Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible.
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Paine; [1] February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] [Note 1] – June 8, 1809) was an English-born American Founding Father, French Revolutionary, inventor, and political philosopher. [2][3] He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the ...
Rights of Man denounces Burke's assertion of the nobility's inherent hereditary wisdom; countering the implication that a nation has not a right to form a Government for governing itself. Paine refutes Burke's definition of Government as "a contrivance of human wisdom". Instead, Paine argues that Government is a contrivance of man, and it ...
Thomas Paine, together with other disciples of Rousseau and Robespierre, set up a deistic religion, in which Rousseau's Deism and Robespierre's civic virtue (rè de la vertu) would be combined. Jean-Baptiste Chemin wrote the Manuel des théopanthropophiles or, in English the Manual of the Theoantropophiles [Theophilantropes] , and Valentin ...
The 18th-century American Enlightenment political philosopher and religious skeptic Thomas Paine criticized the Abrahamic religions. [20] In The Age of Reason (1793–1794) and other writings he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. [20]
There was no respect for monarchy or inherited political power. Deists reconciled science and religion by rejecting prophecies, miracles, and biblical theology. Leading deists included Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and Thomas Jefferson in his short Jefferson Bible, from which he removed all supernatural aspects. [114]
Though lacking an official scripture, the practice of Deism is described by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason: "The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifically, and mechanical."
The trial of Thomas Paine for seditious libel was held on 18 December 1792 in response to his publication of the second part of the Rights of Man. The government of William Pitt, worried by the possibility that the French Revolution might spread to England, had begun suppressing works that espoused radical philosophies.