Deism was reaching its peak at this time, largely due to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason in which he wrote, "All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit" and "my own mind is my own church".
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Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was also a political philosopher whose writings greatly influenced both the American and the French Revolutions. His pamphlet Common Sense encouraged the issuance of the Declaration of Independence only six months later. Paine's criticism of monarchy in the Rights of Man led the British to charge him with seditious libel.
Mary Wollenscroft (1759-1797) an English Deist, wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, the first statement of feminism. She criticized the notion held at the time that women should feel and not think. She argued that women need to be educated, and should be able to reason. In chapter 5, she states:
"...I may be allowed to doubt whether woman were created for man; and though the cry of irreligion, or even atheism, be raised against me, I will simply declare that were an angel from Heaven to tell me that Moses' beautiful poetical cosmogony, and the account of the fall of man, were literally true, I could not believe what my reason told me was derogatory to the character of the Supreme Being..."
Ethan Allen (1738-1789) was a patriot of the American Revolution and author of Reason: the Only Oracle of Man. In it's preface he wrote:
"I have generally been denominated a Deist, the reality of which I never disputed, being conscious I am no Christian, except mere infant baptism make me one; and as to being a Deist, I know not, strictly speaking, whether I am one or not, for I have never read their writings; mine will therefore determine the matter..."His ideas do indeed resemble Deism. He argued for the application of reason to religious questions and for a morality derived from "natural fitness" rather than tradition. In the same work, he also wrote,
"...I am persuaded, that if mankind would dare to exercise their reason as freely on those divine topics as they do in the common concerns of life, they would, in a great measure, rid themselves of their blindness and superstition, gain more exalted ideas of God and their obligations to him and one another, and be proportionally delighted and blessed with the views of his moral government, make better members of society, and acquire, manly powerful incentives to the practice of morality, which is the last and greatest perfection that human nature is capable of." (Chap.1, Sec.1)
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