Thomas Paine and the American tradition

[patrice]

4. An analogy: You can go through life believing in the times-tables, receiving them from "authority",

knowing them by rote memory, using them mechanically in REACTION to the effects of power that have already transpired.

Or you can go through life identifying rationally with a phenomenon called "multiplication"; understanding and acquiring instances of the times-tables from experience; personal memories of the relevance and personal significance of numbers included in who you yourself are; using multiplication willfully PRO-ACTIVE, and, hence, creatively, by more autonomous and personally relative direction to whatever extent possible, to respond to the past, to deal with the present, and to project significance into the future, all of which are value and, hence, belief laden.

The difference between these two modes of belief is the "infidelity" of which Thomas Paine speaks.