Reply #67: NNNOLHI - read Thomas Paine.

[dave29]

I would highly recommend reading the works of Thomas Paine. He was one of the first Deists - and also one of the reasons for the American Revolution. He started out with the church, and wound up being attacked and destroyed by it for daring to stand up to it's doctrines - using mere "reason".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

A proto-anarchist, Paine advocated a liberal world view, considered radical for his time. He dismissed royalty, and viewed all government as, at best, a necessary evil. He opposed slavery and was amongst the earliest proponents of social security, universal free public education, guaranteed minimum wages and many other radical ideas now in common practice in most western democracies.

and a quote:

"The opinions I have advanced… are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God.