so much will men differ in their manner of thinking, and in the conclu-
sions they draw from the same premises, that this doctrine of the resur-
rection of the same body, so far from being an evidence of immortality,
appears to me to be an evidence against it; for if I have already died in this body, and am raised again in the same body in which I have died, it
is presumptive evidence that I shall die again. That resurrection no more secures me against the repetition of dying, than an ague-fit, when past,
secures me against another. To believe therefore in immortality, I must
have a more elevated idea than is contained in the gloomy doctrine of
the resurrection.
Besides, as a matter of choice, as well as of hope, I had rather have a
better body and a more convenient form than the present. Every animal
in the creation excels us in something. The winged insects, without men-
tioning doves or eagles, can pass over more space with greater ease in a
few minutes than man can in an hour. The glide of the smallest fish, in
proportion to its bulk, exceeds us in motion almost beyond comparison,
and without weariness. Even the sluggish snail can ascend from the bot-
tom of a dungeon, where man, by the want of that ability, would perish;
and a spider can launch itself from the top, as a playful amusement. The
personal powers of man are so limited, and his heavy frame so little con-
structed to extensive enjoyment, that there is nothing to induce us to
wish the opinion of Paul to be true. It is too little for the magnitude of the scene, too mean for the sublimity of the subject.
But all other arguments apart, the consciousness of existence is the only conceivable idea we can have of another life, and the continuance of that consciousness is immortality. The consciousness of existence, or the
knowing that we exist, is not necessarily confined to the same form, nor
to the same matter, even in this life.
We have not in all cases the same form, nor in any case the same mat-
ter, that composed our bodies twenty or thirty years ago; and yet we are
conscious of being the same persons. Even legs and arms, which make
up almost half the human frame, are not necessary to the consciousness
of existence. These may be lost or taken away and the full consciousness
of existence remain; and were their place supplied by wings, or other ap-
pendages, we cannot conceive that it could alter our consciousness of ex-
istence. In short, we know not how much, or rather how little, of our
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composition it is, and how exquisitely fine that little is, that creates in us this consciousness of existence; and all beyond that is like the pulp of a peach, distinct and separate from the vegetative speck in the kernel.
Who can say by what exceeding fine action of fine matter it is that a
thought is produced in what we call the mind? and yet that thought
when produced, as I now produce the thought I am writing, is capable of
becoming immortal, and is the only production of man that has that
capacity.
Statues of brass and marble will perish; and statues made in imitation
of them are not the same statues, nor the same workmanship, any more
than the copy of a picture is the same picture. But print and reprint a
thought a thousand times over, and that with materials of any kind,
carve it in wood, or engrave it on stone, the thought is eternally and
identically the same thought in every case. It has a capacity of unim-
paired existence, unaffected by change of matter, and is essentially dis-
tinct, and of a nature different from every thing else that we know of, or can conceive. If then the thing produced has in itself a capacity of being immortal, it is more than a token that the power that produced it, which
is the self-same thing as consciousness of existence, can be immortal also; and that as independently of the matter it was first connected with, as
the thought is of the printing or writing it first appeared in. The one idea is not more difficult to believe than the other; and we can see that one is true.
That the consciousness of existence is not dependent on the same form
or the same matter, is demonstrated to our senses in the works of the creation, as far as our senses are capable of receiving that demonstration. A very numerous part of the animal creation preaches to us, far better than Paul, the belief of a life hereafter. Their little life resembles an earth and a heaven, a present and a future state; and comprises, if it may be so expressed, immortality in miniature.
The most beautiful parts of the creation to our eye are the winged in-
sects, and they are not so originally. They acquire that form and that in-imitable brilliancy by progressive changes. The slow and creeping cater-
pillar worm of to day, passes in a few days to a torpid figure, and a state resembling death; and in the next change comes forth in all the miniature magnificence of life, a splendid butterfly. No resemblance of the former
creature remains; every thing is changed; all his powers are new, and life is to him another thing. We cannot conceive that the consciousness of existence is not the same in this state of the animal as before; why then
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must I believe that the resurrection of the same body is necessary to continue to me the consciousness of existence hereafter?
In the former part of The Age of Reason, I have called the creation the true and only real word of God; and this instance, or this text, in the
book of creation, not only shows to us that this thing may be so, but that it is so; and that the belief of a future state is a rational belief, founded upon facts visible in the creation: for it is not more difficult to believe that we shall exist hereafter in a better state and form than at present, than that a worm should become a butterfly, and quit the dunghill for
the atmosphere, if we did not know it as a fact.
