There is no better time, in this age of global warming and mass extinction of species, to rediscover the liberating thought of Thomas Paine, which recalls that of mystics and poets of many ancient cultures. In his iconoclastic The Age of Reason, published in 1794, Paine transfers the locus of the sacred from religious texts to the material Book of Nature, since “it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man” (Age 29). With these words, Paine anticipates the emergent romanticism of his times by envisioning religion as an imaginative force that restores us to a living universe. Paine became a leading figure of the American Revolution after he denounced the institution of monar- chy and King George III in Common Sense (1776). In that pamphlet, Paine advocated the independence of the American colonies while underscoring the universality of the ideas therein. Shortly after publishing a defense of the French Revolution in Rights of Man (1791-92), Paine went to France where he was granted honorary citizen- ship and elected to the national assembly. During the Reign of Terror, Paine spent a year in prison and barely escaped execution. It was during that period that he wrote The Age of Reason, in which he denies the status of the Bible as divine revelation. Paine argues that human language could never be a “means of unchangeable and universal information,” since language is a construct whose mean- ing is contested and in constant flux (Age 7-8, 29-30). 1 It is in Nature that one glimpses the divine: It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and concep- tions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh a universal language, independently of human speech or human language… It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary to know of God. (Age 30). This spiritual shift has profound implications, for if the creation is indeed the word of God, how could one pollute the lakes and rivers? How could one chop down forests for timber or remove mountaintops for mining? How could one butcher animals for food or sport? Paine rejects the wrathful deity of the Old Testament, recogniz- ing in his stead a merciful and humble God who is indis- tinguishable from Creation, whom saints and poets such as Kabir recognize: God is the tree in the forest that allows itself to die and will not defend itself in front of those with the ax, not wanting to cause them shame. (Kabir 226) Paine foresaw that his views on religion and God would prove controversial, particularly his challenge to Biblical authority. In The Age of Reason, Paine explains that he had reserved the writing of that book for old age (Age 71). Indeed, after its publication, clerics and politi- cians slandered Paine so much that barely half a dozen people attended Paine’s funeral in 1809. An English reformer, William Cobbett, disinterred Paine’s remains and transported them to England. Paine’s body was stored in an attic, and then disappeared after Cobbett’s death in 1835. A famous nursery rhyme conveys the complete neglect that befell Paine: Poor Tom! there he lies: Nobody laughs and nobody cries. Where he has gone or how he fares Nobody knows and nobody cares. (Walker 51) 2 Nonetheless, Paine helped lay the foundations of religious pluralism and tolerance in the United States. The Age of Reason continues to provide a moral basis and an intellectual foundation for the separation of church and state. Even now, Paine’s syncretic thought under- mines the notion, currently in vogue, that religions are doomed to endless conflict. Paine despised petty creeds that condemn the believers of other faiths to hellfire, preferring the free exchange of ideas to coercion. Paine summed up his creed as follows: “I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy” (Age 5-6). These ethical precepts are shared by believers of many faiths. Paine rejected religions that monopolize truth, preferring in their stead a direct and personal experience of God: “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. 138 Rediscovering Thomas Paine and the Sacred Text of Nature Ali Shehzad Zaidi Published in Left Curve no. 35, 2011 (www.leftcurve.org)