SECTION X
Chapter 8. Thomas Paine

 "The world is my country, and to do good my religion."

  "What can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man
to the orders of the Almighty?"


   Most American history textbooks briefly mention Thomas Paine and his role
in raising morale when the British appeared to be winning the American
Revolutionary War of 1776.  In his series of pamphlets entitled COMMON SENSE,
Paine wrote a series of justifications for the War of Independence. In the
same year, he published a collection of essays in THE CRISES, whose opening
battle cry was to inspire the revolutionary Americans in their war for
Independence against England:

  "These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier and the
  sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
  country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man
  and woman."

  Paine's essay was read to George Washington's troops, and Washington was
so pleased, that he later wrote Paine a letter expressing his gratitude for
the "importance of your works."  During this time, Paine was widely read in
America. (Paine refused to accept money for these writings.)

  Paine's passion for freedom, extended against every form of tyranny--
from monarchy, aristocracy--to even slavery.   Before the outbreak of the
Revolutionary War, Paine had written in October 1775, of his belief in
granting slaves their freedom:

  "I hesitate not for a moment to believe that the Almighty will finally
   separate American from Britain.  Call it Independency or what you will,
   if it is the cause of God and humanity it will go on.  And when the
   Almighty shall have blest us, and made us a people DEPENDENT ONLY UPON
   HIM, then may our first gratitude be shown by an act of continental
   legislation, which shall put a stop to the importation of Negroes for
   sale, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure
   their freedom."

Some historians believe that Paine helped write the preamble to the Act of
1780, which abolished slavery in the state of Pennsylvania.   Thomas Jefferson
was also probably influenced by Paine, when he inserted a passage in the
Declaration of Independence that would grant slaves their freedom.  (This
passage was cut out, during later compromise sessions.)

 Following the Revolutionary War, Paine turned his attentions towards
engineering projects-- specifically in building iron bridges--which brought
him to mainland Europe, in England and France.  During this time, England
was going through a period of ultra-conservatism--largely in reaction to the
revolutionary events in France which culminated in the French Revolutionary
War.  English philosophers such as Burke were in vogue who argued the
aristocratic view for a strong, authoritarian society to maintain peace.

  Primarily in response to Burke, Paine wrote THE RIGHTS OF MAN.  Although
its premises would today be considered mild and commonplace--at the time, it
was considered radical and subversive.  In it, Paine argued that there were
three types governments, each of them based on a different foundation of
authority:

  "First, superstition.  Secondly, power.  Thirdly, the common interest
   of society and the common rights of man.  The first was a government
   of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, the third of reason."

Paine objected to obtaining power by heredity--as opposed to ability and 
integrity (much to the anger of his conservative aristocratic opponents in 
England.) Because English political leaders greatly feared that the French 
Revolution would spill over onto English soil--they now threatened prosecution 
for any perceived inflammatory, revolutionary writings. Paine fled for France, 
barely missing arrest by only a few hours in London, and a few minutes in 
Dover.

  In France, Paine's RIGHTS OF MAN became the model for the Declaration of
the Rights of Man, which was issued by the French Nationalist Assembly of
1789.  (Its principles were also embodied in the American Bill of Rights,
which was ratified to the American Constitution in 1791.)

  Paine ignored the radical revolutionary elements in the 1790's that were
calling for massacres. Instead, he made friends with the more moderate
Girondins, and expressed his gratitude to King Louis XVI for his assistance
in liberating the United States from England.  By opposing the King's
execution--down to the very last session--Paine incurred the hatred of the
radical-left Jacobins. After executing the King and taking power, Paine was
arrested, and remained in jail throughout Robespierre's reign of Terror. He 
narrowly escaped the guillotine, himself--only because the mark of execution 
was accidentally written on the INSIDE of his cell door.

  While in prison, Thomas Paine wrote the AGE OF REASON, which was to brand
him in the eyes of many as an "Atheist".  However, Paine was NOT an atheist,
but a Deist (a term that had the same negative connotations as a "secular
humanist" does today.) In the first chapter of THE AGE OF REASON, Paine
summed up his religious beliefs with the following:

  "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."

  As a deist, Paine believed in a Supreme Being who created man and the
universe, in addition to a belief in a future life.  Deists believe that
there are "common truths" held by all religions; and that these common truths
are also compatible with the findings of science. Those dogmas which conflict
with science, and which caused religions to war with one another, are most
likely to be of "human", as opposed to "divine" origin. Deists sometimes
found themselves in conflict with conventional religious followers--such as
those in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism who hold that  their "divine
revelations" are ABOVE reason and rational inquiry.

