The Age of Reason (Annotated)

This is the annotated version of the original ebook. We had annotated this by adding a 60% to 70% (approximate) Summary at the end of the ebook of about 38000 words approximate in red fonts. The Brief description of the eBook is written as follows:-
The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807.

It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. British audiences, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. It promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator-god.

Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to the educated elite, but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style, he made deism appealing and accessible to the masses. Originally distributed as unbound pamphlets, the book was also cheap, putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers. Fearing the spread of what it viewed as potentially-revolutionary ideas, the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it. Nevertheless, Paine's work inspired and guided many free thinkers.
By the time Part, I of The Age of Reason was published in 1794, many British and French citizens had become disillusioned by the French Revolution. The Reign of Terror had begun, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been tried and executed and Britain was at war with France. The few British radicals who still supported the French revolution and its ideals were viewed with deep suspicion by their countrymen. The Age of Reason belongs to the later, more radical, stage of the British political reform movement, which openly embraced republicanism and sometimes atheism and was exemplified by such texts as William Godwin's Political Justice (1793). (However, Paine and other deists were not atheists.) By the middle of the decade, the moderate voices had disappeared: Richard Price, the Dissenting minister whose sermon on political liberty had prompted Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), had died in 1791, and Joseph Priestley had been forced to flee to America after a ChurchandKing mob burned down his home and church.[3]

The conservative government, headed by William Pitt, responded to the increasing radicalization by prosecuting several reformers for seditious libel and treason in the famous 1794 Treason Trials. Following the trials and an attack on George III, conservatives were successful in passing the Seditious Meetings Act and the Treasonable Practices Act (also known as the "Two Acts" or the "gagging acts"). The 1795 Acts prohibited freedom of assembly for groups such as the radical London Corresponding Society (LCS) and encouraged indictments against radicals for "libelous and seditious" statements. Afraid of prosecution and disenchanted with the French Revolution, many reformers drifted away from the cause. The LCS, which had previously unified religious Dissenters and political reformers, fractured when Francis Place and other leaders helped Paine publish The Age of Reason. The society's more religious members withdrew in protest, and the LCS lost around a fifth of its membership.

Keywords & Categories

Nonfiction > Philosophy > General

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