e-Book The Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine: Includes Common Sense, the American Crisis, Rights of Man, the Age of Reason and Agrarian Justice download

I think that every American should read all the works of Tom Paine. The phrasing and style are of today even though these works are over 200 years old. Read John Adams or even Thomas Jefferson and you can't help but to notice. It seems peculiar to me that I even hear conservatives today quoting Tom Paine. Tom Paine was no conservative. Read Agrarian Justice and you will have all the proof that you need. If that isn't enough try The Age of Reason on for size. If there were no Tom Paine I doubt very much that there would ever have been an American Revolution. Yet Tom takes no place in "monument" parks about this country. It is very sad.

Richard Edward Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

America On Strike - A survey of Labor Strikes in America

If you are a Fundamentalist, dust off your sandals and flee. At best this book will confuse you even more than you already are. Thomas Jefferson wrote that he merited the same censure visited upon the author of Rights of Man "for I profess the same principles."

Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists. Another thing they had in common was their contempt for the so-called mystery of God, and the pious frauds that perpetuated it in order to obtain those things they desired. One who has any knowledge of God Almighty whatsoever would be outraged at the claim that He would need or want a fallen angel to battle; that He would use a snake, of all creatures, to entice a female to sin or use a whale as a motel. Those who advocate such things fall into one of two categories: sociopaths or herd animals. The buildings they erect supposedly to honor God serve everyone involved but God. While they are gathering places for those desiring wool and those in need of shearing, they serve a far greater purpose--they allow those without the desire to serve the true God, a God that cautions them before they can even get a lie out of their mouths--a mystery to worship.

As Paine explains, "Mystery answers all general purposes, miracle followed as an occasional auxiliary. The former served to bewilder the mind, the latter to puzzle the senses. The one was the lingo, the other the legerdemain."

Paine was a major thinker - and polemic. This book's 46 page introduction by Mr. Foner is worth the price of the book.

Paine who failed out of school at the age of 12 was not one of the best thinkers of all time. He joined the American Revoluntion immediately prior to its onset, and he met with the founding fathers and expressed the ideas of the American people of the time in Common Sense. Because of the fame he received from Common Sense he attempted to influence Christian nation he was living in. Although some of the other founding fathers were also deist, Paine's writtings in the Age of Reason (which contradicts his earlier statements)lead to his downfall. He attempted to take advantage of his limited fame and failed.

Some of Paine's arguments state that he can't accept the revelations of others because he cannot be assured of THEIR credibility. This comes from a man that failed out of school at 12 years old, failed at every job he attempted, and is only remembered for his statements in support of the American Revolution, which he only was apart of for a few years before it took place.

Much of Paine's arguments contain fallacies. His belief of an Age of Reason is not supported by logical or reasoning abilities. One example is the logical fallacy Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (after this therefore because of this). One of Paine's arguments is that Satan was punished by being sent to a pit; Paine then states that the Greek god Jupiter punished his opponent (giants) by confining one under a mountain (Paine claims resulted in volcanoes). Paine claims that BECAUSE the legend of Jupiter imprisoning his rival allegedly preceded the concept of Satan being imprisoned that the Christian belief in Satan must have been derived out of the Jupiter legend. Paine's assumption excludes the fact that earthy crimes committed throughout all ages have had punishment or prison associated with them, and the claim that the Jews would have had to study Greek mythology to create their own beliefs is a complete hypothesis on Paine's part.

Paine's statements are wishy-washy to say the least. He makes statements that the Bible is only hearsay and has no merit, and then at other times makes statements based on Biblical passages as though they were a matter of fact. He states that Jesus was a great teacher, and that he (Paine) is going to stick with the philosophy of Thomas (doubting Thomas) and demand to see proof of everything. If Paine's theories were true that the Bible was only hearsay, he would have no way of judging what Jesus taught as his (Paine's) beliefs do not allow for Jesus or Thomas to have even existed.

