Deism: A Revolution in Religion A Revolution in You. by Bob Johnson

Transcription

1 Deism: A Revolution in Religion A Revolution in You by Bob Johnson

2 Copyright 2009 by World Union of Deists Open source book except for commercial use Published by Truth Seeker Company 239 S Juniper Street Escondido, California ISBN# (Print Edition) 2

3 Deism: A Revolution in You For Thomas Paine who brought prog ress through rev o lu tion, both po lit i cal and re li gious, and who did more than any other per son to bring De ism to the peo ple. 3

4 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Thomas Paine, born Jan u ary 29, 1737, died June 8, Thomas Paine did as much as George Wash ing ton to start and win the Amer i can Rev o lu tion and did more than any other per son to make re li - gion com pat i ble with our God-given rea son through the pro mo tion of De ism. 4

5 Table of Contents Ta ble of Con tents 5 Acknowledgments 7 Introduction 11 1 God Gave us Rea son, not Re li gion! 15 2 The REAL Good News is that the Bi ble is NOT the Word of God 27 3 Practical Benefits of Deism 41 4 Athens v. Jerusalem 51 5 Defusing Armageddon with Deism! 63 6 De ism v. Atheism & Agnosticism 71 7 Deism: America's Forgotten Religion 83 8 The Fu ture is De ism 93 9 Deist Glossary Fre quently Asked Ques tions about De ism 103 5

6 6 Deism: A Revolution in Religion

7 Acknowledgments I d like to thank fel low De ist Ray Fontaine for all the help he has given me and the World Un ion of De ists over the years and for his friend ship. With out Ray s help the W.U.D. would not be reach ing half as many peo ple as we are. With out fel low free thinker Bonnie Lange this book would not have been pub lished. I can t thank her enough! She has and does work hard to keep the freethought flame burn ing by work ing as the Pres i dent of the Truth Seeker Com pany and as the pub lisher of the jour nal Truth Seeker. I love her qual ity of never be ing too busy to an swer ques tions and to share her vast knowl edge. The Dep uty Di rec tor of the World Un ion of De ists, a for - mer Chris tian Or tho dox priest Jayson X, is a great help and gives me peace of mind know ing that if some thing hap pens to me the W.U.D. will be in good hands. Jayson, a sin gle par ent, can t re veal his full name due to the fact that it would be putt ing his ca reer at risk. This goes to show how much fur ther so ci ety needs to progress! I d like to thank fel low De ist Mark Brochu for his hard work and skill in help ing to de sign the De ist em blem that is pic tured on the back cover. Pau line Rocco has helped me for years in our joint de sire to bring De ism to the world through the World Un ion of De - ists. She is greatly ap pre ci ated! All of our De ist con tacts and sub scrib ers to De is tic Thought & Ac tion! who al low us to have the re sources to op er ate and grow thanks to their time and sub scrip tion pay - ments are pro foundly appreciated! 7

8 Deism: A Revolution in Religion I d like to thank my wife Linda and my step-daugh ter Traci for their pa tience and help. It means more than they know! Even though my Mom was a sin cere Ro man Cath o lic she did teach me be lief and love of God and my Dad, who I don t be lieve bought into the Cath o lic dogma, taught me to greatly ap pre ci ate Na ture. I am grate ful to both of them. I d also like to thank all those peo ple over the cen tu ries who fought and worked to guar an tee com plete free dom of thought, speech, the press, re li gion and the right to keep and bear arms. By do ing so they also made it pos si ble for De ism to exist. About the Deist Emblem on the back cover The De ist em blem pic tured on the back cover is not a Masonic em blem. The words at the bot tom of the pyr a mid, A New Cy cle of the Ages De ism are to point out that we are in a new cy - cle that will see neg a tive un rea son able el e ments of the old cy cle, such as fear and su per sti tion based re li gious be lief van ish as the nat u ral and rea son able re li gion/philosophy of Deism rises. The un com pleted pyr a mid rep re sents all the work and prog ress made by pre vi ous gen er a tions and the fact that it is an in com plete pyr a mid shows us we still have im por tant work to do. The top and sep a rated por tion of the pyr a mid rep re sents hu man ity s po ten tial which we re working and striving towards. The bright light burst rep re sents the light of rea son and the De signer of both life and rea son, God. 8

9 Deism: A Revolution in You The motto, In Na ture s God We Trust dif fer en ti ates De - ism from the re vealed re li gions in that we trust Na ture s God, we don t have faith in what men tell us of God through their holy books that they them selves wrote. Ev ery thing is set on a back ground of the stars of the night sky. It is the stars which taught hu man ity the er rors of the re vealed re li gions as well as the re al ity of the De signer and which point us towards Deism! 9

10 Deism: A Revolution in Religion We can know God only through His works. Thomas Paine 10

11 INTRODUCTION The power of De ism can be yours! Cur rently De ism is one of the most over looked sources of so lu tions to se ri ous prob - lems fac ing both in di vid u als and so ci ety. De ism is the be - lief in God based on the ap pli ca tion of our rea son on Na ture. De ists see the laws/de signs found through out the known uni verse, the study of which is sci ence, and we be - lieve those de signs pre sup pose a De signer of Na ture, or as ref er enced in the Dec la ra tion of In de pend ence, Na ture s God. This sim ple, yet pow er ful, rea son based be lief and thought pro cess of fers us un lim ited po ten tial in solv ing mon u men tal prob lems in our in di vid ual lives as well as through out so ci ety as a whole be cause of the very high value it places on our God-given rea son. This is truly rev o - lu tion ary, a be lief in God that puts the em pha sis on REASON, and not on FAITH. The im por tance De ism places on rea son is made ev i dent by the Amer i can Rev o lu tion ary War hero and De ist from Ver - mont, Ethan Allen. In his in sight ful book Rea son: The Only Or a cle of Man, which is an in-depth look at God, re li gion, rea son and De ism, Allen writes, Those who in val i date rea - son, ought se ri ously to con sider, Whether they ar gue against rea son with or with out rea son; if with rea son, then they es tab lish the prin ci ple, that they are la bor ing to de - throne, but if they ar gue with out rea son, (which, in or der to be con sis tent with them selves, they must do) they are out of the reach of ra tio nal con vic tion, nor do they deserve a rational argument. An other ex am ple of the im por tance De ism places on our God-given rea son and its en cour ag ing of the use of rea son over faith is found in this thought pro vok ing quote from 11

12 Deism: A Revolution in Religion the great French De ist and phi los o pher Vol taire: What is faith? Is it to be lieve that which is ev i dent? No. It is per - fectly ev i dent to my mind that there ex ists a nec es sary, eter - nal, su preme, and in tel li gent be ing. This is no mat ter of faith, but of reason. De ism has a proven track re cord of prog ress. In fact, not only is De ism a prod uct of the Eu ro pean En light en ment which el e vated rea son far above faith, thus ush er ing in such in tense rea son and the prog ress it brings that it de - stroyed much of the re li gious dogma of the Dark Ages, a time when Eu rope was ruled by Chris tian ity, but De ism and De is tic ideas were also em braced by some of his tory s most ac com plished peo ple not only in clud ing Ethan Allen and Vol taire, but also Thomas Paine, Thomas Jef fer son, George Wash ing ton and Al bert Ein stein to name just a few. Key found ing fa thers of the Amer i can Re pub lic be lieved in De - ism so much that they crafted the Dec la ra tion of In de pend - ence as a De is tic doc u ment. The Dec la ra tion re fers to God four times, but only in De is tic terms such as Na ture s God and Prov i dence. Never does the Dec la ra tion men - tion Je sus, Mo ses or the Bible, as a Judeo-Christian document would, of necessity, do. Ideas in this book will dem on strate how De ism is a rev o lu - tion in re li gion and how it can bring about a pos i tive rev o - lu tion in the lives of in di vid u als who em brace it. Cur rently there are lit er ally bil lions of peo ple who are fol low ers of the var i ous re vealed re li gions. These peo ple are taught that faith is much more im por tant than rea son. Of course, this leaves the peo ple who ac cept this teach ing vul ner a ble to real phys i cal dan ger, to de ceit and to ma nip u la tion. (To dem on strate the truth to this state ment, just look at Jonestown where 918 peo ple who put more value on faith than they did on rea son all per ished. De ism s strong re li - ance on rea son and in de pend ent thought makes cults im - 12

13 Deism: A Revolution in You pos si ble.) Since De ism puts such a high value on rea son, look ing at the gift of rea son as sec ond only to the gift of life it self, peo ple who are De ists know it is vi tally im por - tant to hold firm to their rea son and to ap ply their rea son to ab so lutely ev ery thing. It s ob vi ous how this prac tice in the per sonal lives of in di vid u als and in religious matters would con tinue into all as pects of life, which would make for a much more balanced, happy, reasonable and progressive society and world. In a Sep tem ber 28, 2008 re view of the doc u men tary film In the Shadow of the Moon that ap peared in the Washing - ton Times, Gary Ar nold wrote about the De is tic be liefs of Apollo as tro naut Gene Cernan and de scribed De ism as space-age. De ism truly is space-age! The re vealed re li - gions were all founded in the dark and ig no rant past, when peo ple be lieved the earth was flat and that the sun re volved around it. The Abrahamic re li gions are there fore prim i tive back wards re li gions that re ject God s gift to us of rea son. In the space-age, which we are in now, we need a space-age rea son based be lief sys tem grounded in re al ity. A be lief that al lows us to free our selves from the prog ress re - tard ing fear based man-made re li gious dog mas and su per - sti tions of the past. A be lief that spurs us on to learn all we can about this beau ti ful and mag nif i cent Uni verse we are all a part of. De ism is that be lief. De ism is an idea whose time has come and which has the real po ten tial to lead us out of our an - cient and de struc tive think ing which will then bring about much more pos i tive ac tions which in turn will cre ate much more prog ress centered happy individuals, and a much better society and world! 13

14 Deism: A Revolution in Religion An tony Flew, born Feb ru ary 11, Dr. Flew was the lead ing pro - po nent of Athe ism for much of the 20th cen tury and into the 21st cen - tury. How ever, due to his deep ap pre - ci a tion of the So cratic prin ci ple of fol low ing the ev i dence wher ever it leads, Dr. Flew evolved from an Athe ist into a De ist and makes it clear he is not a Chris tian or any other type of re vealed re li gion ist. 14

15 Chapter One GOD GAVE US REASON, NOT RELIGION! I do not feel obliged to be lieve that the same God who has en dowed us with sense, rea son, and in tel lect has in tended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei Con trary to the claims of di vine or i gins made by the Big Three re vealed Abrahamic re li gions, Ju da ism, Chris tian - ity and Is lam, De ism openly states that God did not come down from on high to de liver De ism to hu man ity. All of the Big Three make this claim re gard ing them selves while de - ny ing it in re gards to each other. Ju da ism teaches that God talked di rectly to Abra ham and to Mo ses and gave them in - struc tions as to what Ju da ism should be based on and how it should op er ate. Chris tian ity goes one step fur ther and says that God Him self be came man in the form of Je sus and told his dis ci ples what Chris tian ity should teach and how Chris tians should live. Is lam teaches that Mo ham med re ceived the con tents and teach ings that would be come the Ko ran di rectly from the an gel Ga briel who brought them di rectly from God. De ism openly and com pletely re jects all of these claims to spe cial di vine rev e la tion from all of the Abrahamic re - vealed re li gions. De ism also re jects all claims to di vine rev e la tion made by any al leged re vealed re li gion, not just by the Abrahamic re vealed re li gions. Con trary to all of the al leged re vealed re li gions, in stead of pre tend ing to have di vine or i gins, De ism teaches that God is the object of De - ism, not the founder of De ism. De ists openly rec og nize that 15

16 Deism: A Revolution in Religion God is not the orig i na tor of De ism. De ism is a man-made be lief sys tem based on the ap pli ca tion of our God-given rea son on the laws and de signs vis i ble to us through out the known uni verse. De ism is, there fore, a natural re li - gion/phi los o phy, not a re vealed re li gion. Because God-given rea son is at the core of De ism, and be cause the claims re vealed re li gions make re gard ing their al leged spe cial di vine rev e la tions re quire us to turn off our God-given rea son in or der to ac cept and be lieve these lu di - crous claims, claims such as Mohamed fly ing up to heaven on the back of the myth i cal crea ture the Buraq (Sahih Bukhari, Vol ume 5, Book 58, Num ber 227), of dead peo ple com ing out of their graves when Je sus was cru ci fied and hang ing out in the cem e tery for three days and then walk - ing into town (Mat thew 27:52-53), of Joshua mak ing the sun stand still so the He brews could have more time to slaugh ter their neigh bors (Joshua 10:12-13), etc., it is plainly ev i dent that De ism is much closer to God than all of the var i ous and com pet ing re vealed re li gions which bla - tantly vi o late our God-given rea son. By val u ing and em - brac ing God s gift to us of rea son, we MUST re ject the claims made by all of the re vealed re li gions to di vine rev e la tions, mir a cles, di vine au thor ship and everything and any thing else that they pro mote that will vi o late our God-given reason if we decide to accept them. We need to re mem ber that by re ject ing these un rea son able claims made by the re vealed re li gions, we are NOT re - ject ing be lief in God. God is NOT re li gion. It is only through at tack ing our God-given rea son that the clergy can make us be lieve the non sense their re vealed re li gions are over flow ing with! As Ethan Allen wrote in his thought pro - vok ing book, Rea son: The Only Or a cle of Man, Such peo ple as can be pre vailed upon to be lieve, that their rea son is de praved, may eas ily be led by the nose, and duped into su per sti tion at the plea sure of those, in whom they con fide, 16

17 Deism: A Revolution in You and there re main from gen er a tion to gen er a tion; for when they throw away the law of rea son, the only one which God gave them to di rect them in their spec u la tions and duty, they are ex posed to ig no rant or in sid i ous teach ers, and also to their own ir reg u lar pas sions, and to the folly and en thu si - asm of those about them, which noth ing but rea son can pre - vent or re strain; nor is it a ra tio nal sup po si tion that the com mon al ity of man kind would ever have mis trusted, that their rea son was de praved, had they not been told so, and it is whispered about, that the first insinuation of it was from the Priests. Con trary to what many clergy mem bers may say, re jec tion of their un rea son able claims does not make us in fi dels, for as Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Rea son,... it is nec es sary to the hap pi ness of man that he be men tally faith - ful to him self. In fi del ity does not con sist in be liev ing, or in dis be liev ing; it con sists in pro fess ing to be lieve what he does not believe. When we trace the roots of De ism we find peo ple such as the Brit ish re li gious phi los o pher Lord Her bert of Cherbury who wrote De Re li gion Gentilium in This work ex - am ines Chris tian ity and caused quite a stir by mak ing such he ret i cal claims as there be ing no such thing as orig i nal sin, that not all Chris tian rev e la tions are true di vine rev e la tions and the au thor ity of the Church does not de serve our faith, among many other anti-dog matic ir religious observations. Though Her bert brings claims to di vine rev e la tions and in - spi ra tion into ques tion, he does not re ject all such claims, nor does he re ject the idea of rev e la tions and re vealed re li - gion as De ism does. How ever, this type of in de pend ent think ing in re li gious mat ters, though not di rectly es tab lish - ing De ism, laid the ground work for De ism. Other De ists in this time pe riod were An thony Col lins, John Toland and Mat thew Tindal. Tindal s Chris tian ity As Old As The Cre - 17