As to the doubtful jargon ascribed to Paul in 1 Corinthians xv., which
makes part of the burial service of some Christian sectaries, it is as destitute of meaning as the tolling of a bell at the funeral; it explains nothing to the understanding, it illustrates nothing to the imagination, but leaves the reader to find any meaning if he can. "All flesh," says he, "is not the same flesh. There is one flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds." And what then? nothing. A cook could have said as much. "There are also," says he, "bodies celestial and bodies terrestrial; the glory of the celestial is one and the glory of the terrestrial is the other."
And what then? nothing. And what is the difference? nothing that he has
told. "There is," says he, "one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars." And what then? nothing; except that he says that one star differeth from another star in glory, instead of distance; and he might as well have told us that the moon did not shine so
bright as the sun. All this is nothing better than the jargon of a conjuror, who picks up phrases he does not understand to confound the credulous
people who come to have their fortune told. Priests and conjurors are of
the same trade.
Sometimes Paul affects to be a naturalist, and to prove his system of
resurrection from the principles of vegetation. " Thou fool" says he, " that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." To which one might reply in his own language, and say, Thou fool, Paul, that which thou sowest is
not quickened except it die not; for the grain that dies in the ground never does, nor can vegetate. It is only the living grains that produce the
next crop. But the metaphor, in any point of view, is no simile. It is succession, and [not] resurrection.
The progress of an animal from one state of being to another, as from a
worm to a butterfly, applies to the case; but this of a grain does not, and shows Paul to have been what he says of others, a fool.
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Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by him or
not, is a matter of indifference; they are either argumentative or dogmatical; and as the argument is defective, and the dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them. And the same may be said
for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is not upon the Epistles, but upon what is called the Gospel, contained in the four books ascribed to
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and upon the pretended prophecies,
that the theory of the church, calling itself the Christian Church, is founded. The Epistles are dependant upon those, and must follow their fate;
for if the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all reasoning founded upon it, as a supposed truth, must fall with it.
We know from history, that one of the principal leaders of this church,
Athanasius, lived at the time the New Testament was formed;51 and we know also, from the absurd jargon he has left us under the name of a
creed, the character of the men who formed the New Testament; and we
know also from the same history that the authenticity of the books of
which it is composed was denied at the time. It was upon the vote of
such as Athanasius that the Testament was decreed to be the word of
God; and nothing can present to us a more strange idea than that of de-
creeing the word of God by vote. Those who rest their faith upon such
authority put man in the place of God, and have no true foundation for
future happiness. Credulity, however, is not a crime, but it becomes
criminal by resisting conviction. It is strangling in the womb of the conscience the efforts it makes to ascertain truth. We should never force belief upon ourselves in any thing.
I here close the subject on the Old Testament and the New. The evid-
ence I have produced to prove them forgeries, is extracted from the
books themselves, and acts, like a two-edge sword, either way. If the
evidence be denied, the authenticity of the Scriptures is denied with it, for it is Scripture evidence: and if the evidence be admitted, the authenticity of the books is disproved. The contradictory impossibilities, con-
tained in the Old Testament and the New, put them in the case of a man
who swears for and against. Either evidence convicts him of perjury, and equally destroys reputation.
Should the Bible and the Testament hereafter fall, it is not that I have
done it. I have done no more than extracted the evidence from the con-
fused mass of matters with which it is mixed, and arranged that evidence
in a point of light to be clearly seen and easily comprehended; and,
51.Athanasius died, according to the Church chronology, in the year 371-—Author.
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having done this, I leave the reader to judge for himself, as I have judged for myself.
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3
Chapter
Conclusion
In the former part of The Age of Reason I have spoken of the three frauds, mystery, miracle, and prophecy; and as I have seen nothing in any of the answers to that work that in the least affects what I have there said upon those subjects, I shall not encumber this Second Part with additions that are not necessary.
I have spoken also in the same work upon what is called revelation, and have shewn the absurd misapplication of that term to the books of the
Old Testament and the New; for certainly revelation is out of the ques-
tion in reciting any thing of which man has been the actor or the witness.
That which man has done or seen, needs no revelation to tell him he has
done it, or seen it-—for he knows it already-—nor to enable him to tell it or to write it. It is ignorance, or imposition, to apply the term revelation in such cases; yet the Bible and Testament are classed under this fraudu-lent description of being all revelation.
Revelation then, so far as the term has relation between God and man,
can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man;
but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is
necessarily admitted, because to that power all things are possible, yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever was revealed, and which, by the
bye, it is impossible to prove) is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another is not revelation; and whoever puts faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes;
and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed it; or he
may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby
to judge of the truth of what he tells; for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, the proper answer should be,
"When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to be revelation; but it is not and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before;
neither is it proper that I should take the word of man as the word of
God, and put man in the place of God." This is the manner in which I 146
have spoken of revelation in the former part of The Age of Reason; and which, whilst it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible, it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use
of pretended revelation.
