题目

Why is the Enlightenment also called “The age of Reason?注意：英文回答（一百五十字）

提问时间：2020-07-18

答案

It is often called the Age of Reason and is considered to succeed the Renaissance philosophy era and precede the Age of Enlightenment,but some consider it as the earliest part of the Enlightenment era in philosophy,extending that era to two centuries.
The Age of Reason:Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology,a deistic treatise written by eighteenth-century British radical and American revolutionary Thomas Paine,critiques institutionalized religion and challenges the inerrancy of the Bible.Published in three parts in 1794,1795,and 1807,it was a bestseller in America,where it caused a short-lived deistic revival.British audiences,however,fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French revolution,received it with more hostility.The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example,it highlights the corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power.Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation,leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature rather than as a divinely-inspired text.Yet,The Age of Reason is not atheistic:it promotes natural religion and argues for a creator-God.
Most of Paine's arguments had long been available to the educated elite,but by presenting them in an engaging and irreverent style,he made deism appealing and accessible to a mass audience.The book was also inexpensive,putting it within the reach of a large number of buyers.Fearing the spread of what they viewed as potentially revolutionary ideas,the British government prosecuted printers and booksellers who tried to publish and distribute it.The Age of Reason resulted in only a brief upsurge in deistic thought in America.However,Paine's ideas inspired and guided many British freethinkers of the nineteenth century and his rhetorical style has endured even into the twenty-first century,in the works of modern writers such as Christopher Hitch