The Age of Reason · Concept
Morality and Humanity
The work emphasizes that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy, and making fellow creatures happy, warning against losing sight of morality amid the wreck of superstition.
The work emphasizes that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy, and making fellow creatures happy, warning against losing sight of morality amid the wreck of superstition.
Paine's later work exalts the moral nature of man as the foundation of theistic religion, humanizing religion and subverting last-century deism.
Paine condemns the Bible's accounts of divinely commanded genocide, especially the killing of infants, as violating moral justice and human sympathy.
Paine emphasizes divine morality, justice, mercy, and benevolence as the true foundations of religion, contrasting with church teachings.
Paine praises Matthew's emphasis on good works toward fellow humans as the true path to salvation.