Influence Of Thomas Paine On Religion

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Thomas Paine’s Perspective on Religion Thomas Paine believed that the Christian religion was just a theory from heathen mythology. In the 1700’s, United States founding father Thomas Paine, took a very revolutionary approach towards religion. Thomas Paine even wrote a pamphlet called, “The Age of Reason,” arguing for the philosophical position of God. Many people make the mistake of thinking that since he did not believe in religion that he did not believe in god. Thomas Paine wrote, “It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology.” (698) What Thomas is trying to say is that the Christian religion is an imitation and that it was made up by getting ideas from the Jew’s religion. For example, Thomas also states, “mythologist had gods for everything; the Christian mythologist had saints for everything,” (Paine 698) explaining how they got their ideas from heathen mythology. Thomas thinks the Christian religion is just a theory by mythologist and that it was not a unique religion in any way, because they got all their ideas from ancient mythologist. …show more content…

He was in Luxembourg Prison when he began to write his pamphlet, “The Age of Reason.” In this pamphlet, he expressed his disapproval to organized religion, denounced Christianity and recommended reason and free thought. The pamphlet was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807. It goes over all the reasons why Thomas thought the Christian church was corrupt and why he did not believe in religion. Thomas Paine showed no respect to the Bible's stories and allegories. He displayed constant impatience with anyone who read a biblical verse and believed it with no

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