Celine

RaisingPaine,
I haven't the time to read all the way through your rebuttal of the terminally snide Turkel, but what I read of yours seems sound and to-the-point. Good to have you here.

RaisingPaine

That's not true. Your recollection can be forgiven since you said The Age of Reason was your favorite book in high school, which I presume to be some time ago.

Paine has set up a prophylaxis of arguments that act to secure his case.

His innermost argument against the resurrection is inconsistency in eyewitness testimony.

His next outermost argument is the pen-in-hand authors of the Gospel are not those whose names are attributed to them. Who are they? Who knows. Anonymous authors with unknown credibility, Paine can find no specific compelling reason to believe the testimony, but with the (inconsistent) accounts of supernatural events, plenty of reason not to.

His next outermost argument is that human language is an unsuitable vehicle for the timeless, universal, immutable Word of God since human language has none of those properties. This would address not only the Bible, but also the Talmud, Koran, and other holy books of what he terms "revealed" religions.

JP, like most critics, only superficially attacked the innermost level, and even then not especially well. Whatever modest damage he inflicted on that level (mostly through holding Paine accountable for knowledge of ancient culture not identified until 100+ years after his death), was well-contained by the outer arguments, which JP (and most critics of AR) largely leave unaddressed.

This stock mechanism of the Apologetic attack on The Age of Reason, discrediting the inconsistencies and anachronisms pointed out by Paine, and concluding thus the work to not be of much account re the modern theological debate -- effectively succeeds (IMHO) in only singeing a straw-man.

RaisingPaine

RUmike

Orthogonal_Freethinker:

Can you at least admit that it took a LOT of bravery to write what Paine wrote, considering the time period he wrote it in?

Wayne Delia

I'm not sure about that, but it has had the most profound effect on my life of any book, and reading it was primarily responsible for my shift from former born-again Christian to strong atheism. Not only that, it nearly got me kicked out of our community chorus because we held rehearsals in a Unitarian Universalist church meeting room, and their library included Paine's The Age of Reason, which I found much more interesting than the music we were rehearsing.

WMD

Orthodox_Freethinker

I recollect the parts you have shown but not all directly relate to the resurrection.

Again, there is no substantial inconsistency between the resurrection accounts. Their slight contradictions only prove that the authors did not colloborate with each other. Furthermore, even though the Gospels are essentially anonymous, we have the historical tradition of the early Church testifying to their authorship.

Lastly, Paine's argument that nature can somehow replace the Bible as God's revelation is fatally flawed. Otherwise, 'Intelligent Design' wouldn't be a crock of shit.

Between nature and Scripture, there is an even higher authority - What the Holy Spirit has revealed to the Church.

Wayne Delia

That can generally be expected if one is held in a French prison without any access to a New Testament. Paine, though, was released from prison, so The Age of Reason is divided into two parts. The first part was written while he was imprisoned with no reference materials, but the second part contains specific references to contradictory, inconsistent, and ridiculous New Testament verses. And as others have mentioned, it's not necessarily a book of scholarship, but of opinion, and the opinions published by Paine were generally not welcomed among the clergy at the time.

WMD

Orthodox_Freethinker

Of course! There is so much about Paine's ideas that I agree with to this day!

Wayne Delia

I'm not sure if the reference you gave was the one you intended, but I loaded the web page, searched on "Paine" and (spearately) "Age of Reason" and found exactly no hits on either. If the web page doesn't even mention the author's last name or the title of the book we're discussing, it's a pretty safe bet that it's a completely irrelevant reference.

WMD

Orthodox_Freethinker

You are preaching to the choir given that I've read the book four times. The second part, the one in which he falsely claims to disprove the resurrection, is not supported by good scholarship.

Wayne Delia

If I remember correctly, and I really ought to give the book another read sometime soon, Paine may have been the one who mentioned that the Gospel according to Matthew could very well have been written by someone named "Omar the Tent-Maker" as it could have by "Matthew the Tax Collector," or words to that effect. There are many instances of sharp, ascerbic, cutting humor in there, especially in the second part.

WMD