A very interesting thing to note about Paine's beliefs is that if you apply his beliefs to his own work then you would PROVE in Paine's view point that HE never existed. Paine states that you cannot believe that Paul wrote the books of the New Testament attributed to him therefore the Bible is not true. This same principle can be applied to Paine's work to challenge Paine's very existence. None of us personally met Paine or verified that his writings were his own; we only have writings that we are told were written by Thomas Paine by others, and that the writings contained Paine's beliefs. If you apply this type of reasoning to Paine's own work then you would have to conclude that Paine's work might be a complete fabrication, and that there is no proof that he even lived that does not come from hearsay or documentation of other men.

In LIFE AND WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE it says: "Deism teaches us that God is a God of truth and justice. Does the Bible teach the same doctrine? It does not."

This concept of God being a God of Justice and Truth is taken from the Revelations of the Bible and not from the Deist's use of Reason. By simply observing Creation to understand God as Deist claims you would not come to the understanding of God as a God of Justice and Truth. The world is not naturally just. If you base your religion on observing nature you are more likely to conclude that God is growing people in order to eat them, as that is what is observable in nature. Human's raise animals for food and are not concerned about providing the animals with truth and justice. These traits cannot be determined by observing the movements of the sun or the actions of man.

Observing the nature of man; to rob, rape, and kill would appear to be a natural state of man, as these actions have been recorded throughout all history and still exist today. If Deists hold to the belief of judging God by observing the creation without giving any thought to Biblical Revelation then there is not cause to label such actions as sin. Revealed religion is what labels these instincts as sin. Paine's view originates in his Quaker up bringing, which he then perverts and intermixes with his concept of Reason to make up his odd belief and questionable belief system.

Paine also rests some of his arguments on the new definition that he gives to the word Revelation. He redefines the word to meet his desires. The problem with this argument is that when debating the usage of a word relating to a topic thousands of years earlier it is necessary to use the definition of word at that time. By changing the definition of the word thousands of years later you do not invalidate how it has been used for centuries. This argument is also a logical fallacy called the Straw man in which Paine creates his own new definition of the word and argues against his own definition and not the actual topic.

Much of Paine's view on Reason comes from ethnocentric thinking that He (educated to the level of a 12 year old boy) has a superior ability to think than those who have lived in the past. Paine views himself as an enlightened thinker when in fact the opposite is true. He values the usage of Reason in gaining wisdom, but the Reason that Deism promotes is ignorance. It involves a lack of study or research, and is simply the concept of "Believe whatever you reason without considering anything other than your own opinions", and leaves man to his own devices. The problem is that the Bible documents the results of man being left to his own devices, and if REASON were really being applied then an enlightened thinker would STUDY and learn from the mistakes of those of the past to prevent themselves from falling into the same snares.

There is nothing enlightened about reasoning through ignorance. Much of Paine's problems with Christianity are not actually with the Word of God (as Paine claims they are), but are against man's hypocrisy and use of religion wrongfully. The Bible is also against these things, so Paine's attacks on the Bible are misdirected. Paine's argument that Christianity is wrong simple because other religions exist is foolish. One would not assume that all foods are poisonous simply because some of them are. If you do not want to eat poisonous food the answer does not lie in blindly making up your own recipes and biting into them hoping you wouldn't die, but lies in studying the good and bad recipes to determine where the poison is in order to use the correct recipe that will allow you to live; that is how REASON is to be used intelligently. If you are an enlightened thinker then you would analyze, evaluate, contemplate, understand, and reason to determine the truth. Making up your own philosophy based on what feels good to you is not enlightenment, and it is not even a new way of thinking; this error is commonly documented in the Bible.

Paine's arguments show only a superficial understanding of the Bible. If he were to put effort into studying the Bible and applying reason to it then his questions and objections to it would be answered. He would also be able to answer why some religions are false ones and why they are so. As it is Paine argues that all religion say they are right and since they all cannot be right Paine assumes that none of them can be right. This is another error in his reasoning. Certainly there are an infinite number of examples of people doing things wrong, but someone else being capable of doing it right.