18 Deism: A Revolution in Religion ation was more in tune with Thomas Paine s The Age of Rea son and Ethan Allen s Rea son: The Only Or a cle of Man since the re straints of treating Christianity and the Bible in a completely objective manner were gone. By the time of the 18 th cen tury De ism was firmly es tab - lished among the in tel lec tu als of Eu rope and North Amer - ica. Such out stand ing phi los o phers as Des cartes and Vol taire used De is tic ideas as a bat ter ing ram against what they per ceived as the un rea son able claims to di vine rev e la - tions and teach ings of the Bi ble and Chris tian ity. In Amer - ica De ists such as Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen worked hard to bring De ism to the peo ple, while De ists such as Thomas Jef fer son and George Wash ing ton did much to pro - mote De is tic prin ci ples be hind the scenes, with out up set - ting their con stit u ents, the ma jor ity of whom be lieved that by ques tion ing Chris tian ity they were re volting against God since they mis tak enly still believed that God was the author of the Bible and Christianity. Sim ple rea son tells us that the claims to di vine or i gins and rev e la tions made by all of the var i ous re vealed re li gions can not be true. At the very most, only one can be true for they all con tra dict each other and in most cases even con - tra dict them selves. As Thomas Paine wrote in the first part of The Age of Rea son re gard ing the re vealed re li gions, Ev ery na tional church or re li gion has es tab lished it self by pre tend ing some spe cial mis sion from God, communicated to cer tain in di vid u als.... Each of those churches show cer - tain books, which they call rev e la tion, or the Word of God.... Each of those churches ac cuses the other of un be lief; and for my own part, I dis be lieve them all. In a nut shell, one per son s rev e la tion is an other per son s superstition. This open re jec tion of the as ser tions of the re vealed re li - gions that Paine plainly states is one of only two re quire - ments of De ism, the other be ing the be lief in Na ture s God 18

19 Deism: A Revolution in You based on reason based reflection upon the order found throughout Nature. When you think about it the as ser tions of hav ing re ceived spe cial di vine rev e la tions that are made by all of the re - vealed re li gions and which are what they are based on, they are what they de rive their au thor ity from, forces be - liev ers and fol low ers to re place their trust in God with trust in their par tic u lar re li gious found ers and lead ers. This is be - cause if God re ally did tell or re veal some thing to some one, once that per son shares it with some one else it be comes mere hear say. At that point, peo ple can not trust God as the source of the rev e la tion but can only trust the per son or in - sti tu tion that told it to them and is mak ing the claim to di - vine rev e la tion. This further separates us from God. The Creation: The ONLY Word of God As men tioned above, all of the re vealed re li gions claim that their holy books are in spired by God, or are the word of God while the holy books of the com pet ing re vealed re li gions are ei ther com plete or par tial books of hear say and su per sti tion. De ists flatly re ject all of these claims of di vine au thor ship of holy books made by all of the re - vealed re li gions. De ists be lieve that any book which claims God for its au thor needs to be held to a very high stan dard. Thomas Paine ad dressed this issue when he wrote: The Cal vin ist, who damns chil dren of a span long to hell to burn for ever for the glory of God (and this is called Chris tian ity), and the Uni ver sal ist who preaches that all shall be saved and none shall be damned (and this also is called Chris tian ity), boasts alike of their holy [re vealed] re - li gion and their Chris tian faith. 19

20 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Some thing more there fore is nec es sary than mere cry and whole sale as ser tion, and that some thing is TRUTH; and as in quiry is the road to truth, he that is op posed to in quiry is not a friend to truth. The God of truth is not the God of fa - ble; when, there fore, any book is in tro duced into the world as the Word of God, and made a ground work for re li gion, it ought to be scru ti nized more than other books to see if it bear ev i dence of be ing what it is called. Our rev er ence to God de mands that we do this, lest we as cribe to God what is not His, and our duty to our selves de mands it lest we take fa ble for fact, and rest our hope of sal va tion on a false foundation. It is not our call ing a book holy that makes it so, any more than our call ing a re li gion holy that en ti tles it to the name. In quiry there fore is nec es sary in or der to ar rive at truth. But in quiry must have some prin ci ple to pro ceed on, some stan - dard to judge by, su pe rior to human authority. When we sur vey the works of cre ation, the rev o lu tions of the plan e tary sys tem, and the whole econ omy of what is called Na ture, which is no other than the laws the Cre ator has pre scribed to mat ter, we see un err ing or der and uni ver - sal har mony reign ing through out the whole. No one part con tra dicts an other. The sun does not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the plan ets against each other. Ev ery thing keeps its ap pointed time and place. * This har mony in the works of God is so ob vi ous, that the farmer of the field, though he can not cal cu late eclipses, is as sen si ble of it as the philo soph i cal as tron o mer. He sees the God of or der in ev ery part of the vis i ble universe. Here, then, is the stan dard to which ev ery thing must be brought that pre tends to be the work or Word of God, and * Please see chap ter six re gard ing what ap pears to be cha otic nat u ral events. 20

21 Deism: A Revolution in You by this stan dard it must be judged, in de pend ently of any - thing and ev ery thing that man can say or do. His opin ion is like a feather in the scale com pared with the stan dard that God Him self has set up. Thomas Jef fer son, the au thor of the Dec la ra tion of In de - pend ence and true friend to Thomas Paine wrote, I hold (with out ap peal to rev e la tion) that when we take a view of the uni verse, in its parts, gen eral or par tic u lar, it is im pos si - ble for the hu man mind not to per ceive and feel a con vic - tion of de sign, con sum mate skill, and in def i nite power in ev ery atom of its com po si tion. The move ments of the heav - enly bod ies, so ex actly held in their course by the bal ance of cen trif u gal and cen trip e tal forces; the struc ture of the Earth it self, with its dis tri bu tion of lands, wa ters and at mo - sphere; an i mal and veg e ta ble bod ies, examined in all their mi nut est par ti cles; in sects, mere at oms of life, yet as per - fectly or ga nized as man or mam moth; the min eral sub - stances, their gen er a tion and uses, it is im pos si ble, I say, for the hu man mind not to be lieve, that there is in all this, de - sign, cause and ef fect, up to an ul ti mate cause, a Fab ri ca tor of all things from mat ter and mo tion, their Pre server and Reg u la tor, while per mit ted to ex ist in their pres ent forms, and their re gen er a tion into new and other forms. We see, too, ev i dent proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order. This type of rea son ing is what helped the long time lead ing pro po nent of Athe ism, An tony Flew, to evolve into a De ist. Dr. Flew was con sid ered the world s lead ing Athe ist for much of the 20 th cen tury and into the 21 st cen tury. How - ever, Dr. Flew al ways em braced the So cratic prin ci ple of fol low ing the ev i dence wher ever it leads. Dr. Flew found that the ev i dence leads to De ism. By fol low ing the ev i - dence he re al ized that the com plex ity of Na ture can not ex - ist with out a pro found su preme in tel li gence be hind it. In his 21

22 Deism: A Revolution in Religion book There Is A God: How the World s Most No to ri ous Athe ist Changed His Mind, Dr. Flew points in par tic u lar to the codes in DNA. It takes great in tel li gence to cre ate codes. The ex is tence of the codes cou pled with DNA s abil - ity to in ter pret them and to then take ac tion to im ple ment the mes sages in the codes clearly dem on strates su preme in - tel li gence and pur pose, or, as Albert Einstein described God, a superior reasoning power. Be ing a very in tel li gent man, Dr. Flew knew that many re - vealed re li gion ists, Chris tians in par tic u lar, would try to make it ap pear that he had con verted to one of their re - vealed re li gions, in stead of to the sim ple and pro foundly beau ti ful and hon est De ism. He made it a point to state that by be liev ing in God he was not be com ing a Chris tian or any other type of re vealed re li gion ist. He said, I m think ing of a God very dif fer ent from the God of the Chris - tian and far and away from the God of Is lam. In an in ter - view with the As so ci ated Press he said he s best la beled a De ist like Thomas Jef fer son, and in his book he makes it very clear that he is a De ist and not a revealed religionist of any type. De ism is mak ing in roads on the other end of the be lief spec trum as well. Since the De ist Bi ble, the Cre ation, is equally and freely uni ver sally avail able to all, it s not sur - pris ing that it s spark ing sim i lar thought pro cesses among bil lions of peo ple that lead to a De is tic con clu sion. A great ex am ple is Ray mond Fontaine, Ph.D. who was a Ro man Cath o lic priest for over twenty years. In his out stand ing and thought pro vok ing book, My Life With God IN and OUT of the Church, Ray ex plains how look ing at the beauty of the stars one night while a priest in Af rica he re - al ized how the or ga ni za tion he was then work ing for, the Cath o lic Church, had pun ished Ga li leo for the hon est and ac cu rate con clu sions he had reached while study ing those 22

23 Deism: A Revolution in You same stars. Ray then re al ized that he had to choose be tween what is true and real and what is false and man made. This led him to be come an ac tive De ist. (Ray Fontaine is one of the peo ple men tioned in the ac knowl edg ment sec tion of this book and is a true Deist brother of mine. The author.) When you stop and think about what it took for An tony Flew and Ray Fontaine to give up in or der to pro claim their De ism, you be gin to re al ize the true power of De ism! Both of these men had ded i cated their lives to some thing that even tu ally their God-given rea son told them was not true. Not only did they have to ad mit that they were wrong, some thing very few peo ple al low them selves to do due largely to ego prob lems, but they put their ca reers and in - comes on the line to fol low what they be lieved was true! In Ray Fontaine s case, he had to give up his ca reer com - pletely and im me di ately lost all of his in come. But their love of truth and knowl edge was far greater than their egos and de sires to be com fort able. They are both great De ists and excellent examples to follow! Based on nat u ral rea son ing, De ists see the Cre ation it self as the only pos si ble word of God. De ism, there fore, has no holy books. There is not a book writ ten by man that can even be gin to com pare to the beauty and in tense mag nif i - cence of the Uni verse. And there is not a hu man who ever ex isted who could have de signed and cre ated the Creation. In his thought pro vok ing es say, Of the Re li gion of De ism Com pared With the Chris tian Re li gion, and the Superiority of the For mer Over the Lat ter, Thomas Paine makes it very clear that the Cre ation trumps the Bi ble. He writes, Ev ery per son, of what ever re li gious de nom i na tion he may be, is a De ist in the first ar ti cle of his Creed. De ism, from the Latin Deus, God, is the be lief of a God, and this be lief is the first article of every man s creed. 23

24 Deism: A Revolution in Religion It is on this ar ti cle, uni ver sally con sented to by all man - kind, that the De ist builds his church, and here he rests. When ever we step aside from this ar ti cle, by mix ing it with ar ti cles of hu man in ven tion, we wan der into a lab y rinth of un cer tainty and fa ble, and be come ex posed to ev ery kind of im po si tion by pretenders to revelation. But when the di vine gift of rea son be gins to ex pand it self in the mind and calls man to re flec tion, he then reads and con tem plates God and His works, and not in the books pre - tend ing to be rev e la tion. The cre ation is the Bi ble of the true be liever in God. Ev ery thing in this vast vol ume in - spires him with sub lime ideas of the Cre ator. The lit tle and pal try, and of ten ob scene, tales of the Bi ble sink into wretch ed ness when put in com par i son with this mighty work. The De ist needs none of those tricks and shows called mir a cles to con firm his faith, for what can be a greater mir - a cle than the cre ation it self, and his own ex is tence? There is a hap pi ness in De ism, when rightly un der stood, that is not to be found in any other sys tem of re li gion. All other sys tems have some thing in them that ei ther shock our rea son, or are re pug nant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must sti fle his rea son in or der to force him self to believe them. But in De ism our rea son and our be lief be come hap pily united. The won der ful struc ture of the uni verse, and ev ery - thing we be hold in the sys tem of the cre ation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the ex is tence of a God, and at the same time pro claim His attributes. The fact that Paine makes clear, that De ism is the first ar ti - cle of all of the re vealed re li gions, that is, the sim ple be - lief in God, gives De ism tre men dous po ten tial and power to bring lit er ally bil lions of peo ple to gether, since this one pri - 24

25 Deism: A Revolution in You mary be lief is com mon to all re li gions. If peo ple can then fol low the ex am ples of peo ple like An tony Flew and Ray Fontaine and put their egos in check while they strip away the man-made dog mas of their re vealed re li gions, the world will prog ress light years to wards real last ing peace and prog ress. The more peo ple be come aware that there is such a thing as De ism, the closer we get to re al iz ing this very positive potential reality! 25

26 Deism: A Revolution in Religion The fa nat i cal Athe ists are like slaves who are still feel ing the weight of their chains which they have thrown off af ter hard strug gle. They are crea tures who in their grudge against tra di tional re li gion as the opium of the masses can not hear the mu sic of the spheres. Al bert Ein stein, Au gust 7,

27 Chapter Two THE REAL GOOD NEWS IS THAT THE BIBLE IS NOT THE WORD OF GOD Why should men in the name of re li gion try to har mo nize the con tra dic tions that ex ist be tween Na ture and a book? Rob ert Ingersoll As a for mer Chris tian I know how im por tant it is for Chris - tians to be lieve that the Bi ble is THE Word of God. I was born into a Cath o lic fam ily and was an al tar boy for sev eral years. As a Cath o lic I as sumed the Bi ble was from God. The Church talked and acted like it was but did n t put a lot of em pha sis on that belief, however. When I went from be ing a Ro man Cath o lic to a fun da men - tal ist/char is matic Chris tian when I was 18, I was re quired to be lieve that the Bi ble was the Word of God and not sim ply a col lec tion of man made books with some good ideas in them. When I was 25 or 26 I read the first few pages of Thomas Paine s The Age of Rea son for school. I was so up set that he went against this idea that Chris tian ity is based on the Word of God, I phys i cally threw the book on the floor! Thank fully, a cou ple of years later when I was be gin ning to re al ize that Bi ble prom ises are not valid, I read The Age of Rea son cover to cover and be came a Deist. As I ear nestly and hon estly read The Age of Rea son I be gan to laugh out loud due to the beau ti ful pro found truths that 27

28 Deism: A Revolution in Religion were hit ting me one af ter the other! I soon be gan to thank God for the fact that the Bi ble is not the Word of God! A Chris tian reader prob a bly looks at the above sen tence with shock and hor ror. Please give your God-given rea son a chance to help you see why it is a true bless ing for all of hu man ity that the Bi ble is not the word of God, which I at - tempt to dem on strate below. The Bi ble s Un godly Or i gins Most Bi ble be liev ers sin cerely be lieve that the Bi ble is ei - ther the inerrant word of God-given di rectly to the men who wrote the Bi ble by God Him self, or be lieve it is the in spired word of God, mean ing that al though God did not ver bally dic tate the con tents of the Bi ble to the Bi ble writ - ers, God did di rectly in spire them to write what they wrote in the Bi ble. As we will see, nei ther one is true. Theodoret, born around C.E. 393 and died around C.E. 457, was the Chris tian Bishop of Cyrus and a key theo lo gian for the early Chris tians. His ma jor work is the Ec cle si as ti cal His tory of the Chris tian Church. In this writ ing he sheds some light on the un godly or i gin of what we know to day as the Bi ble. Theodoret s writ ings in his Ec cle si as ti cal His tory of the Church, Chap ter XV The Epis tle of Constantine con cern - ing the prep a ra tion of cop ies of the Holy Scrip tures re veals that the Ro man Em peror Constantine, who ruled what was left of the Ro man Em pire from C.E. 324 to C.E. 337, in C.E. 331 or dered the Chris tian leader Eusebius to pre pare 50 cop ies of the Holy Scrip tures for his in spec tion and ap proval. For do ing so, Constantine paid the Chris tian lead - ers for the 50 cop ies of the Chris tian Holy Scrip tures. Schol ars be lieve that the an cient Bi bles Co dex Vaticnus, Co dex Sinaiticus, Co dex Alexandrinus and the Peshitta are 28

