How Did Thomas Paine Influence Religion

1293 Words6 Pages

Bowen Holbrook
Mr. Cepeda
English Literature
16 November 2015
Thomas Paine Thomas Paine has written and composed many articles about many things in his lifetime, and they all were written to make a point. Many of his works have touched the people that have read them and some have even helped change America 's course of history. While there were ones that didn 't appeal to readers very well, such as The Age of Reason (which targeted religion and is also where he said that the changes that have been occurring also show that religion will be one thing that will have a movement away from it along with what others that have already happened, and if you think about it, it in a way is in a slow process right now with more independent thinkers …show more content…

After Thomas Paine printed his Common Sense pamphlet that helped begin the war, he knew that he would have to try to write another pamphlet when General George Washington fled from New York after a hammering defeat from the British. So he came out with his next incredible piece of literary art which was called The American Crisis. Thomas Paine achieved exactly what he aimed for by writing that pamphlet. George Washington had it read to all of his troops in an attempt to try to boost his men 's moral before hosting an attack against enemy Hessians. When Washington and his men crossed the Delaware with their renewed moral, they not only beat the near legendary Hessians but also continued on and beat General Earl Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton. Without the help from Thomas Paine and his writings, Washington wouldn 't have succeeded in trying to progress America in the war. Maybe without the moral boost from The American Crisis, he would 've been able to win against General Cornwallis, but he wouldn 't have been able to win against the Hessians that he …show more content…

“Paine 's writings had great influence on his contemporaries, especially the American revolutionaries. John Adams’ prediction that history would attribute the revolution to Paine’s incendiary pamphlets was borne out by Thomas Alva Edison’s The Philosophy of Paine (1925), which remarked that Paine “was the equal of Washington in making America liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of the one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the pother with his pen.” His books inspired both philosophical and working-class radicals in the United Kingdom; and he is often claimed as an intellectual ancestor by United States liberals, libertarians,