In the former part of 'The Age of Reason' I have spoken of the three
frauds, mystery, miracle, and Prophecy; and as I have seen nothing in
any of the answers to that work that in the least affects what I have
there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber this Second Part
with additions that are not necessary.
I have spoken also in the same work upon what is called revelation,
and have shown the absurd misapplication of that term to the books of
the Old Testament and the New; for certainly revelation is out of the
question in reciting any thing of which man has been the actor or the
witness. That which man has done or seen, needs no revelation to tell
him he has done it, or seen it -- for he knows it already -- nor to
enable him to tell it or to write it. It is ignorance, or imposition,
to apply the term revelation in such cases; yet the Bible and
Testament are classed under this fraudulent description of being all
revelation.
Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man,
can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to
man; but though the power of the Almighty to make such a
communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all
things are possible, yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever
was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to prove) is
revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it
to another is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account,
puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have
been deceived, or may have dreamed it; or he may be an impostor and
may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby to judge of the truth
of what he tells; for even the morality of it would be no proof of
revelation. In all such cases, the proper answer should be, "When it
is revealed to me, I will believe it to be revelation; but it is not
and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation
before; neither is it proper that I should take the word of man as
the word of God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner
in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of The Age of
Reason; and which, whilst it reverentially admits revelation as a
possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things
are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and
precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation.
But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of
revelation, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did
communicate any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any language,
or by any kind of vision, or appearance, or by any means which our
senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than by the universal
display of himself in the works of the creation, and by that
repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to
good ones. [A fair parallel of the then unknown aphorism of Kant:
"Two things fill the soul with wonder and reverence, increasing
evermore as I meditate more closely upon them: the starry heavens
above me and the moral law within me." (Kritik derpraktischen
Vernunfe, 1788). Kant's religious utterances at the beginning of the
French Revolution brought on him a royal mandate of silence, because
he had worked out from "the moral law within" a principle of human
equality precisely similar to that which Paine had derived from his
Quaker doctrine of the "inner light" of every man. About the same
time Paine's writings were suppressed in England. Paine did not
understand German, but Kant, though always independent in the
formation of his opinions, was evidently well acquainted with the
literature of the Revolution, in America, England, and France. --
Editor.]
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the
greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their
origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has
been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the
divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and
happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist.
It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a
thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine
of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such
impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible
prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and
have credit among us.
Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men,
women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody
persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since
that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but
from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous
belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been
the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament [of] the other.
Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not established by the
sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible
that twelve men could begin with the sword: they had not the power;
but no sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently
powerful to employ the sword than they did so, and the stake and
faggot too; and Mahomet could not do it sooner. By the same spirit
that Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant (if the story
be true) he would cut off his head, and the head of his master, had
he been able. Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally
upon the [Hebrew] Bible, and the Bible was established altogether by
the sword, and that in the worst use of it -- not to terrify, but to
extirpate. The Jews made no converts: they butchered all. The Bible
is the sire of the [New] Testament, and both are called the word of
God. The Christians read both books; the ministers preach from both
books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of both. It is
then false to say that Christianity was not established by the sword.
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. [This is an interesting and
correct testimony as to the beliefs of the earlier Quakers, one of
whom was Paine's father. -- Editor.] Had they called them by a worse
name, they had been nearer the truth.
It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the
Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial
miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among
mankind, to expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous
heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from
this pretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful
to man, and every thing that is dishonourable to his Maker. What is
it the Bible teaches us? -- repine, cruelty, and murder. What is it
the Testament teaches us? -- to believe that the Almighty committed
debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this
debauchery is called faith.
