Age of Reason

The tree of knowledge is where the reason of man begins for man in his vanity and greed may be deceived. But the tree of life shows us right reason and how the reason of men by itself may fall short of truth and wisdom.
Living in the Age of Reason does not make you reasonable. You cannot wave the flags of fallacies and claim to be logical or profess critical thinking to be in your personal skill sets. Only the sacrifice required by true love and charity may feed the righteousness of social virtue that will remove the scales and give sight to the blind.

The Age of Reason

The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is an influential work written by English and American political activist Thomas Paine. It follows in the tradition of eighteenth-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible (the central Christian text). Originally distributed as unbound pamphlets, it was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807.

In the eighteenth century Deism was defined differently than today. Very smart men took the facts they had available and tried to discover the truth by the use of their own intellect. The facts we may accumulate will always run short of all the facts there are. It requires a level of humility to admit that we do not know everything.

Without all the facts there is the danger of error. This is why the "tree of life" is also in our personal garden because it guides us inspiration-ally to know when something important is missing. To attempt to reason our way to the truth about what is good and evil without the guidance of the omniscient God of creation or an omniscience factor of divine knowledge is like hunting with bent arrows.

The age of enlightenment and the book The Age of Reason was not all that reasonable because Thomas and men like him did not and cannot know enough about the nature of the universe nor the even the inspiration of the men who wrote the Bible to come to a rational conclusion on their own without some error.

What they knew then as science compared to what we are learning about Epigenetics, Quantum mechanics and the Mysteries of the Universe, as well as String or M-Theories, to say nothing of the Mind itself overthrows many of their eighteenth century conclusions.

Paine was clearly not a Deist by today definition. But the seeds of rational deism were planted by those who resented the corruptions of the Church of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some imagine that Paine's book “the Age of Reason” is a great critique of the Bible.

Actually his critique of the Bible was generally rather petty. Knit picking about the fact that one gospel mentions an element of the stories while others do not.

Where does he get into the real message of the real Jesus which was the message of Moses who set millions free from the Bondage of Egypt. Moses and Jesus offered one form of government that survived without compelled taxation, kings or rulers, with everyone owning their own land and possessions and with a command to love your neighbor under the prohibition to oppress strangers in your midst or even covet what is produced by him.

I do not condemn him but give him the benefit that he was looking at the Bible through his personal prejudices and categorically deceived by what was posing as Christianity at the time. The same could be said of the Pharisees in their age and the Modern Christian today.

Thomas Paine challenged institutionalized religion in The Age of Reason. He speaks of a Christian fraud and a neglect of the Creator in the views of Christians. But his views and interpretations of the Bible were dependent upon what was posing as Christianity at that time. Paine was also said to be a deists yet he quoted the Bible extensively in his pamphlet Common Sense.

He drew from 1 Samuel 8 arguments against the Crown and tyranny. Samuel, who was not a deist by any definition, was speaking to God and prophesying to the people what kind of government they would have if they elected men to exercise authority rather than follow their God given conscience.

Paine even went so far as to say:

“Where, Say Some, is the king of America? I’ll tell you, Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the People whose right it is.”

What was posing as Christianity at that time was composed mostly of people who were not real followers of Christ. Real followers had been killed by the millions during hundreds of years of inquisitions and persecutions. No follower of Christ would have ever burned anyone at the stake or hung man or women for their opinions.

Thomas Paine opposed the authoritarian nature of uniform church doctrines imposed upon society by these man made institutions but he and many others failed to recognize the purpose of the Church and the practice of Pure Religion.

False religion has been distracting and misleading people in many ways.

Today is even worse.

I understand that people today imagine many things about the Bible. They think that it told them to pile up rocks and burn up sheep and doves. The Essenes and many others knew this was false yet they believed and followed the message that the authors tried to share with those holy texts.

Those stones were living men and that language was describing how a living government of friends rather than rulers could sustain the people as free souls. But men are deceived by words and their own vanity that wont let them look at old things anew. http://www.preparingyou.com/wiki/Sophistry

Paine was not opposed to Christian principles as he understood them but did oppose that institutional religious system produced by men and their substituting doctrinal ideologies of men for the simplicity of Love and Pure Religion.

