One of my favorite parts from Paine's Age of Reason.

[Cato]

"In truth there is no such thing as redemption, that it is fabulous, and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker as he ever did stand since man existed, and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.

Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and morally than by any other system; it is by his being taught to contemplate himself as an outlaw, as an outcast, as a beggar, as a mumper, as one thrown, as it were, on a dunghill at an immense distance from his Creator, and who must make his approaches by creeping and cringing to intermediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous disregard for everything under the name of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns what he calls devout. In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it; his prayers are reproaches; his humility is ingratitude; he calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities; he despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself.

Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and this contempt for human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions; he finds fault with everything; his selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of the universe; he prays dictatorially; when it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine; he follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou knowest not so well as I."

[Cato]

A link to the book in its caustic entirety.

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/index.htm

[Joe McCarthy]

A link to the book in its caustic entirety.

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/index.htm

That's where I read it some years ago iirc. For kicks you might try Boudinot's The Age of Revelation, if you haven't already. It was a rebuttal to Paine.

[Cato]

That's where I read it some years ago iirc. For kicks you might try Boudinot's The Age of Revelation, if you haven't already. It was a rebuttal to Paine.

I looked at it several years ago, and large portions of it seemed to be more about assassinating the character of Paine than anything else.

[sean]

The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine is a standard Deist text. The very reason why Paine penned his "Age of Reason" and so revealed himself to the world as a Deist was that he was worried by the fact that in their hatred of the counter-revolutionary role played by the clergy the people of France were running headlong into Atheism. At one stroke he might save the true religion, Deism, from atheism and republicanism from despotism. With this in mind he wrote his famous theological treatise. He had absolutely no reason to write and publish it, it brought enormous strife and persecution to him in his life, owing to the religious bigotry of those who opposed his views, other than his sincere convictions. Although, Deism would return people to God and morality without the concomitants of superstition, falsehood, bigotry, and religious strife.