making long prayers, as if God must be dictated to by man: nor about building churches and meetings, nor hiring priests to pray and preach in them. Here is nothing about predestination, that lust which some men have for damning one another. Here is nothing about baptism, whether by sprinkling or plunging; nor about any of those ceremonies for which the Christian church has been fighting, persecuting, and burning each other, ever since the Christian church began.
If it be asked, Why do not the priests preach the doctrine contained in this chapter? the answer is easy—they are not fond of practising it themselves. It does not answer for their trade. They had rather get than give. Charity with them begins and ends at home.
Had it been said, Come, ye blessed; ye have been liberal in paying the preachers of the word, ye have contributed largely towards building churches and meetinghouses, there is not a hired priest in Christendom but would have thundered it continually in the ears of his congregation. But as it is altogether on good works done to men, the priests pass it
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