But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of revela-
tion, I totally disbelieve that the Almighty ever did communicate any
thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any language, or by any kind of
vision, or appearance, or by any means which our senses are capable of
receiving, otherwise than by the universal display of himself in the
works of the creation, and by that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to good ones. 52
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the
greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their ori-
gin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever
was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel,
and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his
mouth, and have credit among us.
Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men,
women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody perse-
cutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this
impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that
God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the
one, and the lies of the Testament [of] the other.
52.A fair parallel of the then unknown aphorism of Kant: "Two things fill the soul
with wonder and reverence, increasing evermore as I meditate more closely upon
them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me." (Kritik der prakt-
ischen Vernunft, 1788). Kant's religious utterances at the beginning of the French Re-
volution brought on him a royal mandate of silence, because he had worked out from
"the moral law within" a principle of human equality precisely similar to that which
Paine had derived from his Quaker doctrine of the "inner light" of every man. About
the same time Paine's writings were suppressed in England. Paine did not under-
stand German, but Kant, though always independent in the formation of his opin-
ions, was evidently well acquainted with the literature of the Revolution, in America,
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Some Christians pretend that Christianity was not established by the
sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible that
twelve men could begin with the sword: they had not the power; but no
sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently powerful to em-
ploy the sword than they did so, and the stake and faggot too; and
Mahomet could not do it sooner. By the same spirit that Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant (if the story be true) he would cut off his head, and the head of his master, had he been able. Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the [Hebrew] Bible, and the Bible
was established altogether by the sword, and that in the worst use of
it-—not to terrify, but to extirpate. The Jews made no converts: they
butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the [New] Testament, and both are called the word of God. The Christians read both books; the ministers preach from both books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of
both. It is then false to say that Christianity was not established by the sword.
The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers; and the only
reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they call the scriptures a dead letter. 53 Had they called them by a worse name, they had been nearer the truth.
It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the
Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to
expel all ideas of a revealed religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have learned from this pretended thing
called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful to man, and every thing
that is dishonourable to his Maker. What is it the Bible teaches
us?-—rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches
us?-—to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman
engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly and thinly
scattered in those books, they make no part of this pretended thing, re-
vealed religion. They are the natural dictates of conscience, and the
bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot ex-
ist; and are nearly the same in all religions, and in all societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this subject, and where it attempts to ex-
ceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. The doctrine of not retaliating
53.This is an interesting and correct testimony as to the beliefs of the earlier Quakers,
one of whom was Paine's father.-—Editor.
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injuries is much better expressed in Proverbs, which is a collection as
well from the Gentiles as the Jews, than it is in the Testament. It is there said, (Xxv. 2 I) " If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:" 54 but when it is said, as in the Testament,
" If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, " it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and sinking man into a spaniel.
Loving of enemies is another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and
defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake
and prejudice, as in the case of religious opinions, and sometimes in
politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own
tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love on
the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a
motive, is morally and physically impossible.
Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of
evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies; for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his
enmity.
54.According to what is called Christ's sermon on the mount, in the book of Matthew,
where, among some other [and] good things, a great deal of this feigned morality is
introduced, it is there expressly said, that the doctrine of forbearance, or of not retali-
ating injuries, was not any part of the doctrine of the Jews; but as this doctrine is
found in "Proverbs," it must, according to that statement, have been copied from the
Gentiles, from whom Christ had learned it. Those men whom Jewish and Christian
idolators have abusively called heathen, had much better and clearer ideas of justice
and morality than are to be found in the Old Testament, so far as it is Jewish, or in
the New. The answer of Solon on the question, "Which is the most perfect popular
govemment," has never been exceeded by any man since his time, as containing a
maxim of political morality, "That," says he, "where the least injury done to the mean-
est individual, is considered as an insult on the whole constitution." Solon lived
about 500 years before Christ.-—Author.
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Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general
the greatest persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the
doctrine is hypocritical, and it is natural that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches. For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and
consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution; or that I have,
in any case, returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent on man to re-ward a bad action with a good one, or to return good for evil; and
wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act, and not a duty. It is also absurd to suppose that such doctrine can make any part of a revealed religion.
We imitate the moral character of the Creator by forbearing with each
other, for he forbears with all; but this doctrine would imply that he
loved man, not in proportion as he was good, but as he was bad.
If we consider the nature of our condition here, we must see there is no
occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What is it we want to know?
Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach to us the existence of an Almigh