Posted by Carlos on January 29, 1999 at 11:40:28:
In Reply to: BTW if anyone wants to address Paine's silly document, I'm game. n/t posted by blue on January 29, 1999 at 09:48:00:
Okay, blue, I'll bite - what exactly do you find "silly" in Age of Reason?
I quote from a the book Paine's views on the Old Testament:
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness,
with which more than half the Bible [NOTE: It must be borne in mind that by the "Bible" Paine always means the Old Testament alone.
-- Editor.] is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of
wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is
cruel."
"We scarcely meet with anything, a few phrases excepted, but what deserves either our abhorrence or our contempt, till we come to
the miscellaneous parts of the Bible. In the anonymous publications, the Psalms, and the Book of Job, more particularly in the latter, we
find a great deal of elevated sentiment reverentially expressed of the power and benignity of the Almighty; but they stand on no higher
rank than many other compositions on similar subjects, as well before that time as since."
"The Proverbs which are said to be Solomon's, though most probably a collection, (because they discover a knowledge of life, which
his situation excluded him from knowing) are an instructive table of ethics. They are inferior in keenness to the proverbs of the
Spaniards, and not more wise and economical than those of the American Franklin."
I find nothing here I disagree with, and I find very little fault with the work in general (other than inaccuracies that Paine could not have been aware of in the late 18th century).