Common Sense
shiite
would vote for Colonel Sanders."
Steve Cutchen
former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the
latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages
intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the
last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government
even in its best state is but a necessary evil."
Dan S.
> "A taxpayer who would vote for Barack Obama is like a chicken who
> would vote for Colonel Sanders."
It thought this was going to be a Thomas Paine thread.
rastafar...@yahoo.com
That can be accomplished:
"He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell
and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to
terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to
stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He
that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent
that will reach to himself."
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."
"One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests."
"War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances
that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing
certain, and that is to increase taxes. "
from Thomas Paine
Steve Cutchen
<ee503b9e-0eb4-4bba...@l42g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>,
<rastafar...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 4, 8:43 pm, Dan S.
> <danUNDERscoreGOEShereSLAUGH...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > It happens that shiite formulated :
> >
> > > "A taxpayer who would vote for Barack Obama is like a chicken who
> > > would vote for Colonel Sanders."
> >
> > It thought this was going to be a Thomas Paine thread.
>
> That can be accomplished:
>
> "He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell
> and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
Pity, then, about that whole Revolution thingee.
Dan S.
So, all your one-sided anti-Christey type quotes can only lead one to
believe that you ignored the entire first part of /Common Sense/ where
Paine prefaced his essay on Biblical grounds. But, that wouldn't suit
your sound-byte oriented, taken-out-of-contexty mentality, now would
it?
Kyle T. Jones
> "A taxpayer who would vote for Barack Obama is like a chicken who
> would vote for Colonel Sanders."
"If Colonel Sanders had been elected President, and the price of chicken
quadrupled during his term(s), people would say 'ahh-haa!; I know what
that damn Colonel is up to!!!'!!"
Cheers.
Kyle T. Jones
One would think, after reading this back and forth, that you define
"anti-Christey" as being against "Belief in a cruel God", "nationalized
churches", and the teaching of a "cruel God".
Which would explain a whole lot about yerself, Dan, yer insane
"religious" arrogance, and the fact that you're always making the J-man cry.
Personally, I have no doubt that Paine could reconcile his beliefs with
these quotes without trouble, and regardless of the "context" <how were
these quotes taken out-of-context, again? Oh, right, they only are if
you believe they express anti-Christianity views, which they clearly do
not>.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Dan S.
"All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to
terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
For the most part, there is a degree of truth in most of these
statements. /Common Sense/ was Paine's master work. It stirred just
the right emotions at just the right time.
Yes, belief in a cruel God can lead to bad things. Yes, the human
institution that is often called "the church" is imperfect. That
doesn't make it the Church, which is made up of the forgiven believers
and followers of Christ - who individually are it seems are always are
in a process of accepting Christ and rejecting Him (only those who are
in Christ are part of the Church.) It is not those who are members,
leaders, or parts of human institutions.
I know all that. Do you?
I was talking about the tenor and theme of his selection of quotes
while ignoring that the preface of /Common Sense/ was Biblical.
> Cheers.
Chris Bellomy
It could be argued pretty reasonably that the British
started that war.
cb
shiite
Nicholson, As Good As It Gets
John Rogers
same things I do! Wax paper! Boiled football leather! Dog breath!
Here's another good one, from his Letter to George Washington:
"The world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an
impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles or whether you
ever had any."
That Thomas Paine... he was never wrong, was he?
John Rogers
AU Class of 1985
The Al Del Greco of Atlanta
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very
well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive,
we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build
your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a
gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will
follow ours." (General Sir Charles Napier)
John Rogers
you like the same things I do! Wax paper! Boiled football leather! Dog
breath!
>Dan S. wrote:
You don't think that Thomas Paine was anti-Christian? He was
*virulently* anti-Christian.
"The opinions I have advanced… are the effect of the most clear and
long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are
impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus
Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of
God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous
inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that
the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now,
the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the
practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this
only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of
happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God."
"The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in
which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay
him the adoration originally payed to the sun."
Now one can be "anti-Christian" and still be a good, moral person (in
general) on this earth, so I cast no judgements in that regard. But to
deny that he was anti-Christian is just horse poo.
Kyle T. Jones
Short answer, John? I believe Paine was a deist, I believe that he
didn't hold his beliefs to be in conflict with the teachings of Christ
<although, this needs to be distinguished from the what a Church teaches
us are the teachings of Christ>, and I believe his major problem with
"religion", in any form, was the part where it became "organized".
Here, from the same place you cribbed those quotes (ain't Wiki great...
a nation of experts, we are!):
"The religion that approaches the nearest of all others to true deism,
in the moral and benign part thereof, is that professed by the Quakers …
though I revere their philanthropy, I cannot help smiling at [their]
conceit; … if the taste of a Quaker [had] been consulted at the
Creation, what a silent and drab-colored Creation it would have been!
