Hi I am sure this topic has been covered before, but perhaps more people have read the book since and can share some further views
My Aunt sent me the book 'age of reason' by Thomas Paine about 4 years ago and I only read parts of it as I was not really interested at the time: as I still had the belief that the bible was Gods word. I decided to read it proper, as everytime I tried to get back into reading the bible, I was finding that some of the old testament stories were over the top or too fantastic to believe, that such events happened. One of the things that I found difficult to get my head around when reading books such as leviticus or Deutoronomy was the incredible amount of rules that the Israelites had to adhere to. I wondered to myself how on earth they were to remember each of these rules which inpart involved so much detail? Could they really remember so much information and apply it daily, weekly, monthly, yearly - given the very difficult circumstances that they had to endure in the wilderness?
It was for this reason I decided to make up an excuse to visit this Aunt of mine who herself turned her back on her faith some 15 years ago due to her reading this book. I read it through from cover to cover and found that much of it made sense, but other parts werent so clear. Paines view of Deism has a point in that it would appear that God seems to be letting us get on with things and not taking very much of an acting role; that Gods only proof of existence is the creation and not divine revelation. Yet as much as I have tried to understand this view, I am still looking at my bible with an open mind, always wondering and never completely wanting to completely dismissing its content. This, despite the fact that I understand Paines view that as an accident of birth, I have been brought up to believe that the bible is Gods word and that I will always be biased toward the bible in that sense; every bit as much as a muslim will always be biased toward the Koran)
An interesting point that Thomas Paine points out in the 'age of reason' is the amount of bloodshed that has been written about in the old testament. Paine rightly mentions that in some instances, nothing more than what appears to be genocide has been perpetrated by the early Istraelites. To a Christian, these tend to be looked upon as righteous acts that God had condoned in one way or another. Yet what if these acts were simply genocide and that religion was used as an excuse? Thomas Paine also points out that today (although living in the 18th century at the time), people would be horrified by such attrocities; and he has a point - think of Rwanda, Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, the holocaust in Europe during WW2- the list goes on. Regardless of what backgroung people are from, such attrocities against fellow human beings is horrific to any rational reasoning persons.
Paine mentions many points in his book which I would love to go into but unfortunately dont have the time, but has anyone got any thoughts on Age of reason?