"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
— Thomas Paine
Why We're Here
We're Keeping the Bathwater
You've probably heard the phrase: "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." It's a warning against losing something precious while trying to discard something unwanted.
The Age of Reason does something different. We're throwing out the baby. But we're keeping the bathwater.
Let us explain.
The baby, in every sense of the word, is the mythology. The virgin birth. The miracles. The certainties that demand obedience rather than inquiry.
For centuries, religious institutions wrapped genuine human goods (community, fellowship, healing, moral purpose) in a package of supernatural claims. The virgin birth. The miracles. The certainties that demand obedience rather than inquiry. The God who punishes doubt and rewards blind faith. That's the baby we're discarding. Not out of anger, but out of honesty.
We have no problem with Jesus the man: a teacher, a moral voice, a figure of genuine historical importance. We reject the mythology built around him. We reject the claim that reason must be surrendered to preserve faith. We reject the idea that community requires us to stop thinking.
The bathwater. That's everything else. The gathering of people. The shared meal. The sanctuary of a place where you belong. The ritual that marks life's passages. The accountability to something larger than yourself. The healing that comes from being known and accepted without condition. The courage to ask hard questions alongside others who are asking them too.
This is what we're keeping.
Most people who leave religion end up alone, isolated, cynical, spiritually homeless. They threw out both the baby and the bathwater. We refused to do that. We recognized that the community, the fellowship, the structure of gathering together. Those are real goods. They're worth preserving.
So we built a church for people who don't go to church. A place for those of us who love the bathwater but can't keep pretending the baby is real. A sanctuary for the honest, the doubting, the questioning, and the people brave enough to say: I want community and fellowship and meaning, but I won't lie to myself to get it.
Thomas Paine understood this. So did Jefferson, Franklin, Lincoln. They held onto reason while refusing to abandon the human need for connection and shared purpose. That's the tradition we're continuing.
You don't have to choose between your mind and your community. You don't have to surrender one to keep the other.
That's what The Age of Reason is about.
Who We Are
Awakening the Universal Spirit
For over 250 years, the great ideas of the Enlightenment have been frozen in place by institutions too threatened to let them thaw. Thomas Paine was their loudest and most fearless voice. The Age of Reason exists to finish what he started. The thaw is long overdue.
"We are a community devoted to fostering individual understanding and reflection on the nature of the Creator, grounded not in scripture or doctrine, but in reason, nature, and truth as discerned through honest inquiry and intellectual integrity."
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Awaken the Spirit
Invigorate the universal human spirit buried beneath centuries of superstition and dogma.
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Connect to Nature
Use the knowledge gained from humanity's discoveries to establish an authentic connection to the laws of nature and the universe.
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Heal & Restore
Offer victims of church abuse and indoctrination a safe, honest place to regain their spiritual footing.
Thomas Paine was a political philosopher, revolutionary, and freethinker whose 1794 work The Age of Reason challenged organized religion and championed the deist belief that God is best understood through reason and the natural world, not through scripture or clergy.
"My own mind is my own church."
Paine argued that religion, as constructed by human institutions, was designed to enslave the mind rather than liberate it. He valued free thought, the separation of church and state, and the sovereignty of the individual conscience. Unlike his contemporaries, Paine also stood firmly against slavery from the very beginning. When he said all men are created equal, he actually meant it.
"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."
Our Philosophy
Richard's Reversal™
Pascal's Wager argues that one should believe in God out of self-interest, on the theory that the potential reward of heaven outweighs the cost. Richard's Reversal™ turns this argument on its head.
The Principle
At The Age of Reason, we hold that belief in the divine should stem from authentic conviction, not from fear of punishment or hope for reward. A faith adopted for strategic, self-interested reasons is not genuine faith. It is spiritual theater.
Richard's Reversal™ challenges us to embrace doubt as a virtue, and to seek truth through reason. Genuine connection to the divine must be free from ulterior motives. The moment belief is calculated, it ceases to be belief at all.
We encourage all members to explore their convictions with courage and honesty, fostering a community where reason leads to enlightenment, not where fear leads to conformity.
Our View of Consciousness
The Mind Within All Things
Among the most profound ideas emerging from modern philosophy and science is one that Thomas Paine himself might have embraced: panpsychism: the view that consciousness, or something like it, is not a product of biology alone, but a fundamental and irreducible feature of the universe itself.
If the Creator is in nature, as deism holds, then perhaps the Creator is not separate from consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is how the universe experiences itself.
Panpsychism requires no miracles, no revelation, no scripture. It follows from a simple and ancient observation: the universe is not dead matter randomly organized. It is ordered, intricate, and, at least in beings like us, aware of itself. The question is not whether consciousness exists, but where it begins.
Orthodox science tells us consciousness emerges from complex arrangements of matter, yet it has never explained how. This is what philosophers call the "hard problem of consciousness," and it remains unsolved. Panpsychism offers an alternative: consciousness was never absent from matter. It was always there, in simpler forms, building toward the self-awareness we experience as human minds.
At The Age of Reason, we hold that exploring this possibility, that awareness is woven into the fabric of existence, is not mysticism. It is the natural extension of honest inquiry into what the universe actually is.
This is not a doctrine we require you to accept. It is a question we invite you to sit with. What if the light of consciousness you experience right now is the same light that animates all of nature? What if reason, the very faculty by which you are reading these words, is the universe coming to know itself?
Paine saw the Creator in the majesty of the natural world. We believe he was looking in exactly the right direction.
From Our Founder
A Message from Richard
Hear directly from Richard C. Mayhue, founder of The Age of Reason, on what inspired this community and why its message matters now more than ever.
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VIDEO COMING SOON
Support the Mission
Help Us Keep the Torch Lit
The Age of Reason exists to finish what Thomas Paine started: to build a community grounded in reason, fellowship, and honest inquiry. Your contribution directly supports our gatherings, educational programs, outreach, and the ongoing work of making this community real.
Every dollar goes toward building something Paine would have recognized: a place where people can think freely, heal honestly, and belong without pretending.
THE AGE OF REASON · REGISTERED 501(c)(3) NONPROFIT
EIN 33-1577252 · All donations are tax deductible
Join Us
Become a Member
Membership is open to all individuals who embrace the principles of deism, humanism, rational inquiry, and ethical conduct. We welcome questioners, doubters, seekers, and anyone who has felt their spiritual journey deserved better than what they were handed.
I
Community
Monthly meetings for study, dialogue, and genuine human connection grounded in reason.
II
Healing
A safe and honest space for those recovering from church abuse, trauma, or religious indoctrination.
III
Inquiry
Educational programs, philosophical discussion, and the freedom to ask questions you were told not to ask.
IV
Governance
A member-informed Board of Directors ensures the church remains transparent, ethical, and mission-driven.
Ready to Begin Your Inquiry?
We don't ask you to believe anything. We only ask that you think honestly, courageously, and freely.
