Happy Birthday, Mr.Paine!!

Today is Thomas Paine's birthday. He was born on 29th of January 1737. This post is a tribute to that man who made it possible for me to be a guiltless atheist. I came to know about Thomas Paine when I was in St.John's. St.John’s is the place where I learnt to my horror that algebra and calculus exist. Studying in a school like St.Johns had its own challenges for skeptics and non believers. Atheism was, understandably, looked down upon and we were expected to believe in god from day one. The school chose not to accept the fact that belief is involuntary. I do not know if we were expected to fake our belief. But I rememeber being honest and vocal about my views on God. I thought a benevolent God would prefer honest skepticism over faked belief. But mine was a minority view point. I was up against a majority who took offence on anything I said. I was about to fall into the bottomless abyss of fake belief to appease those people around me. But Thomas Paine came for my rescue. I stumbled across his ‘Age of Reason’ while shopping for old sportstars. It not only reassured my lack of belief but also convinced me that atheism is a sign of healthy and independent mind. I became a proud atheist after reading the first few pages of Age of Reason. By the time I was through with Age of Reason, I was able to look right into the eyes of inquiring people and tell them that I neither believe nor pretend to believe in their version of God. Here are some excerpts from Age of Reason.

An amazing introduction on tolerance of opposing views.

"I PUT the following work under your protection. It contains my opinions upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall." Your affectionate friend and fellow-citizen, THOMAS PAINE.

Paine on fake belief...

"Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; It consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."

Here is Paine's opinion on revelation. It explains why an omniscient god wouldn't expect us to believe on hearsay.

"Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other; and consequently, they are not obliged to believe it."

Paine strikes again on why we don't have to believe in the testimony of a minority.

"A thing which everybody is required to believe, requires that the proof and evidence of it should be equal to all, and universal. Instead of this, a small number of persons, not more than eight or nine, are introduced as proxies for the whole world, to say they saw it, and all the rest of the world are called upon to believe it."

I, like Thomas Paine, strongly believe religious freedom includes the right not to believe in the popular versions of god. Age of Reason is a justification of that right. If you want to read further, this book is available in public domain. You can download it from here.