A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
To believe that God created a plurality of worlds, at least as numerous as what we call stars, renders the Christian faith at once little and ridiculous; and scatters it in the mind like feathers in the air.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Paine challenges traditional Christian beliefs by suggesting that the existence of many worlds diminishes the significance of faith.
In this quote, Thomas Paine critiques the notion of a singular God-created universe by proposing that if there are countless worlds, it undermines the importance of Christian faith and makes it seem trivial. He uses the metaphor of feathers scattered in the air to illustrate how such beliefs can easily be dismissed or lost in the vastness of the universe.
Themes
FaithPluralityBeliefWorldsChristianityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about the intersection of science and religion.
More from Thomas Paine
All quotes →That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
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I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
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Had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
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The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas PaineRead
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
Thomas PaineRead
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