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To: jstone78
Why no Tom Paine quotes?
2 posted on 08/29/2002 5:51:35 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Shermy
No quotes from John Locke either
5 posted on 08/29/2002 5:58:02 PM PDT by Coeur de Lion
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To: Shermy
I expect you asked "why no Tom Paine quotes" because you are aware of what he wrote in the Age of Reason. Odds are, the omission is logical, since Paine was never any kind of official in the government (of America) as the others all were.

Since you raise the question, I can answer it. I am just finishing my eight book, These Are the Times that Try Men's Souls which is about Paine and his times, with an important wrinkle that no scholars before have discovered. On your point, to make a long story short, Paine wrote with references similar to almost all the Framers, as a member of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in his all-important Common Sense.

Later in life, he reached a different conclusion, denounced Christianity (and all other organized religions) in the Age of Reason, and cost him almost all his former friends. He died poor, alone and nearly friendless as a result, and lies buried in three different graves.

I will, of course, have "deist" quotes from Paine in my book.

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest column: "Memo to CBS about Bill Clinton."

Click for latest book: "to Restore Trust in America"

Post Script: There are rumors, and allegations from their political opponents, that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were also deists. But their publiished works do not support this claim.

13 posted on 08/29/2002 7:33:48 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
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