29 Deism: A Revolution in You ex am ples of these 50 Em peror or dered cop ies of the Holy Scrip tures. God had noth ing to do with plac ing the or der or for pay ing for it or with ap prov ing the "Holy Scrip - tures! Ev ery thing was go ing well for the Chris tian lead ers for hun dreds of years af ter pro duc ing their first Bi ble. The Chris tian clergy were able to keep the Bi ble out of the hands of their mostly il lit er ate flocks. Their pa rish io ners had to trust the priests re gard ing what the con tents of the Bi ble con tained. The clergy were free to in ter pret it for ev - ery one, as they saw fit. As usual, those who dis agreed with the Church s in ter pre ta tions were gro tesquely tor tured and mur dered by the Chris tian clergy or by their sec u lar gov - ern ment coun ter parts. How ever, things be gan to fall apart when the Ger man Johannes Gutenberg in vented mov able type and the print ing press! Within 70 years of the print ing press mak ing its first ap pear ance Mar tin Lu ther was openly chal leng ing the au thor ity of the Pope and the Church in 1521 and brought about the Protestant Ref or ma tion! Soon he was trans lat ing Bi bles into Ger man which al lowed many peo ple to in ter pret the Bi ble for them selves, thus by pass ing the clergy. Al low ing peo ple to in ter pret the Bi ble for them - selves lead to the cre ation of the Protestant branch of Chris - tian ity which did bat tle against the Cath o lic branch of Chris tian ity. This ac counted for de cade af ter de cade of dev - as tat ing vi o lence and mis ery throughout Christian Europe. For tu nately, this also lead to peo ple see ing what non sen si - cal ramblings the Bi ble is full of which, in turn, lead to free think ers who openly at tacked the Holy Scrib bling as be ing un wor thy of se ri ous study which in turn lead to De - ism! In or der to try to hold on to its au thor ity over Chris tians and Chris tian ity, in 1545 the Cath o lic Church held its 19 th Ec u men i cal Coun cil, the Coun cil of Trent. In ad di tion to at - 29

30 Deism: A Revolution in Religion tack ing Prot es tant ism, at the Coun cil of Trent the Cath o lic Church of fi cially closed the Chris tian Canon/the Bi ble. The end re sult for the Bi ble is the Cath o lic ver sion has seven books in the Old Tes ta ment that the Protestant ver sion of the Bi ble does not have. In ad di tion, there are dif fer ences in word choices and trans la tion style. For ex am ple, the story of God send ing two bears to kill the 42 boys who teased the prophet Elisha about his bald head in 2 Kings 2: In the Protestant ver sion of this Bi ble story it says the bears were she bears while the Cath o lic ver sion of this Bi ble story says only that they were bears. The fact that the two larg est branches of Chris tian ity can t even de cide on their al leged Holy Book dem on strates the lack of di vine in spi ra tion in ei ther one of them! The Bi ble De picts God as De praved What would you think of some one who told their eight year old child to kill their puppy in or der for the par ent to know that their child feared them? I think most sane peo ple would con demn that per son for child cru elty and would say they are of the low est type of par ent and low est type of per - son. I know I would. If we truly be lieve the Bi ble, then we must be lieve that God is this type of ter ri ble par ent/be ing. Gen e sis 22:1-12 claims that God told Abra ham to kill his only son, Isaac. Of course, at the last min ute, if we are to be lieve the Bi ble, an an gel told Abra ham not to kill his son. It seems, ac cord ing to the good book, God told Abra ham to sac ri fice his son just to see if Abra ham feared God enough to ac tu ally do it! If God is all know ing He would n t have to test Abra ham since He would al ready know what the out come would be. And this fact makes God s or der to Abra ham to kill his son 30

31 Deism: A Revolution in You even worse, for He knew Abra ham would do it but he went on with the ghastly test any ways! One Bi ble story I don t re mem ber ever be ing taught when I was a Chris tian is about the Pa tri arch of Ju da ism, Chris - tian ity and Is lam, Fa ther Abra ham, be ing a pimp! Yet, if you open your Bi ble to Gen e sis 12:10-16 you will read that Abra ham, who was mar ried to his at trac tive half-sis ter Sa - rah, told her to lie to the Egyp tians and tell them that she is not his wife but is only his sis ter. He did this out of fear that the Egyp tians, if they thought he was her hus band, would kill him so they could have her. Does n t this show Abra ham did not have much faith in God and that he was a cow ard? Dis gust ingly the story gets worse. Af ter they lied to the Egyp tians, as this Bi ble fa ble goes, Sa rah ended up be ing taken into Pha raoh s house and pleas ing the Pha raoh who, for her sake, re warded Abra ham with sheep, oxen, slaves, etc.! So by pimp ing his wife/half-sis ter to Pha raoh, Abra - ham was made wealthy! And what did God do about this? He pun ished, not Abra ham, but Pha raoh who did n t even know Sa rah was Abra ham s wife be cause he be lieved their lie!!! At Gen e sis 17:17 we learn that Sa rah is 90 years old and God tells Abra ham that she will give birth to a son they should name Isaac. Then at Gen e sis 20:2, when Sa rah is past 90 years old, Abra ham pimps her again to Abimelech king of Gerar! This time God threat ens to kill the in no cent king, but the king coun ters and tells God he be lieved the lie he was told by Abra ham that Sa rah was only his sis ter. Ac - cord ing to this lu di crous tale, God pun ishes the king by mak ing his wife and maid ser vants ster ile but then changes his mind af ter Abra ham prayed to God on be half of the king and God then re opens their wombs! As al leg edly hap - pened with his pimp ing ad ven ture in Egypt, Abra ham re - 31

32 Deism: A Revolution in Religion ceives from Abimelech sheep, oxen, slaves and also a bo nus of a thou sand pieces of sil ver! What kind of fam ily val ues do Bi ble sto ries like these teach peo ple? I won der if these sto ries are in cluded in Bi bles for chil dren??? An other re volt ing Bi ble story that seems to be ac cepted by many and ques tioned by few is the non sen si cal story of Noah and the flood. As the story goes, the peo ple on Earth were so evil (with the ex cep tion of Noah and his fam ily) that God de cided to kill ev ery one of them. If we em ploy our God-given rea son when read ing this hor rific tale we must ask how could in fants be evil? How could in fants have of fended God? How could they have hurt their neigh - bors? And what about the un born ba bies? It goes squarely against all that is right and in line with our God-given rea - son to be lieve that an un born baby could pos si bly have been of fen sive to God or could have com mit ted an evil act against any one! Yet, ac cord ing to the Bi ble in the sev enth chap ter of Gen e sis, when Noah was 600 years old, God caused the earth to flood and drowned ev ery an i mal and ev - ery per son on Earth with the ex cep tion of Noah, his fam ily, and the an i mals on the ark! Can you imag ine the scene when the wa ters sub sided??? Rot ting bloated stink ing de - cay ing hu man and an i mal corpses would have cov ered much of the ground. There would be mil lions of dead ba - bies and preg nant women with their dead un born ba bies in - side of them. How can you say you love God and then try to pin atroc i ties like this on Him??? Some Chris tians be lieve that the ba bies and un born ba bies that were al leg edly slaugh tered by God in the Bib li cal hor - ror story of the flood were stained with orig i nal sin. Sup - pos edly when Eve ate the ap ple that the talk ing snake of fered her and then con vinced Adam to eat it as well, all of hu man ity not yet born was con demned by God! This myth in and of it self paints a hid eous pic ture of God. This 32

33 Deism: A Revolution in You cruel and im moral act of con demn ing ba bies for acts com - mit ted by oth ers be fore they were even con ceived flies in the face of jus tice and God-given rea son! How would you like it if the po lice came to your door to ar rest you for mur - der be cause 200 years ago an an ces tor of yours had com - mit ted mur der??? This de spi ca ble prac tice of con demn ing peo ple not yet born or even con ceived for trans gres sions com mit ted by prior gen er a tions is a con sis tent and al leg - edly God ap proved idea through out the Bi ble. How ever, the man made dogma of orig i nal sin is unique to Chris tian ity. With out this un godly dogma of orig i nal sin there would be no need for Chris tian ity for it is this non ex - is tent stain from orig i nal sin that the blood of Je sus is sup - posed to wash away from our soul. When Ethan Allen wrote his cler gy man cousin and told him he did not be lieve in orig i nal sin, his cousin wrote back say ing that with out orig i nal sin there is no need for Christianity. Allen responded that he agreed, there is no need for Christianity! A fa mous Bi ble story that should be openly re jected by any one who val ues life and loves God is the Pass over story. Most peo ple who are vaguely fa mil iar with it be lieve that Pha raoh and the Egyp tians were hold ing the Jews in slav - ery and that Pha raoh re fused all the re quests from Mo ses to let the Jews go. This stub born ness on Pha raoh s part forced God to kill the first born of the Egyp tians. This ver sion of the an cient tale makes for a some what nice film pro duc tion but pro foundly strays from the actual Biblical account. Ac cord ing to the Bi ble at Ex o dus 4:21; 7:3; 7:13; 9:12; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27 and 11:10, God hard ened Pha raoh s heart so Pha raoh would not free the Jews!!! And what was the re sult of Pha raoh not do ing what God made im pos si ble for him to do, free ing the Jews? Ac cord ing to Ex o dus 12:12 God killed the first born through out Egypt, the first born of both man and of the an i mals! This story from the good 33

34 Deism: A Revolution in Religion book de picts God, and not an an gel of death or some other en tity, as a blood thirsty killer of ba bies, pup pies, kit tens, ad nau seam when it at trib utes these words to God; For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the first born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. It also de picts God as far from all know ing when it has God tell ing Mo ses to have the He brews put lambs blood on their door posts so He ll know not to slaugh ter any one in the Jew ish house holds! Would n t an all know ing God be able to know which home housed Jews and which one Egyp - tians with out the blood on the posts??? It s in ter est ing to keep in mind that the vi o lently dis gust ing and ter ri ble Pass over story de picted in Ex o dus is what the so-called King of Peace was cel e brat ing and hon or ing at the Last Supper! Not only did the an cient He brews who wrote the Bi ble make God look like a cold hearted mass-killer, they made him look like a short sighted sim ple ton. In the some what com i cal Bi ble tale found at Ex o dus 4:24-26, God jumps Mo ses and is go ing to kill him but the quick think ing Mrs. Mo ses, Zipporah, grabs a sharp stone and cuts the fore skin off of her son s pe nis and throws the bloody pre puce at his feet! This seems to have caused God to for get all about his de sire to kill Mo ses and He lets him go!!! What to tal un - godly non sense! It sounds more like a com edy skit from Monty Py thon than some thing you d ex pect to find in the Word of God! How would you like it if you heard peo ple say ing you are a baby killer, an abor tion ist and a mass killer of peo ple and an i mals? No one I know would be happy to have a rep u ta - tion like that! The ques tion fol lows, if we would n t like to have peo ple be lieve these ter ri ble things about us, and es - pe cially if we claim to be lieve in God and to love God, how can we sin cerely pro mote a book and re li gions that spread 34

35 Deism: A Revolution in You these types of slan der ous and li bel ous ideas and im ages about our Cre ator and Friend? As Thomas Paine wrote, Is it be cause ye are sunk in the cru elty of su per sti tion, or feel no in ter est in the honor of your Cre ator, that ye lis ten to the hor rid tales of the Bi ble, or hear them with cal lous in dif fer - ence?... It is in cum bent on ev ery man who rev er ences the char ac ter of the Cre ator, and who wishes to lessen the cat a - logue of ar ti fi cial mis er ies, and re move the cause that has sown per se cu tions thick among man kind, to ex pel all ideas of re vealed re li gion, as a dan ger ous her esy and an im pi ous fraud. Holes in the New Testament The big gest sell ing point of Chris tian ity for the in di vid ual is the re ward of eter nity in Heaven and be ing saved from an eter nity of burn ing in Hell. How ever, an ob jec tive look at the New Tes ta ment dem on strates that it is not even clear on this, its big gest prom ise, the sal va tion of your soul! John 3:16 ap pears to be one of the most quoted Bib li cal pas sages that Chris tians use to show the way to eter nal sal - va tion. John 3:16 states, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only be got ten Son, that who so ever be liev eth in him should not per ish, but have ev er last ing life. As the Bi ble and all holy books from all the var i ous re - vealed re li gions so of ten do, the Bi ble con tra dicts it self and in par tic u lar this prom ise of sal va tion through faith in Je sus is con tra dicted by the Bi ble it self. And it con tra dicts it self just two chap ters lat ter in the same Gospel! John 5:28-29 says, Mar vel not at this: for the hour is com - ing, in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the res ur rec tion of life; and they that have done evil, unto the res ur rec tion of dam na tion. Just as John 3:16 makes it 35

36 Deism: A Revolution in Religion clear that sal va tion de pends on sim ply be liev ing in Je sus, John 5:28-29 makes it clear that sal va tion de pends on do ing good works, not sim ply by be liev ing in Je sus. If you take the Bi ble as the Word of God, what are you to be lieve your sal va tion rests upon, faith or do ing good deeds or both??? And this is just one of many Bib li cal con tra dic tions on the one point of eternal salvation! Con trary to De ism, which teaches that you should do good sim ply be cause it s the right thing to do and will help to make the world a better place, Chris tian ity teaches you should do good be cause there s some thing in it for you. Chris tian ity is not based on al tru ism or on sim ply lov ing God as De ism is, it s based on re ward and pun ish ment, the car rot and the stick. A great ex am ple of the greed mindset of Chris tian ity is Mat thew 6:1-6 where we read that Je sus al leg edly said, Take heed that ye do not your alms be fore men,... oth er - wise ye have no re ward of your Fa ther which is in heaven. Alms are do na tions to the poor and needy. Why does n t the Bi ble say that Je sus said to help the poor and oth ers be - cause it is the right thing to do, that you will be mak ing their lives better? Why does Chris tian ity pro mote the greedy idea of help ing oth ers be cause you will get a re ward out of it? Can you imag ine how much more prog ress would be made in the lives of peo ple and in the world if peo ple could learn to let go of the greed fac tor and do good things for oth ers sim ply for the sake of do ing good, no re ward re - quired? What a beautiful world that will be! A pop u lar mis con cep tion about Je sus is that he came to bring peace on earth. Con trary to this mis con cep tion is the Bi ble at Mat thew 10:34 which has Je sus say ing, I came not to send peace, but a sword. In ad di tion to this pro-vi o - lence quote is Luke 12:51 which says Je sus said, Sup pose ye that I have come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay, 36

37 Deism: A Revolution in You but rather di vi sion. Is di vi sion the same as peace? There are sev eral other places in the New Tes ta ment that makes it clear Je sus was not the King of Peace. So many false hoods abound in the New Tes ta ment they would re quire sev eral books to cover. How ever, two Bi ble prom ises that I d like to cover now are found at Mat thew 21:22 and Mark 16:18. At Mat thew 21:22 Je sus says, And in all things, what so - ever ye shall ask in prayer, be liev ing, ye shall re ceive. This is pure non sense and can be proven to be false by any - one at any time. Pray right now for a pink Ca dil lac to ap - pear in front of your home within the next two min utes. If it does n t ap pear, this Bi ble prom ise is wrong. Chris tian clergy can not le git i mately say that this pink Ca dil lac prayer is tempt ing God since Je sus is mak ing the of fer and by mak ing the pink Ca dil lac prayer you re only ac cept ing the of fer of Je sus and entering into a contract with him. The other empty Bi ble prom ise is found at Mark 16:18 which has Je sus say ing that those who be lieve the gos pel will be able to drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall re - cover. I don t see Pat Rob ert son, John Hagee, or the Pope rush ing to take the poi son test! Also, I don t see any of these Chris tian lead ers clear ing the hos pi tals of the sick and dy ing! If Chris tians re ally did have these Bib li cal pow ers to heal the sick, the mil lions of sick and suf fer ing peo ple around the world to day would be strong tes ta ment to the in - sanely cold Chris tians who pos sess this Bib li cally prom ised heal ing power but who re fuse to use it! If Chris tians con - tinue to claim these and other Bi ble prom ises of heal ing pow ers are re ally true, let the Chris tians clear out all of the world s hos pi tals of their pa tients, par tic u larly of the suf fer - ing chil dren. If they don t do this then we have proof that the Bi ble prom ises are false and we need to pres sure the 37