As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly
scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing,
revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and
the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it
cannot exist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all
societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, and
where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. The
doctrine of not retaliating injuries is much better expressed in
Proverbs, which is a collection as well from the Gentiles as the
Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is there said, (Xxv. 2 I) "If
thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty,
give him water to drink:" [According to what is called Christ's
sermon on the mount, in the book of Matthew, where, among some other
[and] good things, a great deal of this feigned morality is
introduced, it is there expressly said, that the doctrine of
forbearance, or of not retaliating injuries, was not any part of the
doctrine of the Jews; but as this doctrine is found in "Proverbs," it
must, according to that statement, have been copied from the
Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it. Those men whom Jewish and
Christian idolators have abusively called heathen, had much better
and clearer ideas of justice and morality than are to be found in the
Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish, or in the New. The answer of
Solon on the question, "Which is the most perfect popular govemment,"
has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as containing a
maxim of political morality, "That," says he, "where the least injury
done to the meanest individual, is considered as an insult on the
whole constitution." Solon lived about 500 years before Christ. --
Author.] but when it is said, as in the Testament, "If a man smite
thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also," it is
assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and sinking man into a
spaniel.
Loving, of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has
besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he
does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political
sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the
other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury,
if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime.
Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a
moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a
proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice,
as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that
man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and
it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own
tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it
will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for
love on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and
without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.
Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first
place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be
productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The
maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange
doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself
for his crime or for his enmity.
Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in
general the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so
doing; for the doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that
hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own
part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous
morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted
him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American
Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have, in any case,
returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man to reward a
bad action with a good one, or to return good for evil; and wherever
it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty. It is also absurd
to suppose that such doctrine can make any part of a revealed
religion. We imitate the moral character of the Creator by forbearing
with each other, for he forbears with all; but this doctrine would
imply that he loved man, not in proportion as he was good, but as he
was bad.
If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is
no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it we want
to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us
the existence of an Almighty power, that governs and regulates the
whole? And is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our
senses infinitely stronger than any thing we can read in a book, that
any imposter might make and call the word of God? As for morality,
the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience.
Here we are. The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently
demonstrated to us, though we cannot conceive, as it is impossible we
should, the nature and manner of its existence. We cannot conceive
how we came here ourselves, and yet we know for a fact that we are
here. We must know also, that the power that called us into being,
can if he please, and when he pleases, call us to account for the
manner in which we have lived here; and therefore without seeking any
other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will,
for we know beforehand that he can. The probability or even
possibility of the thing is all that we ought to know; for if we knew
it as a fact, we should be the mere slaves of terror; our belief
would have no merit, and our best actions no virtue.
Deism then teaches us, without the possibility of being deceived, all
that is necessary or proper to be known. The creation is the Bible of
the deist. He there reads, in the hand-writing of the Creator
himself, the certainty of his existence, and the immutability of his
power; and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries. The
probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to
reflecting minds, have the influence of belief; for it is not our
belief or disbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the
state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free
agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher, nor even the
prudent man, that will live as if there were no God.
But the belief of a God is so weakened by being mixed with the
strange fable of the Christian creed, and with the wild adventures
related in the Bible, and the obscurity and obscene nonsense of the
Testament, that the mind of man is bewildered as in a fog. Viewing
all these things in a confused mass, he confounds fact with fable;
and as he cannot believe all, he feels a disposition to reject all.
But the belief of a God is a belief distinct from all other things,
and ought not to be confounded with any. The notion of a Trinity of
Gods has enfeebled the belief of one God. A multiplication of beliefs
acts as a division of belief; and in proportion as anything is
divided, it is weakened.
Religion, by such means, becomes a thing of form instead of fact; of
notion instead of principle: morality is banished to make room for an
imaginary thing called faith, and this faith has its origin in a
supposed debauchery; a man is preached instead of a God; an execution
is an object for gratitude; the preachers daub themselves with the
blood, like a troop of assassins, and pretend to admire the
brilliancy it gives them; they preach a humdrum sermon on the merits
of the execution; then praise Jesus Christ for being executed, and
condemn the Jews for doing it.
A man, by hearing all this nonsense lumped and preached together,
confounds the God of the Creation with the imagined God of the
Christians, and lives as if there were none.
Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none
more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more
repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this
thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to
convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart
torpid, or produces only atheists and fanatics. As an engine of
power, it serves the purpose of despotism; and as a means of wealth,
the avarice of priests; but so far as respects the good of man in
general, it leads to nothing here or hereafter.
