Written half-expecting arrest, a case for reason against both church and terror.

The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine · 1794

Paine wrote The Age of Reason in France as the Revolution he'd championed curdled into the Terror, and shortly before his own imprisonment — a case for one God known through reason and nature, against both organized religion's claimed revelations and the era's revolutionary excesses. Part II turns that same reasoning on the Bible itself, examining its authorship and internal consistency as a historical document rather than a sacred one. It cost Paine much of his American standing and earned him a reputation as an atheist he never actually held, but it remains a clear, combative statement of the case for testing belief — religious or political — against reason rather than inherited authority.

22 chapters · 65,346 words · ~5 hr read