38 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Chris tians to re move these Bible lies of healing powers from their Bible! A fur ther dem on stra tion that the Bi ble prom ises of get ting any thing you ask for in prayer and of the abil ity to lay hands on the sick to heal them is bla tantly and pain fully false can be found in chil dren s graves in cem e ter ies around Amer ica. Cur rently 30 states in the United States have ex - emp tions in their stat utes that pro tect par ents and guard ians of chil dren who die due to par ents and guard ians who re - fuse to let them be treated med i cally and who rely on prayer in stead! The Fed eral gov ern ment also re fuses to pro - tect in no cent chil dren from their well mean ing but su per sti - tious par ents. Sadly, ev ery year sick and/or in jured chil dren die be cause their par ents put more trust in an cient su per sti - tions than they do in their God-given reason. The fact that De ism does n t make any of these ri dic u lous prom ises gives it and the De ists who em brace De ism a power over Chris tian ity and its eas ily proven false teach - ings. When the Bi ble prom ises of man sions in heaven, eter - nal life, etc. are hon estly ex am ined, it makes you won der if Je sus was a con-man. What would you think of some one who made those same prom ises to you today? One key as sump tion of Chris tian ity is that Je sus ex isted. The Bi ble pro vides many solid rea sons to strongly doubt even the ex is tence of Je sus. One is the con flict ing Bi ble ac - count of the ge ne al ogy of Je sus. Mat thew 1:6-16 lists 28 gen er a tions be tween Je sus and Da vid while Luke 3:23-38 lists 43 gen er a tions! At least one of these ge ne al o gies has to be wrong. This does n t sound too con vinc ing for be liev - ing that Je sus was even a real per son, let alone the Son of God! To be lieve so goes di rectly against our God-given rea son! 38

39 Deism: A Revolution in You An other Bib li cal in con sis tency that causes anyone who val - ues truth to se ri ously doubt the Je sus story is the con flict be tween the Gos pel of John with the Gos pel of Mark. At John 19:14 we read that the death sen tence for Je sus was not passed un til the sixth hour, or at noon, which means the ac tual cru ci fix ion could not have taken place un til some time in the af ter noon. How ever, in Mark 15:25 we read, And it was the third hour, and they cru ci fied him. The third hour is 9 in the morn ing, not noon or the sixth hour! To fur ther dem on strate the myth o logical nature of the Jesus story all we need to do is read Mat thew 27:52-53 which claims that at the time that Je sus died on the cross, the graves were opened; and many bod ies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves af ter his res ur rec - tion, and went into the holy city, and ap peared unto many. In other words, corpses came back to life and made their ways out of their graves and hung out at the grave yard for three days, or un til Je sus re turned from the dead, and then they strolled into town and ap peared to many peo ple! The Bi ble does n t say what hap pened to them af ter their trip into town. Did they go back into their graves??? Did they fly up into heaven with Je sus??? Does this Bi ble story go strongly against your God-given rea son??? Don t you think that if this re ally did hap pen, the Romans, who were highly or ga nized and me tic u lous and who oc cu pied and ruled that area of the world at that time, would have made a re cord of it? How ever, just like in the case of Je sus, even of his cru ci - fix ion which the Bi ble claims the Romans did them selves, the Romans made ab so lutely no re cord of the zom bies walk ing around Je ru sa lem! Could this be be cause it never re ally happened and because Jesus never really existed??? It s in ter est ing to note that Thomas Jef fer son, of ten claimed by the re li gious right as be ing a staunch Chris tian, was a 39

40 Deism: A Revolution in Religion De ist who be lieved that Je sus was also a De ist. In a let ter to Benjamin Rush dated April 21, 1803, which is of ten mis - quoted by Chris tians who re try ing to de ceive peo ple into be liev ing that Jef fer son was one of them, they quote, I am a Chris tian, but leave off the rest, in the only sense in which he (Je sus) wished any one to be; sin cerely at - tached to his doc trines, in pref er ence to all oth ers; as crib ing to him self ev ery hu man ex cel lence; and be liev ing he never claimed any other. By be liev ing Je sus was a hu man and not the Son of God, Jef fer son would not be con sid ered a Chris tian by most def i - ni tions, and cer tainly not by born-againers and the re li - gious right. Jef fer son goes on to say in the same let ter that even though many teach ings as cribed to Je sus were good, Je sus doc - trines were de fec tive as a whole and that the frag ments that did sur vive have come to us mu ti lated, mis stated, and of ten un in tel li gi ble. He fin ishes the let ter paint ing a pic - ture of Je sus as a De ist who at tempted to cor rect the De ism of the an cient Jews for which they had him crucified. 40

41 Chapter Three PRACTICAL BENEFITS OF DEISM I never un der stood the rea son why I could not set tle into Chris tian ity as was ex pected of me, but now I know! The rea son was rea son, my own God-given rea son! My rea son would not let me be lieve the con tra dic tory and con fus ing sto ries pre sented to me that were not ev i denced any where! How clear it is now, for the first time in my life, I am fi nally at peace in side and it feels so good! There re ally is hap pi ness, peace, and unity in De ism! Jane Benton, mod ern day ac tive De ist This chap ter cov ers some of the real and prac ti cal ben e fits of De ism. This is not done for the same pur pose that the re vealed re li gions pro mote their theologies, with an eye to wards greed that is based on the pro mo tion of false prom - ises. None of the prac ti cal ben e fits men tioned re gard ing De ism have any thing to do with su per nat u ral gifts that the re vealed re li gions hold out as rea sons to join and to sup - port them. I want to cover some of the ben e fits of De ism to let peo ple know what s in store for them as De ists and for so ci ety in gen eral, as a mat ter of fact and not as an ap peal to their fear and greed. The first and most im por tant rea son for De ism is that it is true. There are no man made dog mas and su per sti tions, no pretentions to cur rently hav ing, or hav ing ac cess to past, di - rect ver bal or writ ten com mu ni ca tions with God. All of these false claims made by the var i ous and com pet ing re - vealed re li gions are very easy to dis prove as was shown in 41

42 Deism: A Revolution in Religion chap ter 2 and is very clearly and over whelm ingly dem on - strated in Thomas Paine s The Age of Rea son and in many other books by other De ists and free think ers. This fact that De ism makes none of these ri dic u lous false claims and empty pie in the sky prom ises gives a great power to De ism and to all De ists. For all sin cere and think - ing re vealed re li gion ists know in their heart of hearts that much of what they claim to be lieve can be eas ily proven false. This is a great bur den on a sin cere per son who loves God. It makes you feel like you have to de fend God, since you mis tak enly as so ci ate God with your particular re - vealed re li gion and all the bag gage that car ries. In De ism this bur den is gone! As a De ist you re fi nally free of feel - ing like you re play ing a ter ri ble game of whackamo, al - ways fear ing that some one will un ex pect edly bring up a point or fact prov ing a par tic u lar part of your the ol ogy or scrip ture wrong. This is be cause in De ism there is no scrip - ture or holy book nor is there any man made dogma what - so ever. Your be lief in God is jus ti fied by the de signs in Na ture which pre sup pose the De signer of Na ture! Thomas Paine was right when he wrote that there is a hap pi ness in De - ism, when rightly un der stood, that is not to be found in any other sys tem of re li gion. And this hap pi ness that in di vid - ual De ists en joy in De ism is be cause our God-given rea son is not shocked or con tra dicted by any thing in De ism! This beau ti ful unity of God-given rea son and be lief that De ism of fers ev ery one brings such pro found peace of mind it s hard to ac tu ally de scribe it. What a won der ful and ful fill ing life De ism makes pos si ble! Know ing that we re not De ists be cause we were prom ised a ticket to Heaven or Par a dise al lows an other prac ti cal ben e - fit for De ists; the re al iza tion that we love God un con di - tion ally. This un con di tional love on our part al lows us to 42

43 Deism: A Revolution in You trust even more in God. No lon ger do we fear God, but in - stead, we look at God as our Cre ator and best friend ever. This is some thing to be very thankful for! This keen sense of trust in and love of our Cre ator frees us from the fear of burn ing in Hell. As De ists, we think so highly of God that we no lon ger as so ci ate such de spi ca ble traits as burn ing peo ple alive for eter nity with our Cre ator. Our God-given rea son lets us know the en tire idea of eter - nal dam na tion and pun ish ment is the prod uct of mere men who wanted to con trol their fel low men with fear. To quote the great sci en tist Ma rie Cu rie, Noth ing in life is to be feared, it is only to be un der stood. Now is the time to un - der stand more, so that we may fear less. This no fear ap proach to God is unique to De ism and is not found in any of the re vealed re li gions. As Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Rea son, Were man im pressed as fully and as strongly as he ought to be with the be lief of a God, his moral life would be reg u lated by the force of that be lief; he would stand in awe of God and of him self, and would not do the thing that could not be con cealed from ei ther. To give this be lief the full op por tu nity of force, it is nec es sary that it acts alone. This is Deism. Just think of the real prog ress that peo ple can bring into their own lives and into so ci ety with their de feat of fear. With out fear, peo ple can at last lift the veil from the sa - cred tem ples and re al ize the tem ples of the re vealed re li - gions are all com pletely empty! What pure joy that re al iza tion brings! Re lief and hap pi ness explode within us when we then re al ize that there is no blood soaked Bi ble god wait ing for us to fail so he can burn us in Hell for ever. That there is no rea son to be lieve that God said the He - brews are above all peo ple that are upon the face of the earth (Deu ter on omy 7:6) and that any coun try that does not serve Is rael shall per ish (Isa iah 60:12). How happy it 43

44 Deism: A Revolution in Religion makes you feel when you re al ize that there is ab so lutely no rea son to be lieve that God is so in se cure that God s name is Jeal ous (Ex o dus 34:14) or that he wants you to stone dis - obe di ent chil dren to death (Le vit i cus 20:9) or that God s char ac ter is so sick that he would say, Be hold, I will cor - rupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces. (Malachi 2:3)! De ism smashes these de spi ca ble Bib li cal im ages of God with God-given reason! What a great gift, what great progress! This De is tic no fear ap proach also al lows us to see that God is not so stu pid as to al low him self to be backed into a cor - ner with the only way he can pos si bly save hu man ity from eter nal Hell is to get a teen age Jew ish girl preg nant and then have his son, who is the prod uct of his en coun ter with the teen age girl, beat and nailed to a cross to die! How in - com pe tent does the Bi ble por tray the Cre ator of the Uni - verse! Ac cept ing ideas like this about our Cre ator shows we have no real mean ing ful love or re spect for God and we have no grasp of re al ity. Surely, the De signer of the Uni - verse is not such a bungling fool! One doc trine unique to Chris tian ity is a par tic u larly ter ri ble hin drance to a re al is ti cally pos i tive self-im age, which is a pre req ui site for self-con fi dence in adults but is es pe cially im por tant for chil dren. This hin drance is the teach ing of the Chris tian doc trine of orig i nal sin. Ac cord ing to this harm ful Chris tian doc trine, Adam and Eve ate fruit from the tree of knowl edge of good and evil that a stand ing up - right talk ing snake (Gen e sis 3:14 has God tell ing the snake that as pun ish ment for trick ing Eve he will from that day for ward crawl on his belly, or upon thy belly shalt thou go. If be ing on his belly was a pun ish ment that started on that day, prior to the pun ish ment the snake must have been walk ing up right or at least on legs! Or maybe he was bounc ing around the gar den like a self-pro pelled pogo 44

45 Deism: A Revolution in You stick) of fered to Eve in the Gar den of Eden. Since, as the an cient fa ble goes, God had for bid den them to eat from that tree, sin en tered into the world when they dis obeyed God by eat ing the for bid den fruit. Once sin had en tered, ac cord - ing to the man made Chris tian dogma of orig i nal sin, all peo ple from the first peo ple on Earth, Adam and Eve, all the way through to day and in clud ing all peo ple on Earth for all time to come are and will be stained with this orig i nal sin which pro hib its them from any com mu nion with God and which con demns them, even though they had nothing to do with it, to suffering eternally in Hell. This Chris tian doc trine goes against ev ery kind of jus tice and God-given rea son! How can we think so lit tle of the Cre ator of the Uni verse that we think he would be so in ept as to al low some thing like this to hap pen? And how can we ever be lieve that God would pun ish peo ple for some thing they did n t do? When we look at an in no cent baby, can we se ri ously be lieve this beau ti ful child is born stained with sin? Is it a good idea to teach our chil dren that they are born with sin and in or der to re move that sin God had to pro duce a son and have him hu mil i ated, whipped, tor tured and cru ci fied so their sin could be washed away? The guilt this Chris tian myth places on chil dren is nothing but evil and wrong. The mo tive for the re pug nant idea of orig i nal sin is to give a rea son for Chris tian ity, to keep it in busi ness and to in fect peo ple with the sick ness of un earned guilt. As men tioned above in chap ter 2, with out the man made doc trine of orig i - nal sin there is ab so lutely no need for Chris tian ity, thank God. As an hon est ob jec tive look at the Bi ble makes pain fully ob vi ous, the Bi ble is a ter ri ble book for peo ple to at tempt to un der stand and to fol low. Two un godly trag e dies that make this clear can be found in Andrea Yates and Deanna Laney. 45

46 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Andrea Yates was a mar ried Bi ble be liev ing Chris tian mother of five beau ti ful lit tle chil dren. As a Chris tian and a Bi ble be liever, Mrs. Yates knew that Sa tan was a re al ity. She also knew from her Bi ble stud ies that some times Sa tan takes pos ses sion of peo ple, even of Chris tians. This twisted un rea son able Bi ble myth, cou pled with Mrs. Yates suf fer - ing from postpartum de pres sion, caused her to re ally be - lieve that she was pos sessed by Sa tan who wanted the souls of her in no cent chil dren. She de cided to drown her chil dren be fore they reached the age of ac count abil ity which, ac - cord ing to her Chris tian su per sti tion, would make it im pos - si ble for Sa tan to get their souls. On June 20, 2001 Andrea Yates killed all five of her chil dren, Noah, seven, John, five, Paul, three, Luke, two, and Mary, six months by drowning. In 2003 a 39 year old mother of three, Deanna Laney, who was also suf fer ing from be lief in Chris tian ity and the Bi ble sin cerely be lieved God told her to kill her three chil dren. Much like the sick Bi ble story of God tell ing Abra ham to kill his son, Mrs. Laney be lieved God was now tell ing her to kill her three sons. So, on the Fri day night be fore Mother s Day in 2003 Mrs. Laney killed her eight year old son Joshua and her six year old son Luke with large rocks weigh ing 3 to 14 pounds. Her third son, 14 month old Aaron did not die from her at tack but is now se verely hand - i capped. She told the court, I thought I was be ing told by the Lord to do this. I be lieve that with all my heart. If both of these women had a more re al is tic and nat u ral view of God, they NEVER would be lieve that God would want them to do what they did! If they were De ists their minds would have been free of the de lu sional, vi o lent and cruel im ages of God that Chris tian ity and the Bi ble put in their minds. As De ists, their God-given rea son would have al lowed them to see just what the Bi ble re ally is, noth ing 46