The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it
every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple deism. It
must have been the first and will probably be the last that man
believes. But pure and simple deism does not answer the purpose of
despotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine
but by mixing it with human inventions, and making their own
authority a part; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but
by incorporating themselves and their functions with it, and
becoming, like the government, a party in the system. It is this that
forms the otherwise mysterious connection of church and state; the
church human, and the state tyrannic.
Were a man impressed as fully and strongly as he ought to be with the
belief of a God, his moral life would be regulated by the force of
belief; he would stand in awe of God, and of himself, and would not
do the thing that could not be concealed from either. To give this
belief the full opportunity of force, it is necessary that it acts
alone. This is deism.
But when, according to the Christian Trinitarian scheme, one part of
God is represented by a dying man, and another part, called the Holy
Ghost, by a flying pigeon, it is impossible that belief can attach
itself to such wild conceits. [The book called the book of Matthew,
says, (iii. 16,) that the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a
dove. It might as well have said a goose; the creatures are equally
harmless, and the one is as much a nonsensical lie as the other.
Acts, ii. 2, 3, says, that it descended in a mighty rushing wind, in
the shape of cloven tongues: perhaps it was cloven feet. Such absurd
stuff is fit only for tales of witches and wizards. -- Author.]
It has been the scheme of the Christian church, and of all the other
invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the
Creator, as it is of government to hold him in ignorance of his
rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other,
and are calculated for mutual support. The study of theology as it
stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded
on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities;
it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and admits of no
conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science without our
being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and
as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the
study of nothing.
Instead then of studying theology, as is now done, out of the Bible
and Testament, the meanings of which books are always controverted,
and the authenticity of which is disproved, it is necessary that we
refer to the Bible of the creation. The principles we discover there
are eternal, and of divine origin: they are the foundation of all the
science that exists in the world, and must be the foundation of
theology.
We can know God only through his works. We cannot have a conception
of any one attribute, but by following some principle that leads to
it. We have only a confused idea of his power, if we have not the
means of comprehending something of its immensity. We can have no
idea of his wisdom, but by knowing the order and manner in which it
acts. The principles of science lead to this knowledge; for the
Creator of man is the Creator of science, and it is through that
medium that man can see God, as it were, face to face.
Could a man be placed in a situation, and endowed with power of
vision to behold at one view, and to contemplate deliberately, the
structure of the universe, to mark the movements of the several
planets, the cause of their varying appearances, the unerring order
in which they revolve, even to the remotest comet, their connection
and dependence on each other, and to know the system of laws
established by the Creator, that governs and regulates the whole; he
would then conceive, far beyond what any church theology can teach
him, the power, the wisdom, the vastness, the munificence of the
Creator. He would then see that all the knowledge man has of science,
and that all the mechanical arts by which he renders his situation
comfortable here, are derived from that source: his mind, exalted by
the scene, and convinced by the fact, would increase in gratitude as
it increased in knowledge: his religion or his worship would become
united with his improvement as a man: any employment he followed that
had connection with the principles of the creation, -- as everything
of agriculture, of science, and of the mechanical arts, has, -- would
teach him more of God, and of the gratitude he owes to him, than any
theological Christian sermon he now hears. Great objects inspire
great thoughts; great munificence excites great gratitude; but the
grovelling tales and doctrines of the Bible and the Testament are fit
only to excite contempt.
Though man cannot arrive, at least in this life, at the actual scene
I have described, he can demonstrate it, because he has knowledge of
the principles upon which the creation is constructed. We know that
the greatest works can be represented in model, and that the
universe can be represented by the same means. The same principles by
which we measure an inch or an acre of ground will measure to
millions in extent. A circle of an inch diameter has the same
geometrical properties as a circle that would circumscribe the
universe. The same properties of a triangle that will demonstrate
upon paper the course of a ship, will do it on the ocean; and, when
applied to what are called the heavenly bodies, will ascertain to a
minute the time of an eclipse, though those bodies are millions of
miles distant from us. This knowledge is of divine origin; and it is
from the Bible of the creation that man has learned it, and not from
the stupid Bible of the church, that teaches man nothing. [The
Bible-makers have undertaken to give us, in the first chapter of
Genesis, an account of the creation; and in doing this they have
demonstrated nothing but their ignorance. They make there to have
been three days and three nights, evenings and mornings, before there
was any sun; when it is the presence or absence of the sun that is
the cause of day and night -- and what is called his rising and
setting that of morning and evening. Besides, it is a puerile and
pitiful idea, to suppose the Almighty to say, "Let there be light."
