Posted by Carlos on January 30, 1999 at 16:16:54:
In Reply to: Age of Reason, chapter V. posted by blue on January 30, 1999 at 01:31:17:
blue said:
Mr. Paine invented a Bible, and proceeded to attack his own invention. At this point, of course, I have merely claimed each of his points to be false. Mr. Paine conveniently omitted referrence to scripture in his argument (since there is no supporting scripture), and, alas, we cannot ask him to provide any. Perhaps he meant this work as some sort of a farce, I don't know. If so, the joke is on both of us, I suspect. I will be more than happy to give you chapter and verse citations to support my statements, if you have any interest in continuing. Good luck in finding supporting scripture for Mr. Paine's thesis.
Let's quote from the first paragraph of chapter V:
"IT is upon this plain narrative of facts, together with another case I am going to mention, that the Christian mythologists, calling
themselves the Christian Church, have erected their fable, which for absurdity and extravagance is not exceeded by anything
that is to be found in the mythology of the ancients."
Paine has just finished outlining the NT narrative, and now he is *contrasting* it with the mythology that Christians (remember, Christians of his time) built up around the Bible.
Do you dispute that all of the views you take exception to have been held by various Christian denominations, and are currently held by many today? The fact that they are extra-biblical (and I agree with you that they cannot be found in scripture) doesn't mean that they aren't tenets of Christian denominations.
Paine wasn't just criticizing the bible, he was criticizing Christianity.