It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence. It is only reported by others that they said so.

When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention. When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.Īs it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word revelation. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. The Jews have their Moses the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints and the Turks their Mahomet as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.Įach of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. Each ceremony is different because each child is different.245561 The Age of Reason/ Part I - Chapter II - Of Missions and Revelations Thomas PaineĮvery national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. An Age of Reason ceremony can be large or small. I workshop with the children and their parents to create a unique, inclusive celebration in which everyone is equally honoured. When I plan a ceremony, I meet with children, parents and teachers separately to discover their wishes for the day. If you-as a family, a school, or a community group-decide to find a different way to mark a child’s period of transition, I will be happy to help you. An Age of Reason ceremony is an ethical and inclusive option that highlights and celebrates a new phase in a child’s life. More and more, parents and children in Ireland are choosing to mark this time in a unique and personalised way. In Ireland, the marking of this change is usually done by a first communion ceremony. Throughout the ages, and throughout the world, people have celebrated this particular time in their children’s lives as they begin a new stage of logic and understanding. A ceremony to mark a child’s growing awareness of their world

The age of reason