Paine on national churches 5 Apr 2010 All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. [Thomas Paine; Writings of Thomas Paine, volume 4, Age of Reason, chapter 1] This is sometimes misquoted as “All churches are human inventions…” Politics Quotes Religion Quotes
Administrative Off in the wilds of… Melbourne 3 Jul 2008 Hi folks. It’s conference time again, and of course we have organised to have the Australasian Association of Philosophy/Australasian Association for the History Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (AAP/AAHPSSS) conferences in the coldest place on the mainland – my home town Melbourne, at the depths of winter. At least… Read More
Epistemology Atheism, agnosticism and theism 2: What it is to have a belief 16 Jul 201122 Jun 2018 Previous posts in this series: One. We talk a lot about believing this or that, and about faith and the content of faith, but we are often a little bit vague on what that actually entails and why. Philosophers, however, have a range of senses of “belief”, often shared by psychologists… Read More
Religion Truisms 4 12 Jan 2009 Truism 4: There is most likely no God – if all gods but one are rejected with good reason, then by induction so should the final god. Corollary: There are no independent reasons to think there is a god Corollary: If there is a god, no-one can know that for… Read More
I think the key word in this passage is “institutions”. Note Paine leaves out the word religion entirely in this context.