Teaching another course on Thomas Paine, I was struck by an intriguing thought:  Here was a man of deep, sincere, faith (Deism) who seriously and rationally challenged BOTH orthodox religion AND orthodox atheism (“orthodox” literally meaning “correct opinion”).  In fact, he claimed super-natural Christianity was “a species of atheism” precisely because it did not honor the “true theology” of nature-based Deism.  

I find it fascinating Paine is celebrated by humanists and atheists as a hero of secularism, even as he continues to be dismissed by some faithists as an anti-religious atheist if not essentially ignored as simply another “forgotten founder.”

Think again.  Was he really a hero for seculars?  Was he really an enemy of religion?

Our class used as a main text, The Age of Reason (1795), Paine’s incisive critique of “revealed” religion, theology and scriptures.  This book is the major reason Paine has been attacked as an atheist and shoved to the side in favor of honoring other, less offensive, American Founders.

But what do we do with this revolutionary thinker and activist today? 

I’m often asked if a person of faith can be a freethinker.  My usual response is something like: Sure, but are they truly thinking freely, or merely borrowing opinions/beliefs (especially from ancient “authorities”)?  I ask a similar question of an atheist, curious whether they are reacting to fundamentalist religion or rejecting all beliefs, all believers.  As I say, experience matters.  Judging an entire worldview (or community), secular or supernatural, by extremists is unwise to say the least.  Not all atheists think like Hitchens or Dawkins, and not all believers think like Falwell or Graham (in fact, these men do not represent most secular or spiritual people).

I interact with as many closed-minded (non-freethinking) atheists as I do closed-minded (non-freethinking) believers of any faith (in my experience, there seem to be more people of faith who show a degree of open-mindedness than many non-believers).  Among seculars there are many who write off all religion, one religion, or all believers in one religion, as delusional or undeserving of respect.  They apparently can see no good whatsoever in any religious community (shortsightedness is the opposite of clear-headed freethought).  They want nothing to do with anyone who identifies with a religious faith (one commenter claimed no respect at all for any Christian.  I find that narrow and unfair). 

The question I would ask is: What about Thomas Paine?  Was he delusional and unworthy of respect?  For that matter, what about Robert Green Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic” (the subject of a recent class)?  He thought it was intellectually honest to withhold judgment on whether or not there was a god.  What about Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott or other abolitionists and champions of women’s rights?  What about Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rev. William Barber?  What about all the coalitions of Christians who, along with other faiths and seculars, are battling the dangerous anti-democratic agenda of Christian Nationalism?  What about all the believers active in social service, education and human rights? All delusional, all deserving disrespect, all written off because they were, or are, activist Christians? (and people wonder why atheists have a bad name).

As I see it, a freethinker is anyone who is “free to think,” one who formulates beliefs/opinions without resting on the authority of anyone or anything but truth–what is discovered through experience and reason.  We all hold certain opinions or beliefs to be true though we may not have proofs that convince another.  In my mind, it matters not if a person believes in a supernatural deity or not, it’s what they do with their beliefs and opinions–how they live and act–that provides the evidence of freethought.  

Freethinkers don’t have to see eye to eye with one another.  But the purpose and gift of freethinking is seeking the truth with others to gain knowledge and wisdom through experience, dialogue and cooperation, if possible.

Paine was an inventor, not only—as some say—“inventing” the United States, but designing a smokeless candle, a turbine for steamboats, a carriage running on gunpowder, and a machine for planing wood,.  He also designed an iron bridge. This makes me wonder if Paine could offer us a design for a solid bridge between progressive believers and pragmatic seculars?  We might say he walked between two worlds of traditional religion and traditional atheism, urging us toward a radical “new world” of “rational (humanistic) religion” and “practical (humanistic) atheism.”  

The creative inventor of a sound and stable bridge stood in the gap (often a chasm) between divergent views and presented revolutionary solutions.  If such a contemporary bridge spanning divisions between us hasn’t been built yet, maybe that’s due, in part, to either “side” holding firm, intent on little else than defending their “superior ground.”

Religion needs continual revolution.  So does atheism.

Freethinkers welcome these risky but necessary evolutions.

We may need to think more like Thomas Paine. 

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For further reading: Thomas Paine, “The Existence of God,” Discourse at the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris, 1801 (The Thomas Paine National Historical Association)