"As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of Atheism— a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of Manism with but little Deism, and is as near to Atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a Redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious, or an irreligious, eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade." Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine, "TO MY FELLOW-CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"

The Church of right reason

The Church was not a system compelling people to conform to anything but its Ministers and the Elders should be striving to conform to the righteousness of God. All who come in the Name of the Lord should be sacrificing regularly in charity and attending to the Weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith which include caring for the needs of our neighbors, the widows and orphans of our society through Pure Religion in matters of Health, Education, and Welfare. We are NOT to do so by the Covetous Practices of modern governments and false Christians.

The Way of Christ was not like the way of the World, nor the governments of the gentiles who depend on Benefactors who exercise authority. Christ's Ministers and true Christians do not depend upon systems of social Welfare that force the contributions of the people like the Corban of the Pharisees which made the word of God to none effect. Many people have been deceived to go the way of Balaam and the Nicolaitan and out of The Way of Christ.

The Christian conflict of the first century Church appointed by Christ was because they would not apply to the Fathers of the earth for benefits but instead relied upon a voluntary Network providing a Daily ministration to the needy of society through Faith, Hope and Charity by way of Freewill offerings of the people, for the people and by the people through the Perfect law of liberty in Free Assemblies. The Modern Christians are in need of repentance.

The Age of Common Sense

In the editor's introduction we see:

"He states that soon after his publication of "Common Sense" (1776), he "saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion," and that "man would return to the pure, unmixed, and unadulterated belief of one God and no more." He tells Samuel Adams that it had long been his intention to publish his thoughts upon religion, and he had made a similar remark to John Adams in 1776. Like the Quakers among whom he was reared Paine could then readily use the phrase "word of God" for anything in the Bible which approved itself to his "inner light," and as he had drawn from the first Book of Samuel a divine condemnation of monarchy, John Adams, a Unitarian, asked him if he believed in the inspiration of the Old Testament. Paine replied that he did not, and at a later period meant to publish his views on the subject." EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION WITH SOME RESULTS OF RECENT RESEARCHES. Age of Reason, Thomas Paine.

First, Religion was defined when Thomas Paine wrote his pamphlet as “Real piety in practice, consisting in the performance of all known duties to God and our fellow men” and it is simply how a nation, a people, or a society takes care of its needy and therefore serve the God or gods they have chosen for themselves.

But Thomas Paine is using it to mean religious type institutions filled with personal interpretations of scripture and opinions about God. None of that is listed as a religion in the Bible.

Paine was so against the taxation without consent yet ironically Paine proposed later in life to create a property tax administered by a government which would have oppressed his neighbor by exercising authority over the people and their property. He hoped it could provide for the Welfare of the people as an old age benefit for those who had no family to care for them.

Paine wrote in the Age of Reason of Deism and Religion. He thought that at least the Quakers saw things clearer admitting that they were close to understanding the liberty bestowed on man but considered them to drab and colorless.

"How different is this to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical."

But had Paine simply forgiven the drab and colorless nature of Quakers he would have never been tempted to force his neighbor to contribute to his welfare through men who would call themselves Benefactors but exercise authority by compelling a tax to provide social Welfare. This was one of the primary purposes of Religion and the Church. To call on governments of authority to provide for the needy was a Charitable Practices nor Pure Religion. It was Covetous Practices that makes men Merchandise.

Clearly Paine and many others then and now missed the essence of Christ's appointed Church and did not understand the Corban of Christ. Had more churches focused on the daily ministration through charity and less on dividing the people into sectarian groups based on private interpretation Paine might have embraced such a church.

Divine Spark

He makes reference to his "inner light" but criticizes the Bible as not being the result of the revelation of its authors. The authors were supposedly inspired to write the Scriptures but that says nothing about translators or pastors or even theologians who may attempt to translate the words of the authors by their own private interpretation which the Bible itself warns against.

