Today Thomas Paine would be in line with the majority of society that bears his name – secularists and atheists. Thomas has been described as the most valuable Englishman ever. The writings of Arthur Findlay, who must be a candidate for the title of the most valuable Scotsman ever.
Where Would Thomas Paine Stand Now On Republicanism, Atheism And Survival After Death? Read Post »
On 6 March, 1812, Daniel Isaac Eaton, the so-called “infidel bookseller”, stood before the Court of King’s Bench charged with publishing what was known as the third part of Thomas Paine’s, The Age of Reason – a work the Attorney-General saw as “a libel”.
Daniel Isaac Eaton’s Prosecution For The Third Part Of The Age Of Reason Read Post »
I think the only new revelation that emerged from Professor Vincent’s research is the fact that Paine attended masonic meetings in France and in America, although it is doubtful that he was actually a mason himself.
BOOK REVIEW: Thomas Paine Ou La Religion Se La Liberte Read Post »
Basically, like all the greatest writers on liberty, Paine was a humanitarian. Freedom, in Paine’s view, could not be dissociated from political morality, and he sounded a warning note which still carries a message.
Thomas Paine and His Radical Contemporaries Read Post »
Even among the students of social movements there is a wide measure of ignorance as to the extent and influence of the Freethought movement particularly in the second half of the 19th century.
BOOK REVIEW: Freethought In The United States, A Descriptive Bibliography Read Post »
Paine admired the teachings of Jesus, and he went to great lengths to free them from smothering additions, which had been drawn from the mythology of ancient cults and grafted onto them by the churchmakers who usurped Jesus’s role of teacher.
THOMAS PAINE: THE METHODIST INFLUENCE Read Post »
Paine’s Rights of Man was prosecuted for libel not so much because of its contents but because, rather than confining his audience to ‘the judicious reader’, he had addressed ‘the lowest orders of the people – people who…cannot from their education or situation in ‘life, be supposed to understand the. subject on which he writes.’
The 1790’s: Paine And The Age Of Reason Read Post »
There can be no doubt that Paine’s ideas in the 1790’s had profound effects upon political thinking among Irish radicals, just as they did among the revolutionaries of France, the United States, and Britain. Both he and Wolfe Tone met in Paris in 1797 and during the “dragooning” of Ulster.
Dr. Hincks And The Age Of Reason In Cork Read Post »
![“Reason against unreason” a 1882 illustration by Joseph Keppler and Adolph Schwarzmann shows the “Light of Reason”, containing bust portraits of “Johannes Kepler, I. Kant, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, B. de Spinoza, Franklin, Voltaire, E.H. Haeckel, Tyndall, Huxley, [and] Darwin”, beaming against a large umbrella labeled “Bigotry, Supernaturalism, [and] Fanaticism” – Library of Congress](https://thomaspaine.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Reason-against-unreason.jpg)
Paine appealed to reason, his ultimate cause was a democratic system of society. His spirit stands in glaring contrast to that of the politico-religious dictators who lorded it over most nations when he wrote, and who have their counterparts today in dictators.
The Relevance Of The “Age Of Reason” For Today Read Post »
Stories of Paine’s recantation or conversion were once the stock in trade of any self-respecting evangelical preacher or writer. In our more sophisticated age with its closer attention to detail, claims of such a specific nature have given way to those of a more general character.
The Paine Conversion Myth Read Post »
The Age of Reason exerted an anti-religious influence on the reader at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. Merciless criticism of the Bible, revelations of the hypocrisy of tho clergy, a passionate call to readers to rely on the facts of Nature and human reason.
Paine As A Biblical Critic Read Post »
DUMAS’ hero, Dr. Gilbert (in “Ange Pitou”), an idealization of Paine, interprets his hopes and horrors on the opening of the fateful year 1793. Dr. Gilbert’s pamphlets helped to found liberty in the New World, but sees that it may prove the germ of total ruin to the Old World.
Life of Thomas Paine, Vol. II Read Post »
