Robert Shear

Thomas Paine's little known Part Three to The Age of Reason is marvelous, staggering, deeply offensive to the church, well researched, and utterly convincing. When people buy and read The Age of Reason, traditionally it's only Parts One and Two and most people don't know there was a Part Three, published separately near the end of Paine's life. He didn't want to release it to the public until near death for fear of the backlash it would cause, and it most certainly did. Not only does he totally trash Christianity (but not as an atheist, as he was a strongly believing Deist, although I suspect if he had lived during Darwinian times, he would have transitioned to atheism), but he debunks every New Testament prophecy (mostly the Gospels) concerning anything remotely related to Jesus and convincingly shows them ALL to be 100% wrong, and in some cases, totally made up. In most cases, the prophecies were a product of their times and intended for a then-current issue, not remotely intended for 700 years in the future, nor to a messiah for the Jewish people in the far off future. Indeed, Isiah is singled out not only for vague prophecies, similar to what one would read in their astrological prediction for the day, but because he was dead WRONG on many occasions, and the very opposite of things he prophesied came to be. He was a fraud, a sham, and Paine makes that clear, as he does with Jeremiah, and other OT prophets and their so-called prophecies that Matthew especially interpret to apply to Jesus. If you're not convinced that none of these prophecies apply to Jesus in any way after reading this, nothing in the universe will ever impact you, change your mind, or get you to place stock in reason and ration, because Paine does not merely give simple opinions, but he uses the Bible itself and only the Bible to make his case(s), and he proves the Bible is wrong. No wonder he didn't want to release this until near the end of his life. He would have been lynched or burned or whatever they did back then.

This was one of the best books I've ever read and I can't recommend it enough!… (más)