Even more so than his other Deist contemporaries, such as Jefferson, Paine sought to illuminate the fundamental flaws of reason that lay behind religion . Since Paine was not particularly good (or even particularly interested) in approaching this issue with some diplomacy, you can probably guess that he was one of the more controversial writers of his era. Nevertheless, his application of reason to issues of faith illustrates well the rationalist view that would displace puritanical world views and galvanize what was and probably always will be the contentious relationship between the sacred and the secular in this culture.
Readers often confound Paine's assault on religion and religious structures with an assault on faith itself, though a careful reading of Paine reveals that he clearly distinguishes between the two. And that generally is true of other rationalists and Deists--they commonly accepted the existence of God; they had trouble accepting that God needed spokespeople to do His business, or even that God had any interest in us whatsoever. You have to remember that much of the impetus that lay behind the development of the dominant philosophies of the Age of Reason, especially in Europe, was the persistent institutional oppression by churches and the spiritual leaders of formal religions. Those of a revolutionary mindset recognized that a major reason church leaders often claimed a special intermediary relationship with God was so that they could maintain their positions of cultural and political power.
Thomas Paine
Paine's target isn't God; it's those who presume to speak for God. (And remember, logically it makes no sense that God would need anyone to speak for Him. ) Paine was well aware of the bloody history of things done in the name of God--he's not that far removed historically from the Salem Witch Trials. If you parse Paine's argument, it's really not that complicated:
- We pin our faith on what other human beings tell us about God (e.g., The Bible). There may have once been a person to whom God communicated directly, but as Paine says, "it is a revelation to that person only." Everything beyond that is filtered. It's akin to the party game in which person A whispers a phrase to person B, and by the time we get to person Z the original message has likely been lost.
- Since the original message--and Paine does not necessarily believe there was one, but being the good rationalist that he was, he was willing to entertain that for the sake of argument--inevitably gets filtered by human beings, who are flawed, it's unreasonable to expect that the original message from God is intact.
- So why in the world then do we unquestioningly believe what these intermediaries tell us? For Paine the core problem isn't that we believe; it's that we unquestioningly believe.
In both Mather and Paine you are seeing a snapshot of the antagonistic relationship between the sacred and secular that has been a part of our culture since we first landed on these shores.
Paine's argument really does seem to be an exercise in logic. I was aware of some of the links between the Christian and pagan world and it was interesting to read his more in-depth analysis.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, as an individual who's attended hundreds of Masses and come to the point that "at my age, you have to take some things on faith" (from "Raiders of the Lost Ark!") his writing is troubling. It overturns everything my very devoutly Catholic mother has tried to teach me. But Paine does so in a far more efficient manner than any other arguments I've ever heard. Her Puritan-like contention -- expressed just last week -- that all the bad stuff that's happening in the world right now has been "predicted." Knee-jerk reactions of religions that teach that anyone who holds even only slightly different beliefs (again, a Puritan contention) is downright wrong and destined for damnation, annoy me far more than Paine's writing. I'm far more prepared to condemn that belief than I am to discount what Paine says.
The only way I can successfully combine the teachings that I WANT to hold on to -- which ground me and give me hope -- and the strong inclination to agree with Paine's logic, is to consider God as more of a force for good in the world than a "person". True faith -- perhaps "spirituality" is a better word -- gives us something to cling to when times are difficult, and at its best it motivates us to help others. It is organized religion -- not faith --that has led to destructive wars and intolerance, and I guess that is what Paine is saying. Somewhere last week -- I think it was a piece about Louisa May Alcott --I read the phrase "Satan is a Christian invention," which really struck me and seems to fit Paine, even though "evil" can be considered universal.
Some people question the existence of God, or their faith, and come out as atheists or agnostics; while in others the questioning process has the effect of strengthening their beliefs. Paine's writing makes us think. I believe we'd all be much stronger in our personal faith -- whatever it may be -- if we'd take the time to consider what he says and what it means to us personally. Do we need organized religion to be good human beings, or are we strong enough to act on what we know is right and stay away from what we know is wrong?
