I'd say that there are good odds that they knew each other or at the least, knew of each other. R.T. Paine was a signer of the DoI & a Rep of Mass in the Continental Congress. He was in the thick of things, leading up to the Revolutionary War & beyond.
All of Thomas Paine's roots were in England. He grew up there. I think Franklin met him in London & liked his ideas, so brought him over to Philly. It's been awhile, so don't quote me, though I do know the part of him not being a colonist is correct.
If there is a family connection it would be in the 1600's or earlier, as my Thomas Paine was a Mayflower descendant. Also, their families were from different parts of England.
Wanna know my connection to Franklin, Washington, Nathaniel Greene & Nathan Hale? All of them are a near miss. LOL I've spent some time working to find a connection to John Paul Jones (the name Jones is almost as bad as Smith) & trying to connect my Monroes with James Monroe, but so far I have not had any success.
My distrust of Christian zealotry is a product of my age, I think. God loving Germans were chanting "Germany is a Christian Nation" in the thirties. That resulted in the murder of millions of God loving Jews. That happened in my lifetime.
All of the business that led up the the Nazi's is a heck of a lot more complicated than just hyper-Christianity or hyper-nationalism, as I'm sure you know. It took over a century of the Preussen education model, devised to create German militarism to reach fruition. Throw in the popularity of eugenics with the international elite thinkers & very bad things are bound to happen.
The Russian secularists murdered millions of their own in their quest to do away with God.
True & we have people who think too much like them running our schools. That is creepy to me, but not scary, if you know what I mean.
That's what makes FR so much fun. If we did that in real life our neighbors would call the men in the white coats to take us away!
I actually do the same in real life. My ex-husband threatened to call the men in white coats a few times. lol No, that is not why he is my ex. We agree more than disagree about politics.
Before my older sons moved out we used to regularly have good knock down, drag out debates. I told them if they ever resorted to calling me names, I won. I miss having those debates with them & FR has helped to fill that hole. Both have somehow ended up politically liberal. I blame their father & he blames me. lol I should have home schooled them, but they are both smarter than I am & I had to study to help them with their homework.