  Although Paine's AGE OF REASON affirmed the belief in God early in the
beginning pages, it quickly went on to attack the nature of "revelation" in
conventional religions:

 "Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication--
  after that 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."

  Paine went on to point out that there were NUMEROUS Jewish and Christian
writings, and that it was a POLITICAL process by a council of church members,
that decided WHICH ONES were divinely inspired and therefore included in the
official canon.

Paine continued by questioning the value of much of Old Testament scriptures
as true prophecies:

  "Revelation is a communication of something which the person to whom that
   thing is revealed did not know before."

Since the writings of these "predictions" were made after the historical
fact had occurred, Paine questioned their value as true revelation.  Although
admitting their value as historical documents, Paine went on to question
their value as moral documents. Like many deists, Paine believed that Jesus
was a great moral leader, but that it was his followers who had proclaimed
him divine:

  "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 practiced 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."

And again,:

  "Jesus Christ wrote no account of himself, of his birth, parentage, or
  anything else; not a line of what is called the New Testament is of his
  own writing.  The history of him is altogether the work of other people;
  and as to the account given of his resurrection and ascension, it was the
  necessary counterpart to the story of his birth.  His historians, having
  brought him into the world in a supernatural manner, were obliged to take
  him out again in the same manner, or the first part of the story must have
  fallen to the ground."

  To Paine, the Christian doctrine of an all-good Father who required the
cruel execution of his only innocent son, before he would forgive the
descendants of Adam and Eve for an act of disobedience that occurred at the
beginning of time--pointed to a monstrous theology. He wrote of the painful 
memory of his childhood when he was first exposed to this doctrine. He was 
seven or eight years old, when he heard a sermon entitled, "Redemption by the 
Death of the Son of God".  He remembered being deeply disturbed over how God 
could have acted in such a wicked way.  Later he wandered into a garden, 
and looking out at the glorious beauty of nature, he contrasted this with the 
gloom and doom of Christian theology. The experience never left his mind, and 
set him on the path to become a deist. He later came to the conclusion:

  "that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind
   of a child, cannot be a true system."

  To Paine, the fact that the Bible is literally filled with violence
and cruelty, points to it being a HUMAN whether than a DIVINE work:

  "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries,
  the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with
  which more than half the bible is filled, it would be more consistent
  that we call it the word of a demon, than the word of God.  It is a history
  of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for
  my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel...
  What can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the
  orders of the Almighty?"

  Paine, in his AGE OF REASON, believed that Quaker Christians were
 an exception:

  "The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers, and the only 
   reason that can be given for it is that they are rather Deists than 
   Christians.  They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they 
   call the Scriptures a dead letter.  Had they called them a worse 
   name they had been nearer the truth." [Author's note: No doubt it was 
   derogatory language such as this that led many of his previous friends 
   to renounce him.]

  After the publication of the AGE OF REASON, Thomas Paine went from an
America public hero--to that of public enemy.  Unlike Jefferson and other
PRIVATE deists, he had shocked society by publicly attacking Christianity.
President George Washington and the American minister to France, both refused
to assist him in his release from prison in France.  Ten months later, James
Monroe (who became the new minister to France) successfully secured his
release, and tended to his failing health.  Homesick, Paine returned to
America.

  Back in the U.S., Paine was blasted in the press as a blasphemer and a
villain.  Many of his former friends abandoned him, a notable exception
being Thomas Jefferson, who maintained a warm correspondence with him.

   Still, even Jefferson kept his distance from Paine.  Jefferson's election
and tenure was characterized by bitter right-wing opposition--during which his
opponents had accused him of infidelity and atheism.  Indeed, some conservative
critics had tried to tear down Jefferson, by lumping him and Paine together as
"the two Toms".  (Jefferson was stung hard by his criticism--and feared
becoming hated and ostracized, as had Paine.  Many years later, when urging a
Unitarian minister from NOT publishing an earlier letter of his, Jefferson
wrote: "No, my dear Sir, not for the world!... I could as soon undertake to
bring the crazy skulls of Bedlam to sound understanding as to inculcate reason
into that of an Athanasian... keep me therefore from the fire and faggot of
Calvin and his victim Servetus.")

  Thomas Paine spent his last years in solitude and poverty. As he lay
dying on his deathbed in 1809, two clergymen invaded his room and tried to
convert him.  Paine politely asked them to leave, saying: "Let me alone;
good morning."

  Still, following his death, the popular myth spread that Paine had recanted
his earlier beliefs, and had become a Christian just before he died.  He was
buried in a plot on his own farm---as his body was denied a place in a local
Quaker commentary.