Arken

Paine certainly didn't care what was or was not socially acceptible which you can tell from both his writings and his life. Plus, he openly criticized Christianity which, I'm sure, was tantamount to being an atheist to most people even if he was not one.

Rusting Car Bumper

Facts and reason.

In the time of Paine was before...

modern geological theory including plate techtonics,
evolution,
germ theory of disease,
modern astronomy showing how large the universe is,
and measurements of the age of the earth and surrounding bodies
and many more

It was quite reasonable to be a deist in Paine's day. Claims of theism, deism, atheism and what have you are not static and context free.

The fact that a few claimed to be atheists doesn't mean much unless they sucessfully did so bcause of facts and reason.

For example, there is a famous quote from Jefferson about not believing that rocks fall from the sky regarding stories of meteors hitting the earth. In his time it is a reasonable statement given what was known about the world. However, in our time it looks silly. The difference. Facts, reason and what is known make the difference.

So its fair to say that many of the post-enlightenment deists were the closest things to atheism.

DC

BeansRBad

I think if an atheist today labels Paine as an atheist then it is probably done in ignorance. A Christian, however, might reason that Paine did not believe in the God of Judeo/Christianity which is believed to be the only "true God", so, since he didn't believe in the "one, true God" then he was as an atheist - a non-believer - just as some Christians have been labeled atheist with respect to gods other than their own such as Shiva.

emotional

Paine believed the other planets were inhabited, and stated so in AoR:

Spaz

I've read the age of reason (from the secular web library, no less) and it's a very good book and Paine is most definitely a deist. He dislikes atheists because he sees them as not having respect for nature and the creator of nature. I think that perhaps if he did have the knowledge we do now that he would be an atheist as well, simply because he was so reasonable .

And in response to emotional, I think that was more an example to say how the laws of nature are universal more than to say that other worlds were inhabited, although I'm sure he believed that since the creator had made life on earth and there are so many other planets that the creator must have made life there as well.

emotional

What Dawkins said:

Now let us see the NCSE trying to convince antievolutionists that "there is no conflict between evolution and religion"...

(caveat: I'm a theistic evolutionist)

Pyrrho

Explicit statements do not necessarily mean that he really believed what he said, nor does saying things sure to bring offence mean that one would not still remain within some bounds. David Hume, who also lived in the 1700's, explicitly called Christianity "Our most holy religion" in his rather famous essay entitled "Of Miracles" (Section X of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), in which he has just trashed belief in miracles. So, even in the process of writing something that was sure to be offensive to many, he was careful not to go too far in what he said. He had enough problems in saying what he said, without needing to add to them by denying that there was a god (Hume may have been a deist, and is often believed to be because that is more or less what he said, but I am not convinced by this because of the religious intolerance at the time). Furthermore, Hume kept his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion from being published in his lifetime, because his friends strenuously advised him to not publish it because of what might be done to him, even though it was written in dialogue form (hence the title), in which imaginary people carry on a conversation about religion, so one cannot be certain which comments are endorsed by Hume. Religious tolerance is far greater today than it was back then, and it is a mistake to forget this when considering what one will make of what people said at the time.

And, again, I did not say that Paine was not a deist; I merely suggested that he would have reason to say that he believed in god, whether he did or not.

Pyrrho

You should take a look at David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which was published in 1779 (though written decades earlier), in which Hume gives alternate theories for the origin of the universe.

Furthermore, your claim that "something or someone created" the world was without foundation before the advent of modern science, as there was no reason to suppose that the world had not always existed. So, believing that someone or something created the world necessarily went beyond the available evidence.

Pyrrho

For more on the history of religious intolerance, you might want to do some searching of the Internet. But, to get you started, see:


1787 - Christians try, fail to halt ratification of "godless" U.S. Constitution, making U.S. uniquely godless (i.e., atheist) nation, with ban on religious tests for public office
...
1840s - English secularists fined, imprisoned for blasphemy, selling literature critical of Christianity; ...



States slowly but wisely adopted the new Amendment. Connecticut dropped its established church in 1818 and Massachusetts in 1833.



Nine out of the original thirteen colonies had established state religions. The predominant religious groups back then were Puritans, Anglicans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. The predominant minority groups were Jews, Quakers, and Catholics, although a few Amish and Mennonites existed in Pennsylvania, and Methodist and Baptist sects didn't really proliferate until the Second Great Awakening. Prior to the Constitution, only two states - Maryland and Rhode Island - allowed religious freedom. The remaining eleven states had various laws restricting the practice of minority religions, and almost all states, even the most tolerant, required holders of public office to profess faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ His Only Son. Eventually, most of the states abolished these oppressive laws.

So, denying that one believed in a god was not a good idea for a public figure like Paine. Indeed, his Age of Reason got him into enough trouble even though he explicitly stated that he believed in one god:

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/paine.htm

butswana

I thought Age of Reason was boring. Paine came off as a mean hateful curmudgeon. I didn't think his criticism of christianity was all that hot either.
He was pretty pompous about his perfect deism. This mother fucker thought he had it all figured out.
Kinda kicks the whole xtian nation thing in the nuts though.