47 Deism: A Revolution in You but an cient Se mitic gib ber ish not wor thy of se ri ous con sid - er ation. And the in no cent chil dren would still be alive and un harmed. Re jec tion of our God-given reason has a terrible price! As the De ist Benjamin Frank lin wrote, Hear rea son or she'll make you feel her. DEATH Peo ple fear the un known. Char la tans know this, hence the suc cess of the re vealed re li gions. One thing that is guar - an teed to all peo ple is death. And one thing no one knows about is what hap pens, if any thing, when our body dies. This has been a gold mine for the re vealed religions! Ju da ism, Chris tian ity and Is lam teach that if you fol low their holy books and be lieve in their dog mas you will go to Heaven or Par a dise. Un like the re vealed re li gions, the nat u ral re li gion/be lief of De ism does n t make any such prom ise. De ism plainly and hon estly says that no body knows for cer tain what hap - pens to us when we die. We don t even know for sure if there is an af ter life; let alone what it s like. This hon esty of De ism can t be found in the re vealed religions. Since there is no man made dogma in De ism, De ists are free to be lieve what ever makes the most sense to them about is - sues like death and an af ter life. I know De ists who be lieve death is fi nal and that there is no af ter life of any kind and I know De ists who be lieve there is a con tin u a tion of our con - scious ness of ex is tence af ter our body dies. Per son ally, I know that I don t know, but, like Thomas Paine, I don t worry about it be cause I trust God as my Cre - ator and Friend and re al ize we should be spend ing our time and en ergy try ing to make prog ress for our selves and the world and not waste it wor ry ing about some thing we know 47

48 Deism: A Revolution in Religion noth ing about. This chas ing af ter a good af ter life and ne - glect ing the here and now is what Gib bon in his The De - cline and Fall of the Ro man Em pire at trib utes as a key rea son to the fall of Rome. Per haps, in their an ger and ha - tred for Gen tiles, Jews such as Saul, aka Paul, used Chris - tian ity to do ex actly that, to bring down the big gest en emy of Ju da ism at the time, Rome. It s in ter est ing to note that in their fourth coun cil of Carthage in 398 the Chris tian lead er - ship for bade bish ops to read the books of the gen tiles. * That vir tu ally lim ited the bish ops, who made up a very large bulk of the peo ple who could ac tu ally read, to an cient He brew texts full of su per sti tion, fear and Jew ish su prem - acy and out lawed the books of real value and mean ing writ - ten in Greek and Latin. This in fec tion and even tual dom i nance of Semitic supersti - tion of the Ro man Em pire is what brought on the Dark Ages. And if some thing is n t done in to day s nu clear age to cur tail the in flu ence and vi o lence of the re vealed re li - gions we will face another Dark Ages or irreversible total annihilation and extinction through nuclear warfare. This fo cus on mak ing a better world in the here and now, and its rel e ga tion of ques tions about an af ter life to the back burner, gives De ism even more im por tance and po ten tial. It al lows us to bring true prog ress on Earth right here and right now, while giv ing De ists com fort and con tent ment in know ing that what ever hap pens at the time of their death, even if it s noth ing at all, it is part of the Designer s design. Per son ally, when my mother died this knowl edge that death is an other one of the De signer s de signs re ally pro foundly helped me deal with her death. It does n t mean that I don t * The Re nais sance of the Twelfth Cen tury, Charles Homer Haskins, Me rid ian Books, p

49 Deism: A Revolution in You miss her, but know ing this fact takes the sting out of los ing her. Dur ing Thomas Paine s ad ven tur ous and exceedingly well ac com plished life, he came close to death many times. In fact, he put off writ ing his thoughts about God and re li gion, The Age of Rea son, un til he strongly be lieved he was very close to death be cause he be lieved he would write in the most hon est way pos si ble know ing that he was about to die. That time came when he was in France dur ing the French Rev o lu tion. Many of his friends and as so ci ates were be ing ar rested and hav ing their heads cut off and he thought he would very soon meet the same fate. He then wrote the first part of The Age of Rea son. He wrote that while he was lan guish ing and wait ing to die in the Bas tille, I re mem bered with re newed sat is fac tion, and con grat u lated my self most sin cerely, on hav ing writ ten the for mer part of The Age of Rea son. I had then but lit tle ex pec ta tion of sur viv ing, and those about me had less. I know, there fore, by ex pe ri ence, the con sci en - tious trial of my own principles. This is very encouraging to all Deists! Thomas Paine gave some great ad vice to his Chris tian friend and ini ti a tor of the Amer i can Revolution Sam Adams re gard ing deal ing with death and trust ing God. It is out stand ing ad vice we can all ben e fit from. In a let ter to Ad ams Paine wrote, You will see by my third let ter to the cit i zens of the United States that I have been ex posed to, and pre served through, many dan gers; but in stead of buf fet - ing the De ity with prayers as if I dis trusted Him, or must dic tate to Him, I re posed my self on His pro tec tion; and you, my friend, will find, even in your last mo ments, more con so la tion in the si lence of res ig na tion than in the murmuring wish of a prayer. 49

50 Deism: A Revolution in Religion DEISM HELPS DEFEAT STRESS One prin ci ple key to De ism is sim pli fi ca tion. It s ob vi ous that De ism sim pli fies be lief in God by stick ing to what is ra tio nal and nat u ral. By this pro cess ev ery thing that is not nec es sary and rea son able is stripped away. De ists be lieve in God. All the ex tras, like man made dog mas, rit u als and su - per sti tions and all other ex cess need less bag gage are gone. Like wise, De ism al lows us to ap ply this same prin ci ple of sim pli fi ca tion to all as pects of our lives. When we look at our re spon si bil ity to God we see it is very sim ple. It is to live our life in ac cor dance with rea son and Na ture, which we are all a part of. De ism is very sim i lar to Sto icism in this re spect. In fact, the Ro man Stoic Sen eca wrote that the Stoic motto is, live ac cord ing to Na ture. The Ro man Sto - ics un der stood this re al iza tion well. Epictetus wrote that, the wise life, which leads to tran quil ity, co mes from con - form ing to Na ture and to Rea son. One of Epictetus stu - dents, the Ro man Em peror Marcus Aurelius, wrote, Live ac cord ing to Nature the remainder of your life. This sound Stoic ad vice fits per fectly with De ism. It re - flects the words of Thomas Paine re gard ing his lack of con - cern with an af ter life due to his strong trust of God. This ad vice goes a very long way in help ing us re al ize that much of what we stress over does n t re ally even mat ter. Our God-given rea son tells us that wor ry ing and stress ing about things is a waste of our time and en ergy, for by wor ry ing we are not mak ing things better, we re mak ing them worse. And many times what we re stressed over never co mes about. The De ist Ben Frank lin summed it up best when he wrote, If evils come not, then our fears in vain: And if they do, fear but aug ments the pain. Thank God for reason! 50

51 Chapter Four ATHENS v. JERUSALEM Judaism is a concern with return; it is not a concern with progress. Return can easily be expressed in biblical Hebrew; progress cannot. Leo Strauss Cur rently there is a war go ing on that most peo ple aren t even aware of, the war be tween Ath ens and Je ru sa lem. Per - haps one of the great est gifts of De ism will be its abil ity to help rea son, Ath ens, win out over superstition, Jerusalem. This strug gle of worldviews, with Athens representing the be lief in free thought and in quiry based on Na ture and rea - son as was the prac tice of the an cient Greeks, and Je ru sa - lem rep re sent ing blind be lief based on fear in pri mar ily the al leged rev e la tions of the He brew/old Tes ta ment and Chris tian Bi bles, as well as the Ko ran, has been waged for cen tu ries and is now be ing brought to a boil ing point by the pow er ful neoconservative po lit i cal move ment which was key in bring ing about the war in Iraq, and whose su per sti - tion based mindset has made the con flicts in the Mid dle East un avoid able. The neoconservative men tal ity and goals are found in both the Republican and Democratic political parties in the United States. De spite mon u men tal ad vances in sci ence and tech nol ogy made over the last 150 years, all of which have been made by ad her ing to the teach ings of the Ath ens worldview and not to the Je ru sa lem worldview, the Je ru sa lem side of this strug gle is still a real threat to free thought and world prog - ress and peace. Ev ery day the bod ies are lit er ally pil ing up as the Is lamic re vealed re li gion of Abra ham does bat tle 51

52 Deism: A Revolution in Religion with the Jew ish re vealed re li gion of Abra ham which is strongly backed by the Chris tian re vealed re li gion of Abra ham. While Je ru sa lem is largely rep re sented by the Big Three Abrahamic re vealed re li gions of Ju da ism, Chris tian ity and Is lam, the dom i nant re li gion in the Je ru sa - lem camp is Ju da ism. Ju da ism is in a very prac ti cal sense sup ported by the neoconservative move ment. Ath ens, sadly, is with out any mean ing ful rep re sen ta tion. The only ide ol ogy that has the po ten tial to win enough pop u lar sup - port to ac tu ally win this cru cial bat tle once and for all, due to its unique ability to appeal to both belief in God and to reason, is Deism. In this vi tal strug gle be tween Ath ens and Je ru sa lem, the neoconservative move ment is the van guard push ing through prac ti cal re al i ties that hin der prog ress and pro mote su per sti tion and vi o lence. The found ing voice of neoconservativism is Leo Strauss. Leo Strauss was a Ger - man Jew ish scholar who im mi grated to the US in See ing how the Weimer Re pub lic could not stop the Na - tional So cial ists who le gally gained power in 1933, he turned against sec u lar de moc racy. Af ter ar riv ing in the US, he be came a pro fes sor at the Uni ver sity of Chi cago. All the lead ing neocons, from Irving Kristol and his son Wil liam Kristol, to Paul Wolfowitz, Abram Shulsky, and Rich ard Perle, ei ther stud ied un der, or in de pend ently studied, the teach ings of Leo Strauss. The neocon move ment is def i - nitely made up of Straussians and Strauss is of ten referred to as the father of the neoconservative movement. Be liev ing that prog ress is bad be cause it moves be yond early su per sti tions and myths that were used to con trol the peo ple, such as the Bi ble, Strauss taught an un nat u ral rev er - ence for the past spe cif i cally the Jew ish past. In a speech en ti tled, Prog ress or Re turn? The Con tem po rary Cri sis in West ern Civ i li za tion, Strauss said, Ju da ism is a con cern 52

53 Deism: A Revolution in You with re turn; it is not a con cern with prog ress. Re turn can eas ily be ex pressed in bib li cal He brew; prog ress can not. Al bert Ein stein summed up this un godly mindset and Bib li - cal at tack on prog ress when he de scribed watch ing Jews vis it ing the Wail ing Wall in Je ru sa lem on Feb ru ary 3, 1923: Where dull-witted clans men of our tribe were pray ing aloud, their faces turned to the wall, their bod ies sway ing to and fro. A pathetic sight of men with a past but without a future. Strauss thought that most peo ple are in ca pa ble of liv ing their lives with out a be lief in a God who would pun ish them for dis obe di ence, and re ward them for obe di ence. In or der for the peo ple to know what this God de manded of them, Strauss, be ing a stu dent him self of the Twelfth Cen - tury in flu en tial Jew ish leader Rabbi Maimonides, be lieved the best bet was to use the He brew Bi ble. In the ed i tor s in - tro duc tion to a col lec tion of Strauss writ ings, Jew ish Phi - los o phy and the Cri sis of Mo der nity, Ken neth Hart Green writes, Strauss learned from Maimonides that re li gion is es sen tial to any healthy po lit i cal so ci ety, and cer tainly for the moral life of hu man be ings. Over and above this, Maimonides con vinced Strauss that Jew ish re li gion, based on the He brew Bi ble, is most es sen tial to ground a gen u - ine mo ral ity for al most ev ery hu man be ing. This idea of bas ing world so ci ety on the He brew Bi ble is dam ag ing to all Gen tiles and to all free think ing Jews for many rea sons. One rea son is that we can t get an hon est pic ture of the his tory and ac com plish ments of our Gen tile an ces tors from the He brew Bi ble. As Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Rea son, We know noth ing of what the an - cient Gen tile world (as it was called) was be fore the time of the Jews, whose prac tice has been to ca lum ni ate and blacken the char ac ter of all other na tions; and it is from the 53

54 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Jew ish ac counts that we have learned to call them heathens. This cor ner stone idea, that the Jew ish re li gion through the He brew Bi ble should be used to con trol the peo ple, is what mo ti vates and holds to gether the Jew ish and Chris tian neocons. It is the driv ing force that sparks in creas ing and un ques tioned US sup port for Is rael, no mat ter what the cost is to the US and to the rest of the world. If Ath ens fails and Je ru sa lem wins this epic bat tle, so ci ety will be based on the He brew Bi ble. Peo ple should have full knowl edge of just what that would mean. The He brew Bi ble is a col lec tion of writ ings by an cient Jews to pro mote them selves and their Jew ish peo ple. It s filled with ab surd sto ries of rivers turn ing into blood (Ex o - dus 7:17 ), uni corns (Isa iah 34:7), talk ing don keys (Num - bers 22:28 ), etc. But threaded through out this He brew Bi ble is a game plan for the Jews like Leo Strauss, the Kristols, Wolfowitz, ad nau seam, to take and keep the high ground in so ci ety and in world af fairs. Un like the Chris tian part of the Bi ble, the New Tes ta ment, which fo cuses on the here af ter, the Old Tes ta ment is much more fo cused on the well be ing of the Jew ish peo ple and Is rael in the here and now. To start with is Deu ter on omy 7:6. This Bi ble quote has the God of the He brew Bi ble say ing the Jews are, above all peo ple that are upon the face of the earth. Get ting into this mindset is a good place to start for the masses, for it stands to Bib li cal rea son that to serve God s cho sen peo ple is to serve God on earth. This Bib li cal lie that the Jews are God s cho sen peo ple and are above all peo ple that are upon the face of the earth is swal lowed hook, line and sinker by the Chris tian evan gel i - cals and fun da men tal ists. This is made ev i dent by a speech 54

55 Deism: A Revolution in You Pat Rob ert son made to the Herzliya Con fer ence. In that speech the tele van gel ist said, You must re al ize that the God who spoke to Mo ses on Mount Si nai is our God. Abra - ham, Isaac, and Ja cob are our spir i tual Pa tri archs.... The con tin u a tion of Jew ish sov er eignty over the Holy Land is a fur ther bul wark to us that the God of the Bible exists and that His Word is true. And we should clearly take note that evan gel i cal Chris - tians serve a Jew that we be lieve was the di vine Mes siah of Is rael spo ken of by the an cient proph ets, to whom He en - trusted the world wide dis sem i na tion of His mes sage to twelve Jew ish apostles. This Bib li cal idea of the Jews be ing se lected by God as a cho sen peo ple turned Thomas Paine s stom ach. He ad - dressed this Bib li cal claim when he wrote in The Age of Rea son about the Bi ble story of a king of Is rael by the name of Menahem who, ac cord ing to II Kings 15:16, butch ered ev ery one in the city of Tiphsah, even rip ping the un born ba bies from their moth ers wombs. Af ter men tion - ing this gro tesque ac count of the Jew ish war crim i nals, Paine wrote, Could we per mit our selves to sup pose that the Al mighty would dis tin guish any na tion of peo ple by the name of His cho sen peo ple, we must sup pose that peo ple to have been an ex am ple to all the rest of the world of the pur - est pi ety and hu man ity, and not such a na tion of ruf fi ans and cut-throats as the an cient Jews were; a peo ple who, cor rupted by and copy ing af ter such mon sters and im post - ers as Mo ses and Aaron, Joshua, Sam uel and Da vid, had dis tin guished them selves above all oth ers on the face of the known earth for barbarity and wickedness. If we will not stub bornly shut our eyes and steel our hearts, it is im pos si ble not to see, in spite of all that long-es tab lished su per sti tion im poses upon the mind, that the flat ter ing ap pel la tion of His cho sen peo ple is no other 55

