[jwalsh07]

"The illuminating and divine principle of the equal rights of man (for it has its origin from the Maker of Man), relates not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to the generations which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in rights with his contemporary."

Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

I've actually read it before, you sure the hell haven't.

[rolling_stone]

Sorry guy, Paine was a Naturalist...

Paine demonstrates the absurdity of a word of God existing in print. As a Deist, Paine believed that the true word of God is nature....

"To understand the nature and quantity of government proper for man, it is necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for social life, she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made his natural wants greater than his individual powers. No one man is capable, without the aid of society, of supplying his own wants, and those wants, acting upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation acts to a centre.

But she has gone further. She has not only forced man into society by a diversity of wants which the reciprocal aid of each other can supply, but she has implanted in him a system of social affections, which, though not necessary to his existence, are essential to his happiness. There is no period in life when this love for society ceases to act. It begins and ends with our being."