Supporters press for a DC memorial to Thomas Paine, whose writings helped fuel the Revolutionary War

[paleotn]

2. One of the reasons he's been downplayed so much over the decades.

That and his bitter attack on George Washington, who had recently been "deified." 100 years later, TR called him a "filthy little atheist." That's rich coming from a guy who got his own men killed, in pursuit of his own, personal glory in the Spanish American War. TR was just as complicated as Paine. Everyone is. But Paine was no atheist. He had his own version of Einstein's "cosmological constant" in his take on religion. Deism. And for the same reason Einstein just couldn't let go of the Steady State theory, even though his calculations told him it was rubbish. Paine couldn't let god go completely. Just couldn't take that last, logical step.