56 Deism: A Revolution in Religion than a lie which the priests and lead ers of the Jews had in - vented to cover the base ness of their own char ac ters, and which Chris tian priests, some times as cor rupt and of ten as cruel, have professed to believe. The neocon/straussian idea of bas ing so ci ety on the He - brew Bi ble is work ing amaz ingly well. Of key im por tance in the He brew Bi ble is Is rael s well-be ing. In the book of Isa iah 60: we read what God al leg edly said re gard ing Is rael: And the sons of strang ers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall min is ter unto thee: for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my fa vour have I had mercy on thee. There fore thy gates shall be open con tin u ally; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gen tiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the na tion and king dom that will not serve thee shall per ish; yea, those na tions shall be ut terly wasted. If be - lieved, this is a di rect threat from God to Gen tiles that if they do not serve Israel, they will be destroyed! There is a Jew ish prayer, the Shema, some times writ ten Shma, which Jews are re quired to say twice a day, at morn - ing and at night, which makes clear the He brew Bi ble based neoconservative move ment, or Je ru sa lem, wants Is - rael to take from their neigh bors and to rule the world. Dur ing Is rael s in va sion of Leb a non in July of 2006 I learned about an Is raeli of fi cer in that in va sion who threw him self on a gre nade to save his troops. As he threw him - self on the gre nade, he cried out the Shema He brew prayer. This mo ti vated me to learn more about this pow er ful prayer. What I found dem on strates that the He brew Bi ble is noth ing but a plan for earthly domination by Israel. The Shema is con sid ered the most im por tant Jew ish prayer. When you sim ply su per fi cially read about it, it ac tu ally sounds kind of nice. It pro motes lov ing God with all of 56

57 Deism: A Revolution in You your heart and soul. This is very De is tic/rea son able. How - ever, it also says that if you don t fol low God s com mand - ments you will suf fer. Re mem ber, the Bi ble god has a hair-trig ger tem per! And of course, this prayer is not for ev - ery one as is ob vi ous by its open ing phrase, Hear O Is rael, the Lord is our God... (Emphasis added) This prayer is taken from text in Deu ter on omy 6. If you take the time to read what is above the cho sen text and what is be low it, you will see it is for the earthly con quest of the neigh bors of Is rael. In fact, the very first verse makes this clear. It reads, Now these are the com mand ments, the stat utes, and the judg ments, which the LORD your God com manded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to pos sess it: To paint an even worse pic ture of God, this Bi ble chap ter has God tell ing the He brews that they will be able to have great things, ev ery thing from cit ies to wells, that they stole from their neigh bors! Verses 6:10-11 dis gust ingly reads, And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fa thers, to Abra ham, to Isaac, and to Ja cob, to give thee great and goodly cit ies, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vine yards and ol ive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; How dis gust ing is that??? This is not a good mo ti va - tion to say your prayers! It s a sick and twisted mindset that needs to be done away with. The way this Bi ble quote makes clear that the Jews won t have to build cit ies or dig wells, etc., re minded me of the point Thomas Paine made about the lack of cre at ing that pos sessed the an cient Jews. Thomas Paine wrote in his thought pro vok ing and en light en ing essay The Origins of Free ma sonry re gard ing Sol o mon s Tem ple, We do not 57

58 Deism: A Revolution in Religion read in the his tory of the Jews whether in the Bi ble or else - where, that they were the in ven tors or the improvers of any one art or sci ence. Even in the build ing of this tem ple, the Jews did not know how to square and frame the tim ber for be gin ning and car ry ing on the work, and Sol o mon was obliged to send to Hiram, King of Tyre (Zidon), to pro cure work men; for thou knowest (says Sol o mon to Hiram, I Kings v, 6), that there is not among us any that can skill to hew timber like unto the Zidonians. This tem ple was more prop erly Hiram s Tem ple than Sol - o mon s, and if the Ma sons de rive any thing from the build - ing of it, they owe it to the Zidonians and not to the Jews. This Bi ble chap ter, Deu ter on omy 6, con tains a very spe - cific rea son for the Jews to do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD (right and good here means to say the Shema and to keep the laws and com mand ments the Jew ish priests claim are from God) in verses 18 and 19. The rea son is that thou mayest go in and pos sess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fa thers... To cast out all thine en e mies from be fore thee, as the LORD hath spo ken. This is what the Is raeli mil i tary of fi cer who jumped on the gre nade had in him mind and which he ver - bal ized by re cit ing the Shema. And this proves that as long as so ci ety turns a blind eye to the vi o lent and ig no rant teach ings of the Bi ble, Ko ran and any holy book we will con tinue to re main in this deadly war pro duc ing mode just as those in the camp of Je ru sa lem want. Only De ism can set us and the world free from all of this de struc tive su per sti - tion. Su per sti tious Chris tians, such as Pat Rob ert son and John Hagee, ac cept the He brew Bi ble as the word of God and fit in per fectly with Je ru sa lem/neoconservativism. Want ing to please the Judeo-Chris tian god, Rob ert son be lieves the bor - ders of Is rael should be ex tended to bor ders dat ing back to 58

59 Deism: A Revolution in You 950 BCE! He wrote an ar ti cle about this, the ti tle of which sums up Rob ert son s ir ra tio nal Bi ble based neoconservative out look on Is rael The Land of Is rael: A Gift From God. The bor ders of Is rael in 950 BCE, as Rob ert son states, go all the way up north to the Eu phra tes River which en - com passes the better part of mod ern-day Syria. Sol o mon s em pire went up to the Eu phra tes River. And Tyre and Sidon and Megiddo. And they had the Via Maris which went from Da mas cus all the way down to Cairo. It went as far as the area down in Gaza. This goal of an Is rael of Bib li cal pro por tions seems to be the plan of the Jew ish state it self. If it was n t, they would have re turned the land they took from the Pal es tin ians in 1967 and would be happy to let Je ru sa lem re main an in ter - na tional city in stead of vi o lat ing in ter na tional law by claim ing Je ru sa lem as Is rael s cap i tal and occupying the city. The fun da men tal ist Chris tian preacher and Chris tian Zi on - ist John Hagee be lieves in the Bi ble book of Rev e la tion which mod ern Chris tians claim fore tells the end of the world. Un like their fel low po lit i cal neoconservatives who don t usu ally openly speak of the re li gious mo tives for their ac tions and are in gen eral very es o teric, Hagee and the Chris tian Zi on ists branch of neoconservativism are not shy about openly stat ing their Bi ble based rea sons for their ac - tions. In the eye-open ing book Je ru sa lem Countdown, Hagee pounds away at the Bi ble prin ci ple of Jew ish su prem acy and con tin u ally re it er ates the im por tance for both individu - als and world gov ern ments to un equiv o cally and blindly sup port the Jew ish state of Is rael. As fear and re wards are the pri mary weap ons of the re vealed re li gions and the Je - ru sa lem worldview, Hagee makes am ple use of threats from the Bi ble god to de stroy any na tion that does not serve 59

60 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Israel and to reward those people and nations that do Israel s bidding. To give a case that clearly dem on strates the raw power of the neoconservatives and their broth ers in the Is rael lobby all we need to do is re mem ber what hap pened to Howard Dean. Dean was run ning to be on the Dem o cratic ticket for Pres i dent of the United States in He said the U.S. should have a bal anced Mid dle East for eign pol icy. That state ment makes a lot of sense. How ever, it means the U.S. would have to do a 180 on our cur rent Mid dle East pol icy be cause our for eign pol icy in that re gion is 100 per cent pro-is rael. Dean was im me di ately at tacked, and not just by the Re pub li cans, but by his own party, the Democrats! Leo Strauss wrote, Ac cord ing to the Bi ble, the be gin ning of wis dom is fear of the Lord; ac cord ing to the Greek phi - los o phers, the be gin ning of wis dom is won der. We are thus com pelled from the very be gin ning to make a choice, to take a stand. Where do we stand? We are con fronted with the in com pat i ble claims of Je ru sa lem and Ath ens to our al - le giance. It s ob vi ous where De ists stand and where our al le giance is; squarely with Ath ens and rea son and against the un nat u ral un rea son able ness of Je ru sa lem. De ism teaches that won der truly is the be gin ning of wis dom, not fear of God who De ists see as our Creator and Friend and who we have no fear of! If you truly be lieve God is a re al ity, then by be liev ing things that are proven to be full of lies and myths, of things that are not real, such as the Bi ble and Ko ran, it is im pos si - ble to get any closer to God or to de velop a re al is tic and mean ing ful idea of God. It is only through our God-given gift of rea son that we can know and learn of God. That is prob a bly the main rea son the gift was given to us. A so ci ety based on the Je ru sa lem camp would pro hibit the ex er cise of our God-given rea son and smother it with fear and su per sti - 60

61 Deism: A Revolution in You tion thus ren der ing the pos si bil ity of a true mean ing ful un - der stand ing and ap pre ci a tion of God impossible. As Strauss above quote makes clear if Jerusalem wins this will certainly happen. When we look for the source that pro duced the prog ress that ex ists in the world to day, the prog ress that has done, and is do ing, so much to ease the suf fer ing of hu man ity and which can bring us the type of prog ress that can take us to the stars, we find it ex clu sively in the camp of Ath ens! Ath - ens teaches us that won der is the be gin ning of wis dom how beau ti ful and how true that is! It is this be lief that has al lowed man kind to study and to un der stand the prin ci ples in Na ture to the point of de vel op ing sci ence, med i cine, en - gi neer ing and all the great and beau ti ful things they have lead to and which have al le vi ated much of the suf fer ing on Earth. When we re al ize that all the in ven tions and dis cov er - ies that make life more en joy able, that gives us a true un - der stand ing of where we are in the uni ver sal scheme of things, and that lit er ally saves mil lions of lives through sci - ence and med i cine, all of that has come from the camp of Ath ens. Be cause won der is a big part of Ath ens, and won - der leads to dis cov ery, wis dom and prog ress, it stands to rea son that true prog ress can only be found where rea son is free to ex plore and ex per i ment. This very fun da men tal qual ity that is essential for progress is completely absent in the Jerusalem Bible-based camp. When sci ence came to a screech ing halt with the fall of Rome and the ad vent of Chris tian ity, suf fer ing be gan to run ram pant. All the sci en tific and med i cal knowl edge of Rome was lost to the ig no rance of the Bi ble. God-given rea son was out lawed by the Chris tians to the point of rip ping the tongues out of peo ple who dared to ques tion Bib li cal dogma and burn ing them alive as they did to Giordano Bruno on Feb ru ary 17, This he roic mar tyr for Ath ens 61

62 Deism: A Revolution in Religion and God-given rea son re fused to pre tend the Bi ble was cor - rect in mat ters of sci ence when he in sisted that Co per ni cus was cor rect and the Bi ble was in er ror in re gards to the Earth re volv ing around the Sun. Bruno also openly rec og - nized that tran sub stan ti a tion, the chang ing of the bread and wine at com mu nion into the ac tual body and blood of Je - sus, is noth ing but a far fetched myth and a fraud. Bruno was not the only one to suf fer the pain and ter ror of hav ing his tongue ripped out and be ing burned alive. The Chris - tians mur dered thou sands of other in no cent peo ple in the same hor rific man ner who dared to use their God-given rea son. It stands to rea son that if Je ru sa lem tri umphs over Ath ens we will once again de scend into the bloody and ig - no rant Dark Ages or worse. Will the an cient re vealed re - li gions stuffed with their fear and lies and which have no place in the cur rent space age/nuclear age bring about the end of civilization through a nuclear religious war? 62

63 Chapter Five DEFUSING ARMAGEDDON WITH DEISM! What has no mean ing ad mits no explanation. Thomas Jef fer son on the Bi ble s Book of Rev e la tion John Hagee and the Chris tian Zi on ists and Chris tian evan - gel i cals have writ ten thou sands of books, ar ti cles and ser - mons prais ing the Bi ble s Book of Rev e la tion. Even The His tory Chan nel has pro grams that give se ri ous treat ment to this book of an cient ramblings. The Chris tians claim that the book tells us of things to come, of the fi nal bat tle be - tween Je sus and Sa tan at the Battle of Armageddon. One of the key rea sons for Chris tian sup port of Is rael is, in ad di tion to the fear the Bi ble put into them men tioned in Chap ter 4, the be lief that pro mot ing God s cho sen peo ple in Is rael will help to bring about the end times, the cli mac tic Bat tle of Ar ma ged don, af ter which all true be liev ers will get their tick ets punched for their trip to heaven. Since man kind now has stock piles of nu clear weap ons which can de stroy life on Earth many times over, the calls for war with Iran or any other per ceived en emy of the Jew ish state that the char la tans are mak ing takes on a spe cial mean ing and a very real danger for all of us and ours. One way De ism can neu tral ize the deadly power that the re vealed re li gions hold is to ed u cate the world about the Bi ble s un godly or i gins. This vi tal knowl edge needs to spread be yond uni ver si ties and per meate all of so ci ety. By ed u cat ing peo ple to the fact that God had noth ing to do 63

64 Deism: A Revolution in Religion with the Bi ble and that it s noth ing more than an cient my - thol ogy that the Ro man Em peror Constantine paid for about 300 years af ter the death of Je sus when he or dered the Chris tian lead ers to come up with a fi nal canon which is to day s Bi ble and which he hoped would help unify what was left of the Ro man Em pire, we take the wind out of the sails of the end tim ers! By mak ing the his toric facts much more com monly known sin cere peo ple will awaken to the fact that they ve been played for fools by the revealed religions. One Bi ble book in par tic u lar which seems to be a fa vor ite of those who re hop ing and pray ing for the end of the world is Rev e la tion. In san ity, per ver sions of Nature and vi - o lence run deep through this book from be gin ning to end. For ex am ple, Rev e la tion 14:3-4 at tacks the beautiful, es - sen tial and en joy able act of mak ing love by say ing, No man could learn that song but the hun dred and forty and four thou sand, which were re deemed from the earth. These are they which were not de filed with women; for they were vir gins. How un nat u ral it is to think of sex and women as de file ment! No won der there are so many pedophiles in the clergy! When ever I hear a preacher on the tele vi sion rant ing and rav ing about the end times and the im por tance of the Book of Rev e la tion for those who want to know what is pre des - tined by the Bi ble god for hu man ity, I al ways re mem ber the words of the great De ist Thomas Jef fer son. In re sponse to a let ter from Gen eral Al ex an der Smyth in which he asked Jef fer son for his thoughts on his, Smyth s, explanation of the Apoc a lypse, or Book of Rev e la tion, Jef ferson s letter dated Jan u ary 17, 1825, makes very clear what Thomas Jef - fer son thought of the Book of Rev e la tion. In his an swer he wrote that he con sid ered it as merely the rav ings of a ma - niac, no more wor thy nor ca pa ble of ex pla na tion than the 64

65 Deism: A Revolution in You incoherences of our own nightly dreams. I was, there fore, well pleased to see, in your first proof sheet, that it was said to be not the pro duc tion of St. John, but of Cerinthus, a cen tury af ter the death of that apos tle. Yet the change of the au thor s name does not lessen the ex trav a gances of the com po si tion; and come they from whom so ever they may, I can not so far re spect them as to con sider them as an al le - gor i cal nar ra tive of events, past or sub se quent. There is not co her ence enough in them to coun te nance any suite of ra - tio nal ideas. You will judge, there fore, from this how im - pos si ble I think it that ei ther your ex pla na tion, or that of any man in the heav ens above, or on the earth be neath, can be a cor rect one. What has no mean ing ad mits no ex - pla na tion; and par don me if I say, with the can dor of friend - ship, that I think your time too valu able, and your un der stand ing of too high an or der, to be wasted on these pa ralo gisms. You will per ceive, I hope, also, that I do not con sider them as rev e la tions of the Su preme Be ing, whom I would not so far blas pheme as to im pute to Him a pre ten - sion of rev e la tion, couched at the same time in terms which, He would know, were never to be understood by those to whom they were addressed. Many peo ple who are cur rently un der the spell of the Chris tian evan gel i cals and the po ten tially Earth de stroy ing deadly myth of this be ing the end times greatly ad mire Amer ica s Found ers, par tic u larly Thomas Jef fer son. As the World Un ion of De ists grows, we will con tinue to in crease the num ber of peo ple who are made aware of Jef fer son s com plete dis dain for the Book of Rev e la tion. As we do that, the sec ond and third points of the above Jef fer son quote will also be made clear, points which ap ply not only to the Book of Rev e la tion, but to all of the Bi ble, and to all of the Ko ran as well. These points are that it is a waste of peo ples time to squan der it try ing to fig ure out an cient myths and su per sti tions that have no ra tio nal ba sis as are 65

