Thomas Paine a Deist?

[beeswax]

Deism has just been discussed here and Thomas Paine was the consummate Deist along with I believe, Thomas Jefferson and Abrahamic Lincoln but our USA friends on here will confirm. I think EJ thinks TP didn't believe in heaven or hell but have just found a quote of his to the contrary. Hope you don't mind EJ? I also thought it worth quoting another famous passage of his from his Age of Reason Book...

This is what he said..

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy.

But lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

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.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise. They have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.

So TP did believe in an afterlife as I do and so does that equate strictly to a definition of Deism? More like Deism + to me...

[Pompey]

[Replying to post 1 by beeswax]

I'm a big fan of Paine, but I do believe that hoping in something and believing something are somewhat different.

I also hope for an afterlife where I will find happiness, truly. But I don't think I could honestly claim I believe there is one. Hope implies you really don't know one way or another, but want there to be; believe implies you are making a claim on one side or the other.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by beeswax]

I'm a big fan of Paine, but I do believe that hoping in something and believing something are somewhat different.

I also hope for an afterlife where I will find happiness, truly. But I don't think I could honestly claim I believe there is one. Hope implies you really don't know one way or another, but want there to be; believe implies you are making a claim on one side or the other.

Deists just do not make too many absolute claims beyond "God exists" and can be known via Reason and Nature....they SPECULATE, like everyone else, however, but do not claim the authority of certitude...and Bee, I realize Paine believed in the afterlife, and used the example of "thinking it more likely that the God who called him into being in the first place can continue (his) existance in the hereafter"..(paraphrase from the Age of Reason)

Pompey, I think the difference between hope and belief are not too significant. Now if we throw into the mix the word "KNOW" that would be different.

"Hope vs KNOW is more of a distinction than "" hope vs believe".

[Pompey]

[Replying to post 3 by Elijah John]

I acknowledge the difference is subtle, but if someone asked if I believe in God, I think responding "I hope there is" is different than "I believe there is." Another example could be someone asking if it will rain tomorrow. If I say "I hope so" it is a quite different thing than saying "I believe so."

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 4 by Pompey]
Yet, years after Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.�.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 4 by Pompey]
Yet, years after Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.�.

Do you accept Roosevelt's assesment?

I have learned that some consider anyone who reject the supposed Divinity of Christ to be atheists. A very narrow view imo, which misrepresents both theism in general, and atheism in particular.

Roosevelt and others who share his POV either do not understand the distinction between Deism and Atheism, or reject that distinction entirely.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 4 by Pompey]
Yet, years after Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.�.

Do you accept Roosevelt's assesment?

I have learned that some consider anyone who reject the supposed Divinity of Christ to be atheists. A very narrow view imo, which misrepresents both theism in general, and atheism in particular.

Roosevelt and others who share his POV either do not understand the distinction between Deism and Atheism, or reject that distinction entirely.

There are distinctions that are clear and important and those that are, in any analysis, irreverent. Since we are all atheists when it comes to most all of the gods that have been invented, whether we are atheists or deists when it comes down to one last god ... who cares, and why should they care? The difference is, most likely, going to rest solely on the semantics of an individual's definition of "god" anyway.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 4 by Pompey]
Yet, years after Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.�.

Do you accept Roosevelt's assesment?

I have learned that some consider anyone who reject the supposed Divinity of Christ to be atheists. A very narrow view imo, which misrepresents both theism in general, and atheism in particular.

Roosevelt and others who share his POV either do not understand the distinction between Deism and Atheism, or reject that distinction entirely.

There are distinctions that are clear and important and those that are, in any analysis, irreverent. Since we are all atheists when it comes to most all of the gods that have been invented, whether we are atheists or deists when it comes down to one last god ... who cares, and why should they care? The difference is, most likely, going to rest solely on the semantics of an individual's definition of "god" anyway.

That "last" god as you put it, could well be the Creator, the real and Living God. If that is the case, t is fitting to be atheistic towards all the others, as they would be "idols".

And the distinction IS important, as there is a real difference between atheism and Deism.

Paine self-identified as a Deist, he would reject the label "atheist".

Namely belief in the Creator God.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 4 by Pompey]
Yet, years after Paine's death, Theodore Roosevelt still referred to him as a “filthy little atheist.�.

Do you accept Roosevelt's assesment?

I have learned that some consider anyone who reject the supposed Divinity of Christ to be atheists. A very narrow view imo, which misrepresents both theism in general, and atheism in particular.

Roosevelt and others who share his POV either do not understand the distinction between Deism and Atheism, or reject that distinction entirely.

There are distinctions that are clear and important and those that are, in any analysis, irreverent. Since we are all atheists when it comes to most all of the gods that have been invented, whether we are atheists or deists when it comes down to one last god ... who cares, and why should they care? The difference is, most likely, going to rest solely on the semantics of an individual's definition of "god" anyway.

That "last" god as you put it, could well be the Creator, the real and Living God. If that is the case, t is fitting to be atheistic towards all the others, as they would be "idols".

And the distinction IS important, as there is a real difference between atheism and Deism.

Paine self-identified as a Deist, he would reject the label "atheist".

Namely belief in the Creator God.

Last time I checked the "last" god was the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in whom I do not believe.

[beeswax]

Christians friends who all know I have rejected Christianity now, all think I have become an atheist and so they are ignorant as what a Deist is, even when I have tried to explain it to them. Unfortunately, they have tunnel vision and why they reject all other faiths because they have been indoctrinated to believe that Jesus was/is the only way to God and for redemption and heaven. They cannot see beyond the four walls of their church and actually don't want to...