NotReady, Thomas Paine

[West]

I can't imagine this hasn't come up before, but I personally missed it, and after reading a bit of the recently posted link,

Age of Reason

..I was wondering what NotReady has had to say regarding the points that Thomas Paine makes. The Wikipedia entry on Age of Reason doesn't show any response from organized religion, so I'm curious.

[NotReady]

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I was wondering what NotReady has had to say regarding the points that Thomas Paine makes.


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My understanding is that Paine was a Deist and virulent anti-Christian. Reading any of his material isn't even on my list. If you want to discuss any of his points you'll have to be more specific than saying "See the book".

[West]

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My understanding is that Paine was a Deist and virulent anti-Christian. Reading any of his material isn't even on my list. If you want to discuss any of his points you'll have to be more specific than saying "See the book".

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anti-church period - from the first chapter:

"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

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.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."

To begin, his first point is basically this:

Each religion purports to know the Word of God, obtained through "revelation" (communicated from God to man), and now contained in holy texts such as the Bible. Paine begins by simply explaining that we cannot call anything a revelation that comes to us second hand:

"It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication — after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention."

I'll continue with a new reply, so this doesn't get too long

[NotReady]

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anti-church period


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I should have said anti-Bible or anti-religion or anti-church. Whatever.

I don't necessarily disagree with a general criticism of organized religion. Many Christians have done so, for instance, Martin Luther.

I disagree with what he says about revelation. He has no right to require God to deliver His word to man according to Thomas Paine's requirements. And there was a lot more to the delivery of the 10 Commandments by Moses than that he just woke up one morning and said I had a dream. Briefly, that God was with Moses was incredibly obvious from the beginning of Moses' demand for Pharoah to let the people go, followed by judgment after judgment on Egypt at the behest of Moses terminating in the parting of the Red Sea, followed by Moses spending 40 days on the mountain accompanied by so many works of God that the people were afraid to touch it. They were obliged to believe him because there was far more authority than just Moses saying it.

[West]

He next compares the story of Jesus Christ with "heathen mythology" known at the time, which he says prepared people to accept the story of Jesus' miraculous conception, as "extroardinary men" being thought to be the sons of gods was a common idea. Says Paine:

"the story, therefore, had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or Mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.

It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian church sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand: the statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus; the deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints; the Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything; the church became as crowded with one, as the Pantheon had been with the other, and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient Mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud."

That being said,

"Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practised was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before; by the Quakers since; and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any."

continued in next reply

[NotReady]

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He next compares the story of Jesus Christ with "heathen mythology" known at the time


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West. Stop. Please.

I really don't have the time to deal with you citing every passage in the book. Pick an issue you think is really important, discuss it in your own words. Do one a week, not one an hour.

As to the mythology thing, we dealt with that in a prior thread. Search for it and see the link I gave to tektonics.

[NotReady]

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As to the mythology thing, we dealt with that in a prior thread. Search for it and see the link I gave to tektonics.


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As a matter of fact, go here

Tektonics has an article on Paine. I haven't read it. Take a look, work from there.

[West]

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anti-church period


[/ QUOTE ] I should have said anti-Bible or anti-religion or anti-church. Whatever.

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I wasn't trying to be a smart aleck, just clarifying


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I disagree with what he says about revelation. He has no right to require God to deliver His word to man according to Thomas Paine's requirements. And there was a lot more to the delivery of the 10 Commandments by Moses than that he just woke up one morning and said I had a dream. Briefly, that God was with Moses was incredibly obvious from the beginning of Moses' demand for Pharoah to let the people go, followed by judgment after judgment on Egypt at the behest of Moses terminating in the parting of the Red Sea, followed by Moses spending 40 days on the mountain accompanied by so many works of God that the people were afraid to touch it. They were obliged to believe him because there was far more authority than just Moses saying it.

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I don't think it's fair to say that he is requiring God to deliver His word to Thomas Paine's requirements - he's just saying, how do I know it's "God's" word? It sounds like you are saying that people at the time, however, would have had more to go on than just Moses' word (keep in my mind I'm pretty ignorant of the story myself).

[NotReady]

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It sounds like you are saying that people at the time, however, would have had more to go on than just Moses' word (keep in my mind I'm pretty ignorant of the story myself).


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Fair enough. Check out that link. It contains another link to a fairly extensive review of Age of Reason including text and the reviewer's comments.

[West]

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Fair enough. Check out that link. It contains another link to a fairly extensive review of Age of Reason including text and the reviewer's comments.

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I was going to say - I wasn't impressed with that first page, but I just noticed that second link, and I'll see if I can find time to take a look.

EDIT

As an example of why I wasn't impressed - mere paragraphs into the "review" he writes of an observation of an "Australian reader" who says:

There is one thing I found interesting about "Age of Reason" that you don't mention. Paine uses the following "logic" to "prove" that parts of the Bible are a forgery.

1. Deuteronomy records Moses' death.
2. Moses could not have recorded his own death.
3. As it contained something that Moses didn't write, Deuteronomy therefore was not written by Moses.
4. Deuteronomy is therefore a forgery.
5. It being a forgery, it can be ignored as useless.

My copy of "Age of Reason" was electronic, on a CD-ROM containing books from the "Library of the Future". The edition of "Age of Reason" they reproduced contained the following footnote:

"* The former part of the Age of Reason has not been published in two years, and there is already an expression in it that is not mine. The expression is, The book of Luke was carried by a majority of one voice only. It may be true, but it is not I that have said it. Some person, who might know of the circumstance, has added it in a note at the bottom of the page of some of the editions, printed either in England or in America; and the printers, after that, have placed it into the body of the work, and made me the author of it. If this has happened within such a short space of time, notwithstanding the aid of printing, which prevents the alteration of copies individually, what may not have happened in a much greater length of time, when there was no printing, and when any man who could write could make a written copy, and call it an original by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?"
Using Paine's own "logic", then, I can conclude the following:

1. At is contained something that Paine didn't write, "Age of Reason" therefore was not written by Paine.
2. "Age of Reason" is therefore a forgery.
3. It being a forgery, it can be ignored as useless!

This is obviously a ridiculous comparison (I doubt I need to say why), yet it's one of the first points the author makes! Hardly makes me interested in wading through whatever else the same guy might have to say about Paine.