The Age of Reason is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine (pictured), arguing for the philosophical position of deism. Following in the tradition of eighteenth-century British deism, it challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807, and became a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Fearing its revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and book-sellers who tried to publish and distribute it. The Age of Reason highlights what Paine saw as corruption among Christian churches and criticizes their efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason over revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as "an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely inspired text". He promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator-God. Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to educated people, but his engaging, irreverent and inexpensive pamphlets made deism appealing and accessible to a mass audience.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Reason
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1848:
Scottish settlers on the John Wickliffe, captained by William Cargill, arrived at what is now Port Chalmers in the Otago Region of New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cargill
1888:
Led by William McGregor, ten football clubs met in London for the purpose of founding the English Football League, the oldest league competition in world football. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McGregor_(football)
1908:
American diplomat Durham Stevens, an employee of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was assassinated in San Francisco by two Korean American immigrants unhappy with his recent support of the increasing Japanese presence in Korea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham_Stevens
1994:
Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a hillside in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, after the pilot's 16-year-old son, while seated at the controls, had unknowingly disabled the autopilot, killing all 75 people on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_593
2001:
The Russian Federal Space Agency deorbited the 15-year-old space station Mir, causing it to reenter the Earth's atmosphere and break up over the Pacific Ocean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deorbit_of_Mir
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
thole: 1. (intransitive, dated) To suffer. 2. (transitive, now Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland) To endure, to put up with, to tolerate. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/thole
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently. --Wernher von Braun https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
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