...and brutalize mankind"? If Thomas Paine rejects God, how does he know what is wicked and what is not? How can an objective ethics be sustained without God's revelation of what is good and what is evil?
Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason:: "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more that half the Bible if filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God."
Does Paine conflate history with theology? Does he imagine that God approves the inhumanity that the Bible honestly recounts? Would Paine prefer that the Bible sugarcoat the cruelties of the ancient world?
How does Paine know that is objectively good and what is "wickedness" without God, who establishes good objectively? In a chance world without a Creator, doesn't "good" mean "what Paine prefers"?
Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason:: "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more that half the Bible if filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God."
Does Paine conflate history with theology? Does he imagine that God approves the inhumanity that the Bible honestly recounts? Would Paine prefer that the Bible sugarcoat the cruelties of the ancient world?
How does Paine know that is objectively good and what is "wickedness" without God, who establishes good objectively? In a chance world without a Creator, doesn't "good" mean "what Paine prefers"?