66 Deism: A Revolution in Religion found in all of the holy books of the re vealed re li gions and that God, or the Su preme Be ing, has ab so lutely noth ing to do with these an cient non sen si cal pa ralo gisms/scrip tures. Once this is ac com plished, the re vealed re li gions will lose their source of en ergy and fund ing and then they will wither and die on the vine. This act will mark the be gin ning of true un stop pa ble hap pi ness and prog ress on Earth for in - di vid u als and for so ci ety! De ism was born in the Enlightenment and will serve to bring true Enlightenment back to the world. Thomas Jef fer son s good friend and fel low De ist, Thomas Paine, also be lieved that when peo ple spend their time try - ing to fig ure out what the Bi ble means they are only wast - ing their time. In The Age of Rea son Paine wrote, The study of the ol ogy, as it stands in the Chris tian churches, is the study of noth ing; it is founded on noth ing; it rests on no prin ci ples; it pro ceeds by no au thor i ties; it has no data; it can dem on strate noth ing; and it ad mits no con clu sion. Not any thing can be stud ied as a sci ence, with out our be ing in pos ses sion of the prin ci ples upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Chris tian the ol ogy, it is therefore the study of nothing. Thomas Paine then goes on to point out that we can learn of God through Na ture and sci ence. He con tin ues, In stead then of study ing the ol ogy, as is now done out of the Bi ble and Tes ta ment, the mean ings of which books are al ways con tro verted and the au then tic ity of which is dis proved, it is nec es sary that we re fer to the Bi ble of the Cre ation. The prin ci ples we dis cover there are eter nal and of di vine or i - gin; they are the foun da tion of all the sci ence that ex ists in the world, and must be the foundation of theology. We can know God only through His works. We can not have a con cep tion of any one at trib ute but by fol low ing some prin ci ple that leads to it. We have only a con fused 66

67 Deism: A Revolution in You idea of His power, if we have not the means of com pre - hend ing some thing of its im men sity. We can have no idea of His wis dom, but by know ing the or der and man ner in which it acts. The prin ci ples of sci ence lead to this knowl - edge; for the Cre ator of man is the Cre ator of sci ence, and it is through that me dium that man can see God, as it were, face to face. When Jef fer son s and Paine s above ideas click, it cre ates a happy and pro found re lief in peo ple who ve been suf fer ing un der a re vealed re li gion. What a huge bur den it is to con stantly at tempt to make sense out of gib ber ish! Once we re al ize we are on the wrong road with re vealed re li gion, which ever one we hap pen to be un der the spell of, our rea - son moves us on to the cor rect road, the road of De ism! And as more and more peo ple have this ex pe ri ence and pos i tive change, the fur ther the world moves away from the self-ful fill ing false and de struc tive prophecy of Armageddon. Chris tians who buy into the Ar ma ged don myth put great im por tance on Rev e la tion 13: which reads, And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num ber of his name. Here is wis - dom. Let him that hath un der stand ing count the num ber of the beast: for it is the num ber of a man; and his num ber is Six hun dred threescore and six. The num ber Six hun dred threescore and six is 666. Many a Hol ly wood movie has been made about this dreaded 666 num ber! Sin cere and de - vout Chris tians are will ing for them selves and their fam i - lies to go with out food, wa ter and shel ter in or der to avoid us ing this num ber of the beast. Be ing mis lead by their min - is ters and priests, they don t re al ize that the num ber, in all prob a bil ity, was re fer ring to the Ro man Emperor Domitian who at the time it is be lieved the book of Rev e la tion was writ ten was a major enemy of the Christians and Jews. 67

68 Deism: A Revolution in Religion An other fact that will help free peo ple from the grips of Chris tian ity and the Bi ble and move the time back on the Ar ma ged don clock is the fact that 666 may not even be the num ber used in the orig i nal scrip ture! In May of 2005 Bib - li cal schol ars and sci en tists at Ox ford Uni ver sity used multi-spec tral im ag ing to ex am ine the old est copy of Rev e - la tion and learned that the num ber used is not 666 but is 616! Dr. El len Aitken, a pro fes sor of early Chris tian his tory at McGill Uni ver sity, said the scrip ture ex am ined by the Ox ford team pre dates the scrip ture ver sions that use the num ber 666 for the Antichrist by 100 years! All Chris tian clergy should bring this im por tant fact to the at ten tion of the flocks! If they truly be lieve Sa tan is go ing to take over the world through the Antichrist and re quire peo ple to put his num ber on them in or der for them to be al lowed to con tinue to buy and sell, in short, to live, it is im per a tive that the Chris tians know the cor rect num ber of the Antichrist! In re al ity, they won t, and don t, do this be - cause it brings up the fact that the Bi ble is full of holes and could n t be the word of God. The faith ful would soon start to ask, Well, if we in cor rectly be lieved the num ber of the Antichrist was 666 for all these years, what else do we in - cor rectly be lieve? This will start the fi nal un rav el ing of the en tire Bi ble and will spell the end of many a clergyman s career! About the only un am big u ous state ment made in Revelation is to be found in the first verse of the first chap ter. It clearly states, The Rev e la tion of Je sus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his ser vants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and sig ni fied it by his an - gel unto his ser vant John;. That was writ ten about 2,000 years ago. It is ev i dent that the things pre dicted in Rev e la - tion, the Bat tle of Ar ma ged don and the end of the world, which must shortly come to pass did NOT hap pen! The 68

69 Deism: A Revolution in You more peo ple are made aware of these Bib li cal in con sis ten - cies, the more they will fol low their God-given rea son and leave the ancient mythology behind. Chris tians also need to ask them selves why they do be lieve that an an gel brought the rev e la tion from Je sus to John but they don t be lieve the an gel Ga briel brought the Ko ran from God to Mohammad. Nei ther be lief is based on God-given rea son, but are in stead only based on the my - thol ogy that we are born into and which we were brought up to believe. As De ism con tin ues to grow it will con tinue to put these im por tant crit i cal ques tions to the re vealed re li gion ists. Prog ress re quires that rea son takes its proper place in the spir i tual and re li gious lives of peo ple and so ci ety and that the nat u ral rea son-friendly re li gion/philosophy of Deism re place the revealed religions. 69

70 Deism: A Revolution in Religion These two gal ax ies, each tak ing a dif fer ent an gle, ap pear to sup port Giordano Bruno s be lief that in the Uni verse there is no up, down, for ward, back - ward, left or right. Bruno be lieved in an eter nal in - fi nite Cre ator and an eter nal in fi nite cre ation. 70

71 Chapter Six DEISM v. ATHEISM & AGNOSTICISM When the pre tend ers to athe ism can pro duce per pet ual mo tion, and not till then, they may ex pect to be cred ited. Thomas Paine I fre quently hear from peo ple who tell me they thought they were Athe ists or Ag nos tics un til they learned of De - ism. Be cause of the ab sur di ties that re vealed re li gions at - tach to the idea of God, it s not sur pris ing that mil lions of peo ple are turned off to be lief in God and there fore as so ci - ate their be liefs with Athe ism or Ag nos ti cism. This is a re - sult of con fus ing re li gion with God. De ism cor rects this prob lem by mak ing it as clear as is pos si ble that God had noth ing to do with the scrip tures of the re vealed re li gions or with the re vealed re li gions them selves. They are all with out ex cep tion man made and un reasonable and none of them has God as their author or founder even though they pretend otherwise. De ism re jects all the be liefs of the re vealed re li gions with the ex cep tion of the first be lief of all re li gions: be lief in God. This solid rea son able and un pre ten tious be lief in God of De ism puts De ism at odds with Athe ism and Ag - nos ti cism. De ists be lieve in God, Athe ists do not and Ag - nos tics say there is not enough ev i dence to al low them to de cide ei ther way. One thing that De ists, Athe ists and Ag - nos tics all have in com mon is that their sin cere be liefs are all based on rea son. That is, they don t, for ex am ple, say 71

72 Deism: A Revolution in Religion they be lieve, they don t be lieve or they re not sure about God s ex is tence because of a decision based on emotion. It strikes me as funny that Athe ists ad mire sci ence be cause sci ence is the study of the De signer s de signs. The laws and prin ci ples in Na ture that sci ence is the study of are eter nal and un change able and are not prod ucts of man. As Thomas Paine wrote, Man can not make prin ci ples, he can only dis - cover them. These prin ci ples and laws dem on strate in tel li - gence far above our own. As a paint ing is ev i dence of an art ist, so the de signs sci ence stud ies are ev i dence of the Designer of Nature. One of the prin ci ples of Na ture sci en tists have dis cov ered is that the nat u ral state of mat ter is rest. Isaac New ton s Law of In er tia states that an ob ject at rest will re main at rest un less acted upon by an out side force. This book, for ex am ple, which is mat ter, does not move or open it self on its own ac cord. It takes an out side force to move it and to open it. Mo tion is not a prop erty of mat ter, yet, we know that mat - ter moves as in the case of the Earth which re volves and spins around the Sun. Not only does the Earth move, the Sun moves as does our en tire Milky Way Gal axy. Thomas Paine did an out stand ing job of ad dress ing this re al ity of mo tion when he gave a speech to the So ci ety of Theophilanthropists in Paris, France, shortly af ter the French Rev o lu tion. Paine said: In the first place, ad mit ting mat ter to have prop er ties, as we see it has, the ques tion still re mains, how came mat ter by those prop er ties? To this they will an swer, that mat ter pos sessed those prop er ties eter nally. This is not so lu tion, but as ser tion; and to deny it is as im pos si ble of proof as to as sert it. 72

73 Deism: A Revolution in You It is then nec es sary to go fur ther; and there fore I say - if there ex ist a cir cum stance that is not a prop erty of mat ter, and with out which the uni verse, or to speak in a lim ited de - gree, the so lar sys tem com posed of plan ets and a sun, could not ex ist a mo ment, all the ar gu ments of athe ism, drawn from prop er ties of mat ter, and ap plied to ac count for the uni verse, will be over thrown, and the ex is tence of a su pe - rior cause, or that which man calls God, be comes discoverable, as is be fore said, by natural philosophy. I go now to show that such a cir cum stance ex ists, and what it is. The uni verse is com posed of mat ter, and, as a sys tem, is sus tained by mo tion. Mo tion is not a prop erty of mat ter, and with out this mo tion, the so lar sys tem could not ex ist. Were mo tion a prop erty of mat ter, that un dis cov ered and un dis cov er able thing called per pet ual motion would establish itself. It is be cause mo tion is not a prop erty of mat ter, that per - pet ual mo tion is an im pos si bil ity in the hand of ev ery be ing but that of the Cre ator of mo tion. When the pre tend ers to athe ism can pro duce per pet ual mo tion, and not till then, they may ex pect to be credited. The nat u ral state of mat ter, as to place, is a state of rest. Mo tion, or change of place, is the ef fect of an ex ter nal cause act ing upon mat ter. As to that fac ulty of mat ter that is called grav i ta tion, it is the in flu ence which two or more bod ies have re cip ro cally on each other to unite and be at rest. Ev ery thing which has hith erto been dis cov ered, with re spect to the mo tion of the plan ets in the sys tem, re lates only to the laws by which mo tion acts, and not to the cause of motion. Grav i ta tion, so far from be ing the cause of mo tion to the plan ets that com pose the so lar sys tem, would be the de - 73

74 Deism: A Revolution in Religion struc tion of the so lar sys tem, were rev o lu tionary motion to cease; for as the ac tion of spin ning up holds a top, the rev o - lu tion ary mo tion up holds the plan ets in their or bits, and pre vents them from grav i tat ing and form ing one mass with the sun. In one sense of the word, phi los o phy knows, and athe ism says, that matter is in perpetual motion. But the mo tion here meant re fers to the state of mat ter, and that only on the sur face of the Earth. It is ei ther de com - po si tion, which is con tin u ally de stroy ing the form of bod ies of mat ter, or recomposition, which re news that mat ter in the same or an other form, as the de com po si tion of an i mal or veg e ta ble sub stances en ters into the composition of other bodies. But the mo tion that up holds the so lar sys tem, is of an en - tirely dif fer ent kind, and is not a prop erty of mat ter. It op er - ates also to an en tirely dif fer ent ef fect. It op er ates to per pet ual pres er va tion, and to pre vent any change in the state of the system. Giv ing then to mat ter all the prop er ties which phi los o phy knows it has, or all that athe ism as cribes to it, and can prove, and even sup pos ing mat ter to be eter nal, it will not ac count for the sys tem of the uni verse, or of the so lar sys - tem, be cause it will not ac count for mo tion, and it is mo tion that preserves it. When, there fore, we dis cover a cir cum stance of such im - mense im por tance, that with out it the uni verse could not ex ist, and for which nei ther mat ter, nor any nor all the prop er ties can ac count, we are by ne ces sity forced into the ra tio nal con form able be lief of the ex is tence of a cause su - pe rior to mat ter, and that cause man calls GOD. As to that which is called Na ture, it is no other than the laws by which mo tion and ac tion of ev ery kind, with re - spect to un in tel li gi ble mat ter, are reg u lated. And when we 74

75 Deism: A Revolution in You speak of look ing through Na ture up to Na ture s God, we speak philo soph i cally the same ra tio nal lan guage as when we speak of look ing through hu man laws up to the power that ordained them. God is the power of first cause, Na ture is the law, and mat ter is the sub ject acted upon. Some Athe ists say that De ism is us ing the log i cal fal lacy of God of the gaps which is the prac tice of say ing God is the rea son for phe nom ena in sci ence that we don t yet un - der stand. For ex am ple, when prim i tive tribes or the Chris - tian gov er nor of the state of Geor gia, George Ervin Perdue, do a rain dance and/or pray to in spire God to make it rain be cause they don t know enough about sci ence to know what causes rain they are dem on strat ing the God of the gaps men tal ity. They fill their ig no rance of why it rains with the log i cal fallacy of the God of the gaps. De ism is not guilty of this charge be cause it is very rea son - able to be lieve that the de signs in Na ture re quire a De signer or Su preme In tel li gence. As Vol taire said, it s not a mat ter of faith but of rea son to be lieve that there ex ists a nec es - sary, eter nal, su preme and intelligent being. As the study of the de signs in Na ture, aka sci ence, con tin - ues to make more prog ress we re al ize that sim ple ma te rial me chan ics is not all that is in volved in life forms. As for - mer lead ing pro po nent of Athe ism An tony Flew wrote in his book There is a God: How the World s Most No to ri ous Athe ist Changed His Mind, The ge netic mes sage in DNA is du pli cated in rep li ca tion and then cop ied from DNA to RNA in tran scrip tion. Fol low ing this there is trans la tion whereby the mes sage from RNA is con veyed to the amino ac ids, and fi nally the amino ac ids are as sem bled into pro - teins. The cell s two fun da men tally dif fer ent struc tures of 75

76 Deism: A Revolution in Religion in for ma tion man age ment and chem i cal activity are coordinated by the universal genetic code. Code is known to be a sys tem of sym bols for the com mu - ni ca tion of in for ma tion and ideas. We all know that a code requires in tel li gence, this is just com mon sense. Morse code, for ex am ple, did not hap pen by ac ci dent. When we look at the more com plex bi nary code that is used to write com puter pro grams we see it is done by se quenc ing the num bers 0, which rep re sents off, and 1, which rep re sents on. The code in DNA can be com pared to the bi nary code but in stead of 0 and 1, ge netic code uses the let ters A, G, C and T which rep re sent chem i cals. This very com plex code ex ists and works in DNA. It is there fore log i cal and rea son - able to be lieve that since code can not ex ist with out in tel li - gence, the code in DNA was cre ated by in tel li gence. The ex is tence and work ings of code in DNA, like all the laws of Na ture, points us to the Su preme In tel li gence. This is not a logical fallacy, it is common sense. Athe ism teaches a negativity of the gaps. When con - fronted with the ques tion of how did in tel li gence de pend ent code get into and work in DNA they can only lamely say it hap pened by ac ci dent or chance. The built in purpose of life, that is to pro cre ate and which is part of the DNA code, can t be an swered by Athe ism. De ists see in this pur pose driven code what Henry Da vid Thoreau re ferred to as the steady on ward prog ress of the universe. In George H. Smith s book Athe ism - The Case Against God, it is stated that ra tio nal ity will not lead to God. That in stead, God can only be brought about by ra tio nal iza tion. The book de scribes ra tio nal ity as first find ing ev i dence, then ar riv ing at the idea, like New ton see ing the ap ple fall to the ground and then dis cov er ing the law of grav ity. It then de scribes ra tio nal iza tion as first ac cept ing an idea and then search ing for ev i dence to sup port it, like some one in - 76

