The Age of Unreason

The Age of Unreason – July 2020

Of course my title chosen above is an aberration of the name of the book by Thomas Paine, whose last name was in reality Pain … and the amount of pain he inflicted on mankind is incalculable. His book was only meant to be for a reason or a season or an age, but it became the foundation of unreason for millennia.

On the face of it, we will all say: what!? Could there have been a time when unreason reigned supreme?

And the answer is easy and straight forward: Reason never had, and still do not have a chance. Our intuition says that reason comes from the perceived truth, but we all know that our truth has always been the big lie and delusion of political correctness, reaching its apex in this day and age.

We start our excursion some four hundred years ago, when Galileo Galilei discovered that the earth is not the centre of the universe, that the earth is round and that Jupiter has moons like earth – and many other things. That was the truth and was as political incorrect to the Catholic Church as you can get.

For this he was almost killed, recanted his theory to save his life or imprisonment, and in mitigation spent the rest of his life under house arrest, reading the seven penitential psalms every week for three years, lest that discovery and reasonable fact became known to God and Man. Sorry for the satirical injunction, God.

Our next excursion is into the life of Thomas Paine and the chaos he caused with his unreason - and by my use of my poetic license, his untreason, as he was convicted of treason in England, but never paid the price for that.

Thomas Paine wrote a book in 1794 named: ‘The Age of Reason’, which was so popular that that era of Enlightenment became known as the Age of Reason.

The only problem is that there was no reason in his book or his arguments, but only unreason - and people of that time might have better called it The Age of Unreason. He based his unreasoning on one totally false assumption used in law, which can never be used in religion, and stated: No revelation of God can be accepted as a revelation of God, if it was not specifically for and by the person to whom God revealed that. All other accounts of that is hearsay, myths and lies.

Well ... calling a legal representative with notebook, dictaphone and stamp, to vouch for what God says to a human was his only accepted reasonable thing. You may gather from this fact that there could then never ever be any revelation from God, because those people did not have access to lawyers, notebooks and stamps, nor did not they bother about it when they were in conversation with God. Argument closed.

In this way we now stand bereaved of all the holy inspiration and knowledge received from God over millennia. Goodbye God – and so sorry for that God.

That is the pinnacle of unreason under the guise of reason. Having reason based on unreason just does not cut the mustard for me.

One of his arguments was that the Bible is not the Word of God, because, even if the original words were from God, mankind would have polluted it with their own theories and myths to such an extent that it was not valid anymore.

However, the fact is that when the 2500 year old scroll of the book of Isaiah was found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948, the text was almost 99% identical to the Bible book of him which we have today! That, for this lowly intellectual, was enough to set me on this exhilarating road with God, which I walk with veneration, pride and joy everyday.

We will find the name of Paine cropping up everywhere unreason reigned supreme as in a few revolutions, wars and civil insurrections against king and country. He was banned from England, convicted for treason there, missed his turn at the guillotine when the warders made the cross for the guillotine on the inside of his cell door in stead of the outside, whilst it was open.

He was part of the Girondons in the French revolution who was partly responsible for the death at the guillotine of a few hundred thousand innocent French civilians. He was part and parcel and probably the instigator of the American Revolution. Never was there peace or reason on earth when he was around.

I do not dispute the value and need of revolutions. It happens for apparently good reasons and kill its mother and children.

Fast forward to 2020.

The New American Revolution is underway, and where is Paine now? They need him urgently. Well .. his propaganda and doctrine is there clear as daylight for all to see.

Presently there have been demonstrations by hordes of people in the USA who burned down thousands of buildings because one black man was killed by a cop. One of their foremost female activists said on video camera that the burning of buildings is quite natural, as buildings do not have a life, and that the revenge of the death of one black man is worth it.

I stand amazed!

Does she want to tell us that one may never take a person’s life for the booty of thousands of buildings, such as in a war, but to burn a thousand buildings for one man’s life is quite OK? Oh my! Did I read history incorrectly?

Fifty five million people gave their life in WWII just to save their property and land. Did Nazi Germany invade Russia because they loved the Slavs so much that they wanted them as booty, casting their eyes away from the  land and its natural resources of oil, gold and diamonds. Of course not. They hated the Slavs. Hitler was quite happy to let fifty five million people get killed for the properties named Russia, France and many other places.

Something is wrong here. I have never read in the history of the past five millennia that any war was fought to capture people and not their land.

So, what unreason am I finding here. Is this the New Enlightenment which I missed, one prosecuted on the unreason of Thomas Paine? Is this the New American or French Revolution, or is it sparked by the King of Technocrats or Zillionaires?

Something has got to give. Will the richest 0.0001% of the world hold the rest of humanity to ransom, to finally deliver them to the devil and the abyss of poverty and famine?

Winston Churchill once said: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

Unreason is nothing but a lie, guarded by the truth and not the truth guarded by lies as Churchill once said!

I quote the poem 'The Lie' by Sir Walter Ralegh:

Go, soul, the body’s guest,

Upon a thankless errand;

Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant.

Go, since I needs must die,

And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows

And shines like rotten wood;

Say to the church, it shows

What’s good, and doth no good.

If church and court reply,

Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live

Acting by others’ action;

Not loved unless they give,

Not strong but by a faction.

If potentates reply,

Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,

That manage the estate,

Their purpose is ambition,

Their practice only hate.

And if they once reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who, in their greatest cost,

Seek nothing but commending.

And if they make reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;

Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it is but motion;

Tell flesh it is but dust.

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honor how it alters;

Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favor how it falters.

And as they shall reply,

Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness;

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in overwiseness.

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;

Tell skill it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention.

And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay.

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming.

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;

Tell manhood shakes off pity;

Tell virtue least preferreth.

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing—

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing—

Stab at thee he that will,

No stab the soul can kill.