I really like the analogy with religion and the “party game.” I never really thought about it like that before, but it certainly does make some sense. As a practicing Catholic, I pretty much go to church for reasons of my own and may not 100% agree with every single aspect of the religion. But I think it’s good to question your beliefs and what you stand for – not just blindly accepting what other people tell you. He Paine brought up some good points in his piece about not only the Catholic faith, but Muslims and Jews. In this regard, it didn’t seem like an attack on any religions, but merely an exploration of validity and rationality in the “stuff” of religion.
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you regaring Paine's writing. The question is rather simple; did Paine suffer many problems from his writing this? And why would he take such a risk writing this?
ReplyDeletePaine raises some very interesting points in this text. However,I do think he oversimplifies more than he should. For example, instead of separating Judaism and Christianity, which are similar, but different,he seems to group them both together in order to strengthen his argument. Paine is correct in his assertion from a Christian perspective, because a Christian's main purpose is to develop a personal relationship with Christ and reflect that relationship in his or her interactions with others. However, the distinction becomes important because although Puritan's (Paine's target)are Christian's their views, in my opinion, are more in line with Judaism. Unfortunately,this becomes a problem for Paine, which is probably why he does not separate the two.With the evolvement of Christianity,Paine's argument has much more relevancy today than it did back then.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the hearsay of religion is much like the party game but then “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” There is a lot of hearsay and wishful thinking as well as simple faith in religion.
ReplyDeletePaine’s argument concerning church leaders and their need to “maintain their positions of cultural and political power” is just as relevant today. We have seen in just the last few decades how dangerous that power can be. When I read about unquestioning belief, I immediately thought of the Jim Jones massacre and Heaven’s Gate with Marshall Applewhite. These leaders claimed God spoke to them and in fact, they must have believed it themselves.
Paine wastes no words on attacking the behavior of churches or religionists. He realizes that an attack on the basis of behavior, however bad the behavior might be, is only nonessential and can easily be defended. Are the priests of some church venal? They are only weak humans, and in any event their divinely-ordained rituals are still effective. Paine attacks directly the one claim that has to be the anchor of every church's dogma: that the church does the work of a God as revealed by God.
ReplyDeleteEvery national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals...Each of those churches show certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God.
Paine takes the axe of his rhetoric directly to this core concept, the very idea of "revelation," as a message from God to a human.
I personally believe that every individual should believe in what he or she desires and that would include myself. Naturally, some people are going to question God and what others believe in. I think that most people are not aware of the fact that there are countless religions spread throughout the world and that everyone will more than likely have differing views of what really exists. Paine's writing is a clear indication that he sees something wrong with the ways that churches and religionists are going about running things. He feels this way because he views the churches and religionists as seeing most individuals as weak, and therefore, most be controlled by someone more powerful than they would be. Paine describes this in the very beginning by saying, "Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals" (971). I view that as a way of simply trying to "recruit" someone, by telling them what they want to hear and hope that they will buy into it.
ReplyDeleteI find Paine's religious beliefs to be refreshing and the fact that he feels himself to be enough of an individual to questions the power of the church to be brave. Paine like you said "entertained" the idea that there was an original message from god (when speaking about revelations). On this topic I saw what Paine was saying as the popular game Telephone...where a beginning message is told from person to person and by the time it reaches the final person the original message is often something completely backwards. Much as when we look at the word of God the church often used it to manipulate its followers and the followers knew not to question the church, so they did in some cases "backwards" deeds. I also understand that he is not stressing to not believe in our God or Church, but perhaps when being told all that we must believe ask some whys? and hows? Don't just take it in like so many generations had before him, or perhaps another "witch hunt" might occur, because one can never be too careful when placing ultimate power in one organization(the church).
ReplyDeleteI think this work was pretty amazing! I'm sure it helps that Paine's thoughts on religion are extremely close to my own. Even if you don't agree with him though, you have to admire his logic. He is very thorough in the way he breaks apart the components of religion and explains just why they're flawed. His argument is so valid! I also want to say that I didn't pick out the difference between the structure of religion and faith in general until that last section on page 974. That entire section seemed to change in its tone so dramatically that I had to do a double take. It surprised me at first, but I really admire Paine for being able to point out and criticize the flaws of Religion without giving up on faith altogether.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it may seem like Paine is "poking fun" at the religions, he is not. He is trying to show the errors in them and how they could be improved. He has his own feelings on religion just the same as everyone else and he has a right to say what he feels about it.
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