Just reading about Thomas Paine (Wikipedia)
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About his own religious beliefs, Paine wrote in The Age of Reason:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this
life.
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.[84]
Though there is no evidence he was himself a Freemason,[85] upon his
return to America from France, Paine also penned
"An Essay on the Origin of Free-Masonry" (1803–1805), about Freemasonry
being derived from the religion of the ancient Druids.[86]
In the essay, he stated that "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 paid to the sun."
Marguerite de Bonneville published the essay in 1810, after Paine's death,
but she chose to omit certain passages from it that were critical of
Christianity, most of which were restored in an 1818 printing.[87]
*While Paine never described himself as a deist,[87] he did write the
following:**
**
**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.[47]**
*
RG
On 9/20/2016 2:55 AM, R George wrote:
Well, Google supplied what I was looking for in record time.
http://www.positivedeism.com/forum
Just read some posts, now these guys/gals really impress me.
RG
On 9/20/2016 2:40 AM, R George wrote:
As for me I think I will try and find a forum for Deism**since that was the belief of many of those intellectual giants
who wrote our glorious constitution.
**Belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.
The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of
a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.