Tom Paine and Thom Hartmann
Setting Records Straight Department
A reader of this blog brought Thom Hartmann’s comments on Thomas Paine to our attention. The link to Hartmann’s broadcast is below and his comments begin at about the 49:18 mark while talking to a listener, Dennis [Plew?]of the Florida Veterens for Common Sense.
Hartmann is dead wrong that Paine "declared his atheism" in AGE OF REASON. Absolutely 100% wrong. Here's Paine actually:
"I believe in one God, and no more; and 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 endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy."
And at the end of Paine's life in his last testament:
"I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God."
Atheist? Paine was never an atheist. Hartmann, while well-meaning, is similarly superficial on other issues surrounding Paine.
He calls him a pamphleteer. Well, Common Sense was a pamphlet and he wrote some others, notably a series known as The American Crisis, but AGE OF REASON which Hartmann himself referenced and RIGHTS OF MAN were very full and extensive books. RIGHTS OF MAN is recognized as a foundation text in the Age of Revolutions the world over. Simon Bolivar wrote that Paine RIGHTS OF MAN was his inspiration and Napoleon Bonaparte told Paine “a statue of gold ought to be erected to him (Paine) in every city in the universe” and that he (Napoleon) slept with a copy of RIGHTS OF MAN under his pillow. [Source: Thomas Clio Rickman, THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE, AUTHOR OF COMMON SENSE, RIGHTS OF MAN, AGE OF REASON, LETTER TO THE ADDRESSERS. See, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003202763 } Paine was also an inventor, co-author of constitutions [France], combat journalist [perhaps the earliest], secretary to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Continental Congress, and an officer and aide-de-camp to Gen. Nathaniel Greene during the American Revolution. Another book of Paine’s, AGRARIAN JUSTICE, is recognized as an early and foundational proposal for the Social Security system (USA) and recognized as such on the SSI website https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html ... I could go on. The statment that he was a “pamphleteer” is inadequate and has a dismissive flavor.
Hartmann referenced Prof. Harvey J. Kaye, Kaye’s relationship to the Florida VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE [the caller is a co-founder], and Kaye's bio of Thomas Paine. Disclosure: Kaye is a warm friend, colleague, and honest admirer of Paine for whom we fact-checked his bio of Paine; you'll find the contribution acknowledged in the forward of his work. We do not doubt Hartmann has met and/or interviewed Kaye. Nor do we doubt his good intentions, but let’s not forgot the composition of the pavement on the road to hell.
Paine was no kind of atheist and he was a LOT more than a pamphleteer.
We are making an honest-faith attempt to contact both Hartmann and the caller.
Again, the segment is at about 49:18 and it is the February 24, 2024 broadcast entitled “The Two Jimmies.”
https://www.thomhartmann.com/hartmann-report-podcast
A few decades ago, a friend who was a member of the Thomas Paine Unitarian Fellowship (in Collegeville, Pennsylvania) asked me to address his fellowship on Paine's views about religion. Members were thinking about dropping Paine's name from their fellowship. I arrived not really knowing how the members would respond to my talk. As I quoted from "Age of Reason" and other of Paine's writings on religion, the members frequently smiled and occasionally laughed. After my talk, they held their business meeting, and (I later learned from my friend) decided based on what they heard from me to retain "Thomas Paine" in the name of their fellowship. Here is the link to my talk for those who might be interested:
https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/dodson-edward_spirituality-of-thomas-paine-1998.htm
Ed Dodson
Thanks for bringing this error of Thom's up, Ken. Here's a quote from The Age of Reason from Thomas Paine which states the second reason he wrote The Age of Reason. It was to stop people in France from becoming Atheists. He wrote: "In the second place, the people of France were running headlong into atheism, and I had the work translated and published in their own language to stop them in that career, and fix them to the first article (as I have before said) of every man’s creed who has any creed at all, I believe in God."