Not a flower would have blossomed its gaieties, nor a bird been
permitted to sing."
I don't know about him being a Christian, but it looks like he might
have been a Creationist!
Cheers.
rastafar...@yahoo.com
<danUNDERscoreGOEShereSLAUGH...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> rastafarians2...@yahoo.com formulated on Saturday :
Fine. I'll give you more than a sound bite. Here is a (long, long)
letter from Thomas Paine in 1797, written to a Christian friend who
was trying to convert Paine to Christianity. I'm giving it in its
entirety so that it is not out of context. It is a very clear
statement of Paine's belief in Deism and distrust of the holy trinity
and the Bible. Note that Common Sense was written more than 20 years
before that and one's beliefs can change:
"In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several
quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me
that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many,
from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently,
then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every
way, one chooses to make it.
"But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this
is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that
makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word
of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and
Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus
Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is
called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas
and nays, as we now vote a law.
"The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from
captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the
Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is
no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they
were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their
religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave.
"You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove
it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see
into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the
same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of
such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove
what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself.
"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do
you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible
says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe
that too? No.
"Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because
you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for
believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an
impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?
"For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold
verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world
has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same
right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in
the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the
Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a
step further. The case then is: -
"You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the
Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness
of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works
of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by
taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God;
and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the
Bible.
"The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vindictive
being; making a world and then drowning it, afterwards repenting of
what he had done, and promising not to do so again. Setting one nation
to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the sun till
the butchery should be done. But the works of God in the creation
preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to
give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God;
everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of
unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness.
"The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and
everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which
am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word
of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could
make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the
contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal,
and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God.
"It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and
murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That
bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, (I Sam.
xv. 3) `Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they
have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and
suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'
"That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is what, at this
distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but in my
opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said it. All
our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious
cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil,
under the name of God, that the Bible describes.
"What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the
worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years
before, according to the account in Exodus xvii. (but which has the
appearance of fable from the magical account it gives of Moses holding
up his hands), had opposed the Israelites coming into their country,
and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were
the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This
opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that
the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and
asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to
death; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the chief of the
Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick of wood. I will bestow
a few observations on this case.
"In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of the
book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no other proof
than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In
the second place, this anonymous book says, that this slaughter was
done by the express command of God: but all our ideas of the justice
and goodness of God give the lie to the book, and as I never will
believe any book that ascribes cruelty and injustice to God, I
therefore reject the Bible as unworthy of credit.
"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is
not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you
your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me
none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the
Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that
education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have
nothing to do in the case.
"You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks
believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other
infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the
unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of
God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran,
from the Old Testament, or from the New.
"When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I have done
(for I do not think you know much about it), and permit yourself to
have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I
wish you to know that this answer to your letter is not written for
the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you,
and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible
is founded on a pure and religious belief in God; for in my opinion
the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in
almost every part of it."
rastafar...@yahoo.com
This is from "The Age of Reason". Again, it leaves no doubt about
Paine's view of the Bible, at least as of the 1790's:
“There are matters in that book, said to be done by the express
command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every idea we
have of moral justice, as any thing done by Robes Pierre, by Carrier,
by Joseph le Bon, in France, by the English government in the East
Indies, or by any other assassin in modern times. When we read in the
books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, etc., that they (the Israelites) came
by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history itself
shows, had given them no offence; that they put all those nations to
the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly
destroyed men, women and children; that they left not a soul to
breathe; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those
books, and that too with exulting ferocity; are we sure these things
are facts? are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned those
things to be done? Are we sure that the books that tell us so were
written by his authority?
“It is not the antiquity of a tale that is an evidence of its truth;
on the contrary, it is a symptom of its being fabulous; for the more
ancient any history pretends to be, the more it has the resemblance of
a fable. The origin of every nation is buried in fabulous tradition,
and that of the Jews is as much to be suspected as any other.
“To charge the commission of things upon the Almighty, which in their
own nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes, as all
assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants, is
matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us, that those
assassinations were done by the express command of God. To believe
therefore the Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in
the moral justice of God; for wherein could crying or smiling infants
offend? And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo every
thing that is tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of
man. Speaking for myself, if I had no other evidence that the Bible
is fabulous, than the sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true,
that alone would be sufficient to determine my choice.
“But in addition to all the moral evidence against the Bible, I will,
in the progress of this work, produce such other evidence as even a
priest cannot deny; and show, from that evidence, that the Bible is
not entitled to credit, as being the word of God.”
Dan S.
I don't think the original intention ws to prove or disprove the
Christinanity of Thomas Paine. But rather to say that by pulling
sundry bits ignores other important bits.
As for this letter, I can only say that he sounds like he would have
been good RSFC fodder, and I or any believer would have eaten his
lunch.
