It is dangerous to make men familiar with a crime which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage against those who first taught them.
Thomas Paine: “It is dangerous to make men familiar with a crime which they may afterwards practise to much greater advantage against…”
Editor's note · Context
Paine warns against the dangerous precedent of encouraging criminal acts, as such lessons can be turned against their originators.
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As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk of national Gods.
I have no idea, considering the reforms which are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly offer, it is better than to wait for a…
Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable?
But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.