Thomas Paine, Answer to a Friend

"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case."

"You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."

Thomas Paine, Answer to a Friend regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797

Thomas Paine, Answer to a friend

"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No."

"Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"

Thomas Paine, Answer to a friend regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

Read this quote from the entire text of The Age of Reason at USHistory.org

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism

"As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin."

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 1908, Vincent Parke & Co., New York.

Read the entire text of this essay at Deism.com

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism

"Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests."

Thomas Paine, Of The Religion of Deism Compared With the Christian Religion, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine, edited by Daniel Edwin Wheeler, 1908, Vincent Parke & Co., New York.

Read the entire text of this essay at Deism.com

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

"The inquisition in Spain does not proceed from the religion originally professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the state. The burnings in Smithfield proceeded from the same heterogeneous production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in England afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and that drove the people called Quakers and Dissenters to America. Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is alway the strongly-marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take away the law-establishment, and every religion re-assumes its original benignity. In America, a catholic priest is a good citizen, a good character, and a good neighbour; an episcopalian minister is of the same description: and this proceeds independently of the men, from there being no law-establishment in America."

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man (1791-92)

Read this quote from the entire text of The Rights of Man at USHistory.org

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"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."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

Read this quote from the entire text of The Age of Reason at USHistory.org

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"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, not by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

Read this quote from the entire text of The Age of Reason at USHistory.org

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel."

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794, 1796)

Read this quote from the entire text of The Age of Reason at USHistory.org