Regarding the Jan. 12 letter by Pat Paulson, “Ten Commandments: Focus on truth, justice, equality”: To categorize Thomas Paine as an atheist is totally without foundation. Obviously the author has never read “The Age of Reason” by Mr. Paine or any of the biographical works by Howard Fast. Thomas Paine was very devout in his belief in God – he just wasn’t sure that a church, per se, was necessary to demonstrate faith in a supreme being.
His comments regarding the Ten Commandments were logical – “The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawyer, or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention.”
If the commandments were called “Ten rules of life” and each began with the words “I will not,” would we be seeing all this fuss? I think not.
Edmonds
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