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Cover of The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine

The Age of Reason

  • 155 pages · about 3 hours
  • First published 1794
  • 56 editions
  • Free to read

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1 About this book

Thomas Paine who was a dynamic philosophical presence in the American Revolution of 1776 wrote his last book in 1795 on an investigation and commentary of organized religion with a focus on Christianity. Paine said that his "religious duties" included doing justice, loving benevolence, and attempting to make others happy.

He called himself a deist which is a person who believes in the existence of a God based on the evidence of reason and nature but not on supernatural revelation. In this book he outlines deism as a rational religious belief and offers an analysis of the Bible based on textual content.

He makes comparisons of the internal arguments of the Old and New Testaments by explaining, for example, inconsistencies of the biographic accounts in the four gospels. Paine suggests that since they were written separate of each other their basis is no better than hearsay.

Good for readers who want: philosophy, essays, politics, and a short read.

  • Philosophy and religion
  • Philosophy
  • Religion & Spirituality
  • Essays
  • Political science
  • Theology
  • Reason
  • Prophecies

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3 About Thomas Paine

1737–1809

Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain, February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736] – June 8, 1809; ) was an English-born American Founding Father, inventor, political philosopher, and statesman. He authored Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783), two of the most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he helped to inspire the colonial era patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Great Britain.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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