This thread is for discussing Ch. 2 - The Age of Reason and Unreason. You can post within this framework or create your own threads.

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Many of us will be reading Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason" concurrently with Freethinkers. You're welcome to join us!

You can read the entire text online for free. Please visit the thread I've created in the Additional Book Discussions forum for links to The Age of Reason and to jump into the discussion.

Chris

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Oh how sad it was to read about how Paine was treated by his one time friends. It goes to show that people will only love you while you pay them lip service.

Paine was a man of reason and principle. He was a major force in the Revolution, yet he was symbolically spat upon when he published his thoughts on religion. Fickle people of a fickle faith.

Paine was a corset maker...I can relate to him there too, as I contemplated corsetry myself...when I was running my leather business!

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

I actually like it when fundamentalists insult me. I turn the other cheek, in a way that anyone watching can see the irony in technicolor.

Sadly, some atheists just insult the fundie. Then the fundie goes and tells his friends, "That guy hated me, just because I love Jesus!" How much more satisfying when the fundie comes back and says, "I'm sorry, that was very unchristian of me. I guess not all atheists are hateful toward Christians." Or, if that doesn't happen (it actually does happen surprisingly often) the people watching shake their heads and remark on the spectacle of an atheist behaving in a more "Christlike" manner than the one who defends Jesus as the son of God.

Michael

Amen brotha pessimistic. I used to do the insult thing; Phooey! I see part of my purpose in chatting in Religion:x rooms as learning to stay equanimical and rational, just as Mr. P says. And although it doesn't come up that much in real life it's good to be prepared. I've gone a bit to the other extreme; I will get on freethinkers for being poinlessly insulting.

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If you make yourself really small, you can externalize virtually everything. Daniel Dennett, 1984

Edited by: Jeremy1952  at: 7/17/05 11:36 am

I actually saw a tom paine statue last weekend. it's in morristown, nj. It was erected in 1950. I hear there is another one in new rochelle, ny where he died.

Mr. P,

I told you that Paine could piss people off. What about this guy Palmer

Quote:

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This story of the virgin and the ghost, to say no more of it, does not wear the appearance of much religion; and it would not, it is presumed, be difficult in any age or country, to find a sufficient number of men, who would pretend to be ghosts, if by such pretensions they would obtain similar favors...

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. Now THAT is going to piss off a christian. It is the 'in your face thing' that will really rile people up.

Sam Adams words on p61 are very interesting and pragmatic. He's telling Paine not to be so 'in your face' about it and just be happy that he can voice his opinion without landing in jail. I'm not sure I agree with him, though. I'm sure Paine felt it his duty to point out what he felt was wrong with things and he was willing to pay the price for it. However, I think he could have gone about it in a way that would have been more successful if he had not been so confrontational. Being confrontational just makes people defensive. It ususally will not change their minds on anything.

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I'm not sure I agree with him, though. I'm sure Paine felt it his duty to point out what he felt was wrong with things and he was willing to pay the price for it.

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Yes. And i feel the same way. It is an honorable way to live...maybe lonely, but being right is usually a lonely place to be. The few see things so clear that they are doomed to be outcasts.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

This has to be one of my favorite lines:

Pg. 36:

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Cobbett...eventually changed his mind about Paine after actually reading his books.

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Classic. I love it.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Quote:

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Paine regarded it as particularly ironic that Americans should complain with increasing vociferousness of injustices done them by Britain while the colonists themselves enslaved other men.

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That is kinda ironic. Jacoby also mentions that Paine founded the first American anti-slavery society. Another notch in the belt for the man of Reason. This transference is a human thing though, not necessarily American only. Like the poor person who becomes rich and then all of a sudden looks down on the poor. Like blacks that would discriminate against ANYONE else after what they have been through. It seems to me that most people, upon reaching a 'better' level of existence forget quite easily about the levels they have risen from. Yesterdays persecuted are to days persecutes.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart...Scorsese's "Mean Streets"

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper