The Age of Reason (Broadview Editions)

Thomas Paine, a deist and one of the American founding revolutionaries after Ben Franklin invited him to immigrate to the restive colonies, in this book pillories organized religion. He does so by dissecting both old and new testaments of the bible and pointing out the hypocrisy of the established clergy. The book was very controversial in its time and landed the publishers in hot water. Paine, like Thomas Jefferson, was no atheist but had no use for organized religion or its doctrine. The book makes a perfect gift, and I recommend it to everyone, especially teenagers and young adults in the process of figuring out what they believe.

This is an essential book to understand a pivotal character in the founding of the United States. In “The Age of Reason,” Paine roundly criticizes religion and implores humanity to reject these falsehoods and think for ourselves. It sheds light on the way intelligent people thought of religion in the time of the Revolution and the early days of the US.Paine does say he believes in “one god” in his introduction, but it is clear this is perfunctory. A true atheist attack on religion would never have been published in that time.That said, this is a crappy edition, probably 100% automated. “Gold Edition”? Hardly. No paragraph indents, ridiculous line breaks, charts that don’t line up, misspellings, fuzzy and unrelated picture inserts (including Lincoln, who was nearly a century later), weird page breaks, and much more make this publishing disaster.

I am 71 and just now reading this great book. I have been a Christian all my life, but have had many questions and issues with the Bible. This book was not only enlightening, but opened my eyes to the extent religion plays in trying to control the masses and fill mankind with such guilt. Last year I read the complete books of the Old Testament for the first time. Thomas Paine was right even after 222 years it is nothing but a bloody tale of genocide. He died practically friendless because he tried to buck the system. And he did actually believe in a supreme God. He was never an atheist. He was just a man before his time. Loved this book.

This paperback was a piece of crapp. Every third or fourth page literly fell out of the book do to poor binding and or been on the shelf so long waiting to be sold. I got so upset trying to read this man's work I tossed it into the trash. I recommend that this book not be bought do to poor production printing standards or old age shelf life.

If you think you know the reasons behind some of the lines in the U.S. Constitution, you may be wrong. This book explains why the U.S. was founded as a Secular government. And why the separation of Church and State is so important.

Love the book. It gives cause to rethink a lot of what we think we know.

insightful

Great book! I've read it twice and still have more to learn.

As a 'lappsed Christian', and having to spoken with many clerics of various denominations over the past 60 years, and having read this book, I am more convinced than ever that religeon in whatever form, is mythology of the highest order, ie: absolute poppycock.

poorly edited, useless irrelevant illustrations and NO volume three. Very disappointed.

This was me pretending to be intellectual, but I actually found it to be very interesting and enlightening.

Very very important book to have if you do believe in God but dislike organized religion. Thomas Paine is like the father of deism