It is the imperative manner of speaking that a conjuror uses when he
says to his cups and balls, Presto, be gone -- and most probably has
been taken from it, as Moses and his rod is a conjuror and his wand.
Longinus calls this expression the sublime; and by the same rule the
conjurer is sublime too; for the manner of speaking is expressively
and grammatically the same. When authors and critics talk of the
sublime, they see not how nearly it borders on the ridiculous. The
sublime of the critics, like some parts of Edmund Burke's sublime and
beautiful, is like a windmill just visible in a fog, which
imagination might distort into a flying mountain, or an archangel,
or a flock of wild geese. -- Author.]
All the knowledge man has of science and of machinery, by the aid of
which his existence is rendered comfortable upon earth, and without
which he would be scarcely distinguishable in appearance and
condition from a common animal, comes from the great machine and
structure of the universe. The constant and unwearied observations of
our ancestors upon the movements and revolutions of the heavenly
bodies, in what are supposed to have been the early ages of the
world, have brought this knowledge upon earth. It is not Moses and
the prophets, nor Jesus Christ, nor his apostles, that have done it.
The Almighty is the great mechanic of the creation, the first
philosopher, and original teacher of all science. Let us then learn
to reverence our master, and not forget the labours of our ancestors.
Had we, at this day, no knowledge of machinery, and were it possible
that man could have a view, as I have before described, of the
structure and machinery of the universe, he would soon conceive the
idea of constructing some at least of the mechanical works we now
have; and the idea so conceived would progressively advance in
practice. Or could a model of the universe, such as is called an
orrery, be presented before him and put in motion, his mind would
arrive at the same idea. Such an object and such a subject would,
whilst it improved him in knowledge useful to himself as a man and a
member of society, as well as entertaining, afford far better matter
for impressing him with a knowledge of, and a belief in the Creator,
and of the reverence and gratitude that man owes to him, than the
stupid texts of the Bible and the Testament, from which, be the
talents of the preacher; what they may, only stupid sermons can be
preached. If man must preach, let him preach something that is
edifying, and from the texts that are known to be true.
The Bible of the creation is inexhaustible in texts. Every part of
science, whether connected with the geometry of the universe, with
the systems of animal and vegetable life, or with the properties of
inanimate matter, is a text as well for devotion as for philosophy --
for gratitude, as for human improvement. It will perhaps be said,
that if such a revolution in the system of religion takes place,
every preacher ought to be a philosopher. Most certainly, and every
house of devotion a school of science.
It has been by wandering from the immutable laws of science, and the
light of reason, and setting up an invented thing called "revealed
religion," that so many wild and blasphemous conceits have been
formed of the Almighty. The Jews have made him the assassin of the
human species, to make room for the religion of the Jews. The
Christians have made him the murderer of himself, and the founder of
a new religion to supersede and expel the Jewish religion. And to
find pretence and admission for these things, they must have supposed
his power or his wisdom imperfect, or his will changeable; and the
changeableness of the will is the imperfection of the judgement. The
philosopher knows that the laws of the Creator have never changed,
with respect either to the principles of science, or the properties
of matter. Why then is it to be supposed they have changed with
respect to man?
I here close the subject. I have shown in all the foregoing parts of
this work that the Bible and Testament are impositions and forgeries;
and I leave the evidence I have produced in proof of it to be
refuted, if any one can do it; and I leave the ideas that are
suggested in the conclusion of the work to rest on the mind of the
reader; certain as I am that when opinions are free, either in
matters of govemment or religion, truth will finally and powerfully
prevail.