Download Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic AudioBook Free
Where did the ideas result from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Hill Males, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Get together. These radicals who founded America placed their sights over a revolution of the mind. Derided as "infidels" and "atheists" in their own time, they wished to liberate us not merely from one ruler but from the tyranny of supernatural faith. The ideas that motivated them were neither English nor Christian but largely historical, pagan, and continental: the fecund world of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, and the potent (but nontranscendent) natural divinity of the Dutch heretic Benedict de Spinoza. Sketching deeply on his study of European idea, Matthew Stewart pursues a genealogy of the philosophical ideas that America's revolutionaries drew their creativity, all scrupulously explored and documented and enlivened with storytelling of the best order. Along the way, he uncovers the true meanings of "Nature's God", "self-evident", and many other phrases crucial to our understanding of the American experiment but now greatly misunderstood. Stewart's lucid and passionate inspection surprises, difficulties, enlightens, and entertains at every switch, as it spins a true tale and a persuasive, exhilarating argument about the founding principles of American authorities and the resources of our success in science, medication, and the arts.
