Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

 

The Most Valuable Englishman Ever

By Michael Roll

 

If this title is correct, then why has hardly any English person ever heard of him? The answer to this question is incredibly simple, because 200 years ago this great free-thinking philosopher had the courage to tell the truth in a country that was run by a handful of political and religious tyrants who were making sure the masses were kept in ignorance.

Paine fought with all his might against slavery in the middle of the lucrative slave trade; he dared to say that every man and woman should have the vote; he put forward a detailed plan for the welfare state with pensions for all; he reasoned that inherited legislators or rulers of states were just as daft as writers, musicians and painters carrying on the work of their parents. Don’t forget this was before the idea of a constitutional monarchy — George III had outrageous political power, unlike our Queen. In fact, I think a non-political monarch would appeal to Thomas Paine bearing in mind the abuse of power by presidents in many republics today. This added to the appalling way he was let down by George Washington. For political reasons the President of the United States of America refused to help free Thomas Paine from his death cell during the French Revolution.

 

However, the main reason why Thomas Paine has been written out of our corrupt history books, in a country where the Church and the state are still established, is because he did the same thing as Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. He had the courage to question the supernatural absurdities contained in the Christian religion. Mainly that a book called the Bible is no more the word of the creator of the universe than any other book that has ever been published — a "crime" punishable by death in the 1700’s, and still against the law even today. The common law offence of blasphemous libel is still in place in the "free" country of Great Britain! This in spite of the fact that the Law Commission has strongly recommended that this antiquated law is abolished.

 

Unlike Professor Dawkins, Thomas Paine loved the gentle teachings accredited to Jesus and other philosophers who taught survival after death — that we are all personably responsible and liable for our actions during our short stay on planet earth —

"As you sow, so you will reap."

 

Paine was hopeful of an afterlife. A great many of Thomas Paine’s wildest dreams have come true because he was fighting with right on his side, a very powerful ally. At the beginning of the 21st century we no longer have to just rely on hope regarding an afterlife, because we now have the crushing scientific proof that we all survive death and are immediately reunited with our loved ones who have gone before us. Understandably this scientific proof has really upset the powerful religious establishment who will lose their monopoly on the vast life after death industry when millions find out that we all go into the next world without any help from the priests whatsoever. Now we can understand why the Pope said to Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University:
"I do not care what you do in science, just as long as you do not encroach on my subject — life after death."

 

The scientific establishment across every discipline, including psychology and philosophy, will also be exposed because they all teach that death is the end of everything — that the mind and brain are the same. The pseudo-scientists have joined forces with the priests in a last ditch, desperate attempt to block the scientific case for survival after death from even coming to the attention of the public — that the mind and brain are separate.

 

It is not only the people of England who are being deceived. Very few Scottish people have ever heard of their most valuable Scotsman ever — the great secular philosopher Arthur Findlay. This Scotsman is hated solely because he told the truth in his history of mankind "The Curse of Ignorance". This is the only history book that tells the truth about Thomas Paine. I have incorporated Findlay’s wonderful tribute in my Thomas Paine Pamphlet that I give out free of charge to every person who sends a stamped addressed envelope to me at 28 Westerleigh Road, Downend, Bristol BS16 6AH, England. I also list all the books that the establishment forces are praying that ordinary decent people never come across, including Thomas Paine’s banned books, ‘The Rights of Man’ and ‘The Age of Reason’. These American books are sold on licence in Britain. Slowly but surely the British people are beginning to find out just how badly they have been deceived by their leaders and teachers all down through the centuries.

 

These quotes from Thomas Paine show just how badly we are being fixed:

"The world is my country, and to do good is my religion."

"All national institutions of religion appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and to monopolise power and profit."

"You will do me justice to remember that I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and trust I never shall."

 

When Arthur Findlay published his history of mankind in 1947 he knew it would be banned from our schools and universities. This statement is taken from page 1111 of volume 1:

"Such however, is still its influence (The Church) that this book, which tells the story of the past honestly and fearlessly, will be kept out of our schools and universities by the authorities, and consequently only in later life will those with enquiring minds discover the truth."

 

Arthur Findlay has carried on the fight for philosophical freedom that was started by Thomas Paine. This great philosopher who died in 1964 must surely be in line for the title of The Most Valuable Scotsman Ever. Findlay, like Thomas Paine, has been written out of our biased history books for committing the same "crime": daring to tell the truth in the theocracy of Great Britain — a country where the Church and the state are still established.

"Somehow, everybody just knows that Christianity is the Church, and the Church is a power-structure, an apparatus for limiting freedom in belief and morals."

 

(The Rev'd Don Cupitt, Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University)

The Campaign for Philosophical Freedom

www.cfpf.org.uk

Thomas Paine's Clarion Call For Freedom

When in 1776 the United States of America broke away from Britain, a country without a written constitution, with an established Church and an unelected House of Lords, Thomas Paine, an artisan from Thetford in Norfolk, England, made a call for freedom that is still reverberating around the world today. Thanks mainly to the American broadcaster, Jeff Rense, and the Internet.

At the end of the 18th century this great free-thinking philosopher was wanted dead or alive in England for daring to fight for democracy, votes for all men and women, the abolition of slavery, and a welfare state with pensions for all. Those caught reading the following books were heavily fined or transported to Australia:

Common Sense (1776)

"The sun never shone on a greater worth. It is not the concern of a day, a year or an age, posterity is virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now: now is the seed time of American continental union, faith and honour. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe, Asia and Africa hath long expelled freedom. Europe regards freedom like a stranger, and England hath given freedom warning to depart. O America, receive the fugitive freedom, and prepare, in time, an asylum for humankind."

Crisis (1777)

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis turn from the service of his country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have the consolation with us, the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it."

Rights of Man (1791)

"When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good."

The Age of Reason (1794)

"I hope for happiness beyond this life, I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Muslim Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church."

"All national institutions of Churches appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and to monopolise power and profit. Now some will say are we to have no word of God, no revelation? I answer, yes, there is a word of God, there is a revelation, the word of God is in the creation we behold, and it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God, speaketh, universally to man."

"Where freedom is", said Benjamin Franklin, "there is my country,"

"Where freedom is not," replied his friend Paine, "there is mine,"

All these quotations are taken from the brilliant Thomas Paine documentary that somehow, in 1982, crept past the thought police who control the BBC in England. All requests for a repeat have been flatly rejected.

 

Printer-friendly full version:

The Age of Reason

 

For other complete versions of Thomas Paine’s writings:

Thomas Paine National Historical Association

 

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