Thanks! Yeah I agree. What I appreciate, is that these stories remind us of the complex forces that shaped both revolutions. (American and French) The two were not mirror images of the other as some too often simplify them being...
Not only that, but the story of Paine highlights the complex inter-mingling of the personal and the collective, the political AND religious...
Thomas Paine, was essentially 'exiled' for 'coming out' as atheist...
President Thomas Jefferson was willing to share the vicissitudes of his spiritual journey with friends like John Adams, but otherwise kept his skepticism in check in terms of what he was willing to reveal to the public...He knew how much contempt the general public would meet him with, which goes to show just how fiercely religious the early American environment really was.
I feel kinda sad for Tom Paine, but I have to read into his life story more to be honest...I mean his closest friends abandoned him. Were they right to?