Saturday, August 4, 2012

On infidelity and authority of reason

"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.

    It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we
conceive any thing more destructive to morality than this?"


 "As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word revelation. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.

    No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

    It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication- after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself  obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him."


  (Thomas Paine, Age of Reason)


To argue with a person who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt,  is like administrering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an athiest by scripture.  --  It is the prerogative of animals.  And no man will envy you those honors, in which a savage only can be your rival, and a bear your master.

(Thomas Paine letter to Sir William Howell)

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love to collect thoughts. I would love to collect some of yours, if they are mindful and respectable.