"As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word 'revelation.' Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man." Chapter II. Age of Reason, Thomas Paine

I could not agree with Paine more but unfortunately he did not agree with himself. He needed to define religion.

Right Reason

The concepts of "Right Reason" are said to have come from the ideas born out of the Age of Reason. But this idea has been common throughout the history of all man kind but known by many names; The Law of Nature, Natural law, Right Reason, Divine Will, the Will of God, the Word of God or even the Logos of Christ.

Natural Law Definition: ... "There is, in fact, a true law - namely right reason - which is in accordance with nature, applies to all men, and is unchangeable and eternal. By its commands, this law summons men to the performance of their duties. By its prohibitions, it restrains them from doing wrong."

Revealed Law is that which may be revealed to the mind not carried away with flesh and blood nor the Nature of the Beast.

• “True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions… It is a sin to try to alter this law, nor is it allowable to repeal any part of it, and it is impossible to abolish it entirely. We cannot be freed from its obligations by senate or people, and we need not look outside ourselves for an expounder or interpreter of it. And there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and at all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is God, over us all, for he is the author of this law, its promulgator and its enforcing judge. Whoever is disobedient is fleeing from himself and denying his human nature, and by reason of this very fact he will suffer the worst punishment.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

“[A]ll existing things are subject to decay and change is a truth that scarcely needs proof; for the course of nature is sufficient to force this conviction on us.” Polybius and Aristotle believed in the political doctrine of anacyclosis which is that the theory of political evolution is cyclical.

Concerning the "rule by the one, the few, and the many" Democracy is not the rule by the many but rather rule by the majority whereas a true Republic is the rule of the many individuals by the each individual in voluntary cooperation with each other through "Right Reason" or "Divine Will" which is according to the law of Nature. This is because the leaders of a true Republic are titular and they may only rule over things public that are freely given to them.

It is not "Right Reason" to think you are a product of your own "self-creation". You cannot be a part of society today without due humble recognition of the generations that have gone before. This begins with honoring your Father and Mother but continues from our forgotten ancestral beginnings to the unseen progeny of the eternal future which all reside in the heuristics of a timeless God.

In Socialism, there is no need for God, for the collective is god and its leaders are the "gods many" of its society. This is why they need no god and imagine themselves content with atheism.

Atheism is the scapegoat of moral bankruptcy while the heuristic term "God" includes the phrase "divine will", which has always been defined as "right reason". Determining what is right reason may remain the province of the individual in unencumbered capitalism, but it becomes the proposition of a few and eventually the dictate of tyrants in socialism.

While the idea of God may be incomprehensible, mysterious and beyond our grasp as a heuristic God. The idea of God is composed of different elements almost too numerous to list. But by His defined nature being infinite a comprehensive list of characteristics, though incomplete, are regularly attempted by the theologies of the finite. By denial of the true nature of our divine originator, we are in denial of our own nature. Or else we are in denial of the truth about ourselves and feel an absence, a lack, an emptiness in our experiential existence which press us into an ever-present quest for the perfect model that will fill, satisfy or relieve the pain of that emptiness.

The ultimate model must be the unreachable or unknown "personality of God" for we are made in His image. God is courageous and compassionate, just and forgiving. God is the idea of a giving disciplinarian who gives us life and a place to live it but not without creating Natural law to lead or guide us from destruction to abundance. When we divide God into gods with the different attribute and subsequent flaws we dilute the model.

The idea that we were not created by an Omnipotent Divine Designer Creator Father but simply evolved as complex chemical reactions from primordial slime with no intelligent design would be a downer to some but liberating to others who could denounce all moral absolutes and the existence of free will as nothing more than products of deluded dendritic imagery.

In the story of Cain and Able, Able is the victim of injustice and the murder by Cain who sinned against the God of life. Without God, there is no sin. So to those who merely evolved over billions of generations Cain, who both dominates and reproduces the next generation becomes the fittest to survive. Cain becomes the hero of the story.

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