Oracles of Reason
Dateline: August 16, 2000
Ethan Allen should be a name familiar to most Americans - but not in the context of freethought and religious critique, which is unfortunate. Born on January 10, 1737 in Connecticut, he later moved to Vermont and became a well-known citizen. There he had an active part in the formation and activities of the "Green Mountain Boys," an early revolutionary group. On May 10, 1775, he and his followers were instrumental in capturing Fort Ticonderoga from the British during the American Revolution.
This was the first British property to fall to America and the source of the 100 cannon that allowed George Washington to drive the British from Boston. Crown Point and Skenesborough were also later taken. He was subsequently captured by the British and held in England for three years - sometimes under terrible conditions. He was eventually exchanged for another officer on May 6, 1778.
He published in 1784 "Reason: the only Oracle of Man," the first publication in the United States openly directed against the Christian religion. It has been frequently reprinted and is still popular in America. He died in Burlington, Vermont, on February 13, 1789. A statue is erected to him in Montpelier, Vermont.
Freethought
For a long time Reason remained unpublished, because the printer at Hartford to whom Allen had given the work was afraid to print it. It was finally printed by a Mr. Haswell of Bennington, Vermont, in 1784. Soon after its publication, a part of the edition was accidentally consumed by fire, and the printer tossed the remainder of the edition to the flames; thus not many copies were circulated.
Reason draws on ideas familiar from European deism of the period, ideas possibly adopted by Allen through conversations with the American philosopher Thomas Young. The book allowed Ethan to ridicule New England's clergy for what he saw as a failure to recognize the dignity of ordinary people. Reason was, naturally, condemned from every pulpit.
Allen was generally considered to be a Deist by his friends and he never really disputed that - however, he claimed never to have seriously read up on just what deism was and so refused to use the label himself.
Presented here is the concluding section of Allen's book. He starts out by observing that life is short and physical evils overtake everyone, but moral evils are preventable. For this reason, it is necessary to strive to eliminate them
But morality for Allen is an extension of our rational natures: something that must be reasoned through, not adopted on faith. Different religions all have different and competing "revelations" they say come from God. They can't all be right, and the only way to discern something untrue from something true - or at the very least valuable - is through using reason and critical thinking. After all, if something does come from God, it should easily pass such tests.
Thus reason must be the standard by which we judge potential beliefs and claims put before us - otherwise, we might as well believe this claim as that claim, with no sound basis for any. As he points out, it is preposterous to deliberately abandon the standards of reason in religious questions but then to use it in all other areas - but this is precisely what many people do.
These were radical ideas for Allen's time. What is sad is that, for many people, they are still radical today.
Reason: the Only Oracle of Man
Of the importance of the exercise of reason, and practice of morality, in order to the happiness of mankind.
The period of life is very uncertain, and at the longest is but short; a few years bring us from infancy to manhood, a few more to a dissolution; pain, sickness and death are the necessary consequences of animal life.
Through life we struggle with physical evils, which eventually are certain to destroy our earthly composition; and well would it be for us did evils end here; but alas! moral evil has been more or less predominant in our agency, and though natural evil is unavoidable, yet moral evil may be prevented or remedied by the exercise of virtue.
Morality is therefore of more importance to us than any or all other attainments; as it is a habit of mind, which, from a retrospective consciousness of our agency in this life, we should carry with us into our succeeding state of existence, as an acquired appendage of our rational nature, and as the necessary means of our mental happiness.
Virtue and vice are the only things in this world, which, with our souls, are capable of surviving death; the former is the rational and only procuring cause of all intellectual happiness, and the latter of conscious guilt and misery; and therefore, our indispensable duty and ultimate interest is, to love, cultivate and improve the one, as the means of our greatest good, and to hate and abstain from the other, as productive of our greatest evil.
And in order thereto, we should so far divest ourselves of the incumbrances of this world, (which are too apt to engross our attention) as to inquire a consistent system of the knowledge of religious duty, and make it our constant endeavor in life to act conformably to it.
The knowledge of the being, perfections, creation and providence of God, and of the immortality of our souls, is the foundation of religion; which has been particularly illustrated in the four first chapters of this discourse.
And as the Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Mahometan countries of the world have been overwhelmed with a multiplicity of revelations diverse from each other, and which, by their respective promulgators, are said to have been immediately inspired into their souls by the spirit of God, or immediately communicated to them by the intervening agency of angels (as in the instance of the invisible Gabriel to Mahomet) and as those revelations have been received and credited, by afar the greater part of the inhabitants of the several countries of the world naturally (on whom they have been obtruded) as superrevealed by God or angels, and which, in doctrine and discipline, are in most respects repugnant to each other, it fully evinces their imposture, and authorizes us, without a lengthy course of arguing, to determine with certainty, that not one of them had their original from God; as they clash with each other, which is ground of high probability against the authenticity of each of them.
A revelation, that may be supposed to be really of the institution of God, must also be supposed to be perfectly consistent or uniform, and to be able to stand the test of truth; therefore such pretended revelations, as are tendered to us as the contrivance of heaven, which do not bear that test, we may be morally certain, was either originally a deception, or has since, by adulteration become spurious.
Reason therefore must be the standard by which we determine the respective claims of revelation; for otherwise we may as well subscribe to the divinity of the one as of the other, or to the whole of them, or to none at all. So likewise on this thesis, if reason rejects the whole of those revelations, we ought to return to the religion of nature and reason.
Undoubtedly it is our duty, and for our best good: that we occupy and improve the faculties, with which our creator has endowed us, but so far as prejudice, or prepossession of opinion prevails over our minds, in the same proportion, reason is excluded from our theory or practice.
Therefore if we would acquire useful knowledge, we must first divest ourselves of those impediments; and sincerely endeavor to search out the truth; and draw our conclusions from reason and just argument, which will never conform to our inclination, interest or fancy; but we must conform to that if we would judge rightly.
As certain as we determine contrary to reason, we make a wrong conclusion; therefore, our wisdom is, to conform to the nature and reason of things, as well in religious matters, as in other sciences.
Preposterously absurd would it be, to negative the exercise of reason in religious concerns, and yet, be actuated by it in all other and less occurrences of life. All our knowledge of things is derived from God, in and by the order of nature, out of which we cannot perceive, reflect or understand any thing whatsoever; our external senses are natural; and those objects are also natural; so that ourselves, and all about us, and our knowledge collected there from are natural, and not supernatural; as argued in the fifth chapter.
An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood. Therefore an unjust connection of ideas is not derived from nature, but from the imperfect composition of man. Misconnection of ideas is the same as misjudging, and has no positive existence, being merely a creature of the imagination; but nature and truth are real and uniform; and the rational mind by reasoning, discerns the uniformity, and is thereby enabled to make a just composition of ideas, which will stand the test of truth.
But the fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind, proceed from weakness, and as far as they take place in the world subvert the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH.
ETHAN ALLEN.
Do you have an opinion about this article? Make it known on the Discussion Forum!
Get weekly updates about what's new on the site and news from around the world:
|
|
|
|
Read the Latest News on religion, freethought and related topics from around the world! Updated regularly. |
|
|
|
|
