Thomas Paine

Okay, obviously Tom Paine wouldn’t have commented on the legacy of John Muir, since Muir lived about a century after Paine.

We can’t help but wonder what Paine would have thought if he had had the opportunity to visit the American west. Places like Yosemite, where the editor of ThomasPaineBlogging will be spending the next week.

Paine was a deist, human reason and the natural world was the basis of his faith. Surely he would have found God lurking, quietly waiting, in the magnificent and unequaled landscapes of the west.

We will be back on October 18th to continue to examine what the first American blogger would have to say if he blogged today.

“To ask me whether I could endure to live without friends is absurd. It is easy enough to live out of material sight of friends, but to live without human love is impossible. Quench love, and what is left of a man’s life but the folding of a few jointed bones and square inches of flesh? Who would call that life?
-John Muir - JOHN of the MOUNTAINS, pg.138

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“It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all religions agree . All believe in a God, the things in which they disagree are the redundancies annexed to that belief; and therefore , if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be believing in any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed at first. Adam, if ever there was such a man, was created a Deist; but in the mean time, let every man follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and the worship he prefers.”

Former senator John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal Priest, has been making the rounds lately in support of his new book Faith and Politics. His book apparently speaks to his concern of the certain parts of the fundamentalist Christian community’s influence over the current dominant political power in America today. In his interviews for the book, he expresses concern that when any one group, faction, or sect of any religion claims exclusive knowledge of God it does not and should not mix with political power; something Thomas Paine felt strongly about, as expressed in his words from The Age of Reason, and is a central tenet of the Constitution

As the United States and her allies attempt to wage a “war on terror“, and the world sees more violence fueled by ever more entrenched religious and sectarian factions, what should be the role of religion in America? All around us we see the consequences of polarization based on “faith”. Should religious and spiritual belief bring people together or create bitter division? If it indeed should bring people together, then is the current political climate and dominate influence of one small faction of Christianity a danger to the well-being of our Republic? Is entrenched political power based on one small mode of belief ever a good thing?

The thoughts here of Thomas Paine are as vital now as they were when he wrote them, and they will remain so as long as we remain vigilant in the face of extremism of all types.

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The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.

Jerusalem is the focal point of three of the greatest religions of the world, and the source of the world’s greatest conflict.

Thomas Paine made no secret of his disdain of organized religion. Of all the striking changes Paine would see if he were alive in the world today, the state of religion would be striking only in how little has changed.

Must religion and religious thought be allowed to evolve in order to rise out of dogma and eternal strife and conflict? Is such a thing even possible?

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“A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a Government; and Government without a Constitution is power without a right”

From a prisoner on death row to the President of the United States, all legal authority and protection derives from the Constitution. Tom Paine expressed the idea in Rights of Man more than two hundred years ago.

We should never forget to remind ourselves, especially in times like these.

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And however our eyes may be dazzled by show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

It knows no particular political persuasion; from Oliver Stone’s JFK to the 9/11 docudrama aired last week. Extraordinary historical events like the assassination of President Kennedy and the attacks of 9/11 require extraordinary adherence to scientific standards of historical analysis. Narratives are vital to such an analysis, but when narrative turns into fiction and conjecture, it serves another purpose than historical understanding.

Do we sometimes place more importance on production values than the underlying truth of the story?

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