We all can find comfort in writings, books, commentaries, magazines, etc... that make us think and reason intelligently and sometimes, set us FREE from ridiculous traditions. What's funny is that the famous quote in the subject line is from the bible and applies to itself.
When many of us (JWs) read COC from Raymond Franz, we learnt that we don't have to go too far to find the hypocrisy and the incredible lies that discredit the WT, he actually used the WT publications to tear apart the org and comfort and free many of us from the chains that we lived with in the JW world.
I just read The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, this book does to the bible what COC did to the WT. What a great read! I wish I would have read this YEARS ago. This book was written over 200 years ago, what I can say is that the writer had BALLS. He questioned ALL authority, and with reason. I'm sure many of you read this, but I haven't really seen many references of this and I wish I would have. There are so many points in this book that are right on the money. He uses the bible to discredit itself.
Here's one quote below that starts off part 2 of the book.
"IT has often been said, that anything may be proved from the Bible, but before anything can be admitted as proved by the Bible, the Bible itself must be proved to be true; for if the Bible be not true, or the truth of it be doubtful, it ceases to have authority, and cannot be admitted as proof of anything. - Thomas Paine - The Age of Reason, 1795
Do any of you have any comments on this book??