Steve Cutchen
Bellomy <ten.wohsdoog@sirhc> wrote:
Oh come on. They didn't want a war. They would have been perfectly
happy for us to be normal members of the empire. We provoked them
because we wanted independence. That's why it was called a Revolution.
duh.
Jefferson N. Glapski
news:040720081206148616%max...@earthlink.net...
Society encourages intercourse. Awesome.
Jefferson N. Glapski
news:g4oa7k$kvh$1...@registered.motzarella.org...
Only difference is that Col. Sanders could turn a profit and that W
couldn't.
Plus, higher prices don't necessarily lead to higher profits.
Steve Cutchen
<jeffers...@PENNSTATEglapski.com> wrote:
It's Common Sense.
Trevor Bauknight
You certainly think very highly of yourself.
Why don't you start with a thoroughgoing debunking of this letter as an
appetizer? This should be good.
Trev
Dan S.
Just highly enough, but not too highly. The Bible says to always be
ready to give a reason for your faith. But, the reason I don't is
because it's OT for a topic that was already OT. Why, was the above
comment written in the English language not explicit enough for you?
Trevor Bauknight
> Just highly enough, but not too highly. The Bible says to always be
> ready to give a reason for your faith. But, the reason I don't is
> because it's OT for a topic that was already OT. Why, was the above
> comment written in the English language not explicit enough for you?
WTF? You make a claim that you'd (or any believer, for that matter!)
would "eat his lunch", referring to one of the most astute political
minds among the founding fathers. So go on ahead and do it...don't let
me stop you, big shot.
Trev
Dan S.
You aren't stopping me. On the contrary, you're trying to instigate
me. And, as previously mentioned, none of his work was all too great
beyond /Common Sense/ If you find sensationalist mudslingers astute,
you're entitled to your opinion, but I only gave him credit for
publishing the right thing at the right time ... I'd say, that's more
political savvy than astuteness.
Trevor Bauknight
> You aren't stopping me. On the contrary, you're trying to instigate
> me. And, as previously mentioned, none of his work was all too great
> beyond /Common Sense/ If you find sensationalist mudslingers astute,
> you're entitled to your opinion, but I only gave him credit for
> publishing the right thing at the right time ... I'd say, that's more
> political savvy than astuteness.
You talk a big game. Put up or shut up, I always say. I'm not trying to
"instigate" anything...you made the claim. I urge you only to back it
up, it being a pretty astonishing claim.
What are you afraid of? Get going!
Trev
Dan S.
It shouldn't have been an affront to you cheese fry. The dude's long
been dead. Why do you have issue with it?
Eric Kemp
"Paine is in Hell now, so he was obviously wrong."
Trevor Bauknight
> been dead. Why do you have issue with it?
I have a problem with garden-variety fideists insisting that their
particular set of religious beliefs trumps reason and pretending that
arguments like the ones Paine made in the letter (and really, Paine
himself is what you're getting at) are somehow beneath your level when,
in fact, you have no answer other than to reiterate your belief and that
it trumps all else.
I don't really expect you to give a reason for your faith...I'm sure you
have experienced some kind of personal revelation that works for you.
Maybe you even had a visceral experience of God. Fine and dandy.
But when it comes down to it, your failure to address the arguments that
Paine makes in his letter alongside your sweeping and absurd dismissal
of those arguments simply reveals you as a coward.
Off-topic? Please. This is rec.sport.football.college. I urge you to pay
attention here for awhile before you trot out the ol' "I didn't answer
your question because it was off-topic" canard.
I don't really care what you think of "sensationalist mudslinger"
Paine...I do care about finding out why you think yourself so much
smarter than he. You really don't come across that way.
Trev
Trevor Bauknight
Really? Did you see him there or something?
Trev
Dan S.
It does. And, review my older posting in this forum for a response to
your tired and common iteration.
Dennis J
been through solid matter, for crying out loud. Who knows what's
happened to his brain? Maybe it's scrambled his molecules...
those who can, do... those who can't get elected to POTUS..
---
"the Democrat and Republican parties are destroying our country right now,They're destroying our political process." Jesse Ventura
"Education is the progressive discover of our own Ignorance" Will Durant
"people who read the Tabloids deserve to be lied to" Jerry Sienfeld
"One can't have a sense of perspective without a sense of Humor"
"Don't waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window - or break down a door." -- Brooke Shields
"the Glass is not only half full, it has been delicious so far!!" -- ME
To reply, SCRAPE off the end bits.
Eric Kemp
Dude, I'm on your side in this. Get out of my boat.
Trevor Zion Bauknight
> your tired and common iteration.
WHAT?
Trevor Zion Bauknight
Sometimes it's so hard to tell.
Trev
Dan S.
I was answering you're first paragraph. Sorry, I was shooting from the
hip.