"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."
Labels: Thomas Paine
posted by God Almighty Himself at 5:19 PM
Consider the post-1989 revolutions that ended Communist control of Eastern Europe. Looking back on these events, Adam Michnik, the Polish journalist and Solidarity leader, posed the question of which revolution has been a greater inspiration for modern Europeans — the French Revolution or the American Revolution. His answer is unequivocal.
"The American Revolution," says Michnik, "appears to embody simply an idea of freedom without utopia. Following Thomas Paine, it is based on the natural right of the people to determine their own fate. It consciously relinquishes the notion of a perfect, conflict-free society in favor of one based on equal opportunity, equality before the law, religious freedom, and the rule of law."
Read Rights of the People: Individual Freedom and the Bill of Rights at International Information Programs: usinfo.state.gov
Thomas Paine : Collected Writings : Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters (Library of America) |
"One of the embarrassing problems for the early nineteenth-century champions of the Christian faith was that not one of the first six Presidents of the United States was an orthodox Christian."--The Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968, p. 420
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