77 Deism: A Revolution in You vent ing the idea of God and then say ing God cre ated the uni verse. De ism says it is ra tio nal ity and rea son that leads to God. To the De ist, the ev i dence is the cre ation and the idea of what brought about the ev i dence is the Cre ator. There is ab so lutely noth ing known to man that cre ated it - self. For ex am ple, if some one shows us a com puter, and tells us that all the in di vid ual parts that make up the com - puter just came about by chance, that all the in tri cate en gi - neer ing that makes it pos si ble for the com puter to work, that they all some how just formed into a per fectly work ing com puter sys tem all by them selves, we would be fool ish to be lieve that per son. Rea son, if we use it, won t let us be - lieve a state ment like that. Like wise, if some one tells us the ever grow ing cre ation and its per fect or der hap pened by pure chance, we are un der no ob li ga tion to be lieve them. From our own ex pe ri ence we know everything created has a creator. Why then should the creation itself be different? An other ques tion posed by Athe ists is if noth ing cre ates it - self then who cre ated God. De ism teaches that be lief in God makes much more sense than be liev ing there is no God. How ever, per son ally I be lieve that God is an eter nal en tity of su preme in tel li gence. Hav ing the qual ity of be ing eter nal God would not need a cre ator. As knowl edge of sci - ence con tin ues to ex pand we are learn ing just how lit tle we re ally know about the Uni verse. There seems to be a strong pos si bil ity through string the ory, which re cently made a gi - ant step for ward by ac cu rately pre dict ing the re sults of a sci en tific ex per i ment, and quan tum phys ics that time it self is not fun da men tal to the Uni verse. Of course, this has huge implications regarding the quality of being eternal. In Athe ism - The Case Against God, the au thor writes, when I claim not to be lieve in a god, I mean that I do not be lieve in any thing above or be yond the nat u ral, know - able uni verse." De ism teaches that the Cre ator is know able 77

78 Deism: A Revolution in Religion and discoverable through the cre ation it self. It is very un - der stand able how peo ple could be turned off by man made re li gions and su per sti tions with their un nat ural and unrea - son able claims and with their bomb ings and fi nan cial beg-a-thons, and con fuse ar ti fi cial or re vealed re li gion with God. How ever, the Athe ist at ti tude of ac cept ing things sim - ply as not know able is dan ger ous to the prog ress of hu man - ity. Many things were not know able in the past that are know able to day. At one time Eu ro pe ans be lieved it was im - pos si ble to know what was on the other side of the At lan tic Ocean: but they were wrong. As we learn more about the sci ences, we are learn ing more about the Power that put those prin ci ples in place. An eter nal Being, as Thomas Paine said, whose power is equal to His will. Ag nos tics (Greek: a, with out + gnosis, knowl edge, or with out knowl edge) say that they don t have enough knowl edge about God to say if God ex ists or not. One of the world s great est free think ers, Rob ert Ingersoll, was an Ag nos tic. He wrote, We can be as hon est as we are ig no - rant. If we are, when asked what is be yond the ho ri zon of the known, we must say that we do not know. His state - ment ap pears to make the as sump tion that God is be yond the ho ri zon of the known. This was in cor rect in his day and it is even more so today. We do have ev i dence of the De signer of Na ture. Ev i dence is de fined in the Merriam-Web ster dic tio nary as, a: an out - ward sign: in di ca tion b: some thing that fur nishes proof. Thomas Paine of fered proof above with his dis cus sion on mat ter and mo tion just as the ge netic code, which is in tel li - gence de pend ent, of fers strong ad di tional proof of a Su - preme In tel li gence. These facts plus the fact of de sign found through out the known Uni verse which plainly dem - on strates yet even more de sign such as the sys tem atic or ga - ni za tion of ev ery thing from gal ax ies to in ternal organs 78

79 Deism: A Revolution in You strongly lets us know there is a De signer! Al bert Ein stein made this very valid point when he said, I m not an athe - ist, and I don t think I can call my self a pan the ist. We are in the po si tion of a lit tle child en ter ing a huge li brary filled with books in many lan guages. The child knows some one must have writ ten those books. It does not know how. It does not un der stand the lan guages in which they are writ - ten. The child dimly sus pects a mys te ri ous or der in the ar - range ment of the books but does n t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the at ti tude of even the most in tel li gent hu - man be ing to ward God. We see the uni verse mar vel ously ar ranged and obey ing cer tain laws but only dimly un der - stand these laws. Our lim ited minds grasp the mys te ri ous force that moves the con stel la tions. * WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN? The ques tion of ten co mes up about the suf fer ing in the world. Peo ple won der how God could al low it. I be lieve that by do ing our best to take a look at the big pic ture we can ar rive at a sat is fac tory an swer. Look ing at the big pic ture we must first re al ize how lit tle it is that we ac tu ally know. As Al bert Ein stein said, My re li - gion con sists of a hum ble ad mi ra tion of the il lim it able su - pe rior spirit who re veals him self in the slight de tails we are able to per ceive with our frail and fee ble minds. Hav ing frail and fee ble minds we must ad mit our lack of un der - stand ing and strive even harder to un der stand more. We also must re al ize that our cur rent in abil ity to see enough of the big pic ture should pro hibit us from mak ing largely un - in formed judg ment calls say ing that God must be evil to al - low so much suf fer ing on Earth. Es pe cially af ter we re al ize * Ein stein and Re li gion, Max Jammer, Prince ton Uni ver sity Press, p

80 Deism: A Revolution in Religion that much good usu ally comes out of what we see as suffering. It s hard for peo ple to see the big pic ture in most sit u a tions. For ex am ple, when I was a child I had asthma. My par ents took me to the doc tor on a reg u lar ba sis for shots to help me over come the asthma. I re mem ber one time get ting in the far cor ner in the back seat of our car try ing to avoid my fa ther who was at tempt ing to get a hold of me to bring me in for my shot. I could n t un der stand why my par ents would be so mean to me as to al low a stranger to stick me with a sharp nee dle. I could n t see the big pic ture. Not long ago I was watch ing the Na tional Geographic Chan nel. They showed a baby sea tur tle try ing to make its way to the ocean but a crab grabbed it and killed it and ate it. I was won der ing why God would de sign the uni verse to have such suf fer ing. Think ing about it, it dawned on me that I m not see ing the big pic ture. My ex tremely lim ited view of the Cre ation is sim i lar to my view of my par ents when I was four or five years old be ing taken to the doc tor for the dreaded shot. No body could have con vinced me at that place and time that my par ents were ac tu ally help ing me. Of course, when I got older I un der stood. Maybe that s how it will be with us un der stand ing why there is so much suf fer ing built into Na ture. As we grow and learn we will see more of the big pic ture and then un der stand the pur pose more. I think evo lu tion can ex plain a lot of this ques tion. Or gan isms and their spe cies evolve to make them better at sur vival. Based on Na ture, it ap pears more con cern is placed on the prog ress of the spe cies than on that of the in - di vid ual. This goes di rectly against Chris tian ity which places the em pha sis on the in di vid ual with con cepts and teach ings of such things as a per sonal sav ior, of faith-heal - ing and of in di vid u als get ting what ever they want through prayer, etc. Na ture and Chris tian ity are at two op po site 80

81 Deism: A Revolution in You ends of the spec trum! The baby sea tur tle did not sur vive, but even tu ally through evo lu tion the spe cies of sea tur tles will prob a bly de velop a better way of mak ing it to the ocean, per haps better cam ou flage or in creased speed and/or aware ness. If this hap pens, as it has been hap pen ing from the be gin ning of life on Earth, that will be prog ress for sea tur tles, but not for crabs. They in turn will have to de velop through evo lu tion better ways of catch ing their din ner, the sea tur tle. This again will lead to yet more progress on the part of the sea turtles if they are to survive. It seems that Na ture is involved with never ending progress! When we look at as tron omy we see that gal ax ies some - times col lide with each other. At first glance this sounds like it would be cat a strophic! How ever, just like on the small scale of the sea tur tle and the crab, when gal ax ies col lide it is not bad and anti-pro gres sive. Ac cord ing to the Cor nell Uni ver sity as tron omy de partment, collisions and merg ers be tween gal ax ies are one of the main el e ments that drive their evo lu tion in time.... There is also fric tion be - tween the gas in the col lid ing gal ax ies, caus ing shock waves that can trig ger some star for ma tion in the gal ax ies. Of course, star for ma tion leads to planet for ma tion which leads to yet more life in this beautiful, amazing and expanding Universe! De ism teaches that peo ple are re spon si ble for them selves. When we look at much of the suf fer ing in the world to day, we re al ize it is man made. When peo ple are mo ti vated by greed and cheat each other and steal from one an other there is pain on the part of the vic tim that usu ally ra di ates out to oth ers. Let ting greed get the best of us is what caused the cur rent eco nomic ca tas tro phe we re now suffering under. Since it is a man made prob lem, God can t rea son ably be blamed for it. And since it is a man made prob lem it can be cor rected by man. Like wise, the ter ri ble crimes of vi o lence 81

82 Deism: A Revolution in Religion and sex crimes that in no cent peo ple, es pe cially lit tle chil - dren, are vic tims of can be elim i nated if in di vid u als would care about their fel low hu mans. Sex crimes and vi o lent crimes would also be greatly re duced if so ci ety re ha bil i - tated it self and started tak ing con sis tent ac tions to see to it that recidivistic crim i nals are kept out of so ci ety. This boils down to Elihu Palmer s state ment that he made in his book on De ism, Prin ci ples of Nature, Man is responsible for himself. De ism of fers the abil ity to in crease our aware ness that we are re spon si ble for our selves. This is be cause De ism does not teach we can have our sins trans ferred to some one else. There is no pre tended sav ior in De ism who will wash us in his blood and make our bad ac tions and their con se - quences go away. What De ists do, De ists are re spon si ble for. Like wise, if the right thing in a par tic u lar sit u a tion is to do some thing and a De ist does n t take that ac tion then she or he is re spon si ble for their own in ac tion. This be lief and re al iza tion makes peo ple more aware of what they are GOING to do BEFORE they do it. When enough peo ple adopt this type of think ing we will be well on our way to a truly pro gres sive world with much less suffering in it. 82

83 Chapter Seven DEISM: AMERICA S FORGOTTEN RELIGION Soon af ter I had pub lished the pam phlet Com mon Sense, in Amer ica, I saw the ex ceed ing prob a bil ity that a rev o lu tion in the sys tem of gov ern ment would be fol lowed by a rev o lu tion in the sys tem of re li gion. The adul ter ous con nec tion of church and state, wher ever it had taken place, whether Jew ish, Chris tian, or Turk ish, had so ef fec tu ally pro hib ited by pains and penalties, every dis cus sion upon es tab lished creeds, and upon first prin ci ples of re li gion, that un til the sys tem of gov ern ment should be changed, those sub jects could not be brought fairly and openly be fore the world; but that when ever this should be done, a rev o lu tion in the sys tem of re li gion would fol low. Hu man in ven tions and priest craft would be de tected; and man would re turn to the pure, un mixed and un adul ter ated be lief in one God, and no more. Thomas Paine Think and talk about this at least on ev ery Fourth of July: If the Bi ble is cor rect, Amer ica s found ers and ev ery one who took part in mak ing the Amer i can Rev o lu tion a suc cess are burn ing in Hell right now! We know this be cause the Bi - ble tells us so! Romans 13: 1-7 clearly states that gov ern ments and gov - ern ment of fi cials are from God and are to be obeyed. It states, the pow ers that be are or dained of God. It con tin - ues, Who so ever there fore resisteth the power, resisteth the or di nance of God: and they that re sist shall re ceive to them - 83

84 Deism: A Revolution in Religion selves dam na tion. It also says we should be afraid of the gov ern ment. If you be lieve the Bi ble is the word of God, this Bi ble quote makes it very clear that to dis obey gov ern - ment au thor i ties brings about your dam na tion. Not only did Wash ing ton, Jef fer son, Frank lin, Paine and all peo ple who took part in the Amer i can Rev o lu tion resisteth the pow - ers that be, they violently overthrew them! These pro-gov ern ment verses from the Bi ble are seen by the cur rent gov ern ment as use ful tools for main tain ing power. As re ported on CBS s KSLA News on Au gust 23, 2007, the U.S. De part ment of Home land Se cu rity has even or ga nized Clergy Re sponse Teams who are trained and ready to spring into ac tion should the Amer i can peo ple ever de cide they want to fol low the Dec la ra tion of In de pend ence and abol ish the cor rupt gov ern ment. These Clergy Re - sponse Teams are trained to use Romans 13: 1-7 to help the gov ern ment dif fuse any such rev o lu tion ary challenge to its existence. Can you imag ine what would have hap pened, or not have hap pened, if Amer ica s rev o lu tion ar ies had ac tu ally taken the Bi ble se ri ously? If they had, the U.S. would still be a part of the Brit ish Em pire! The world would prob a bly still be ex ist ing un der the fal lacy of the peo ple be ing ruled over by mon ar chies un der the de lu sion of di vine right. Thank - fully, Amer ica s rev o lu tion ar ies put more im por tance on their God-given rea son than they did on Chris tian ity or the Bi ble. This is re flected by Amer i can De ist Thomas Jef fer - son who wrote on June 24, 1826, just two weeks be fore his death on July 4, 1826, May it (the Fourth of July) be to the world, what I be lieve it will be, (to some parts sooner, to oth ers later, but fi nally to all,) the sig nal of arous ing men to burst the chains un der which monk ish ig no rance and su - per sti tion had per suaded them to bind them selves, and to as sume the bless ings and se cu rity of self-gov ern ment

85 Deism: A Revolution in You The gen eral spread of the light of sci ence has al ready laid open to ev ery view the pal pa ble truth, that the mass of man kind has not been born with sad dles on their backs, nor a fa vored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. Jef fer son s De ism shines through in his ref er ence to monk ish ig no rance and su per sti tion being responsible for peo ple be ing mis lead to be lieve in the Bi ble based lie known as the di vine right of mon ar chy. He makes it crys tal clear that God had noth ing to do with the artificial aristocracy. Amer ica s first six pres i dents, George Wash ing ton, John Ad ams, Thomas Jef fer son, James Mad i son, James Mon roe and John Quincy Ad ams were ei ther all De ists or heavily in flu enced by De ism and none of them could re ally be con - sid ered a Chris tian be cause none of them be lieved that Je - sus was the son of God. Prior to the Amer i can Rev o lu tion, peo ple who as pired to po lit i cal ad vance ment and to po si - tions of au thor ity that al lowed them to have the power to make pos i tive changes in the world needed to be long to, and be ac tive in, the es tab lished church. This is why most of the above listed pres i dents of ten have bi og ra phies that list them as mem bers of one of the var i ous Chris tian sects. But in early Amer ica, par tic u larly in pre-rev o lu tion ary Amer ica, you had to be long to the dom i nant church if you wanted to have in flu ence in so ci ety, as is il lus trated by the fol low ing taken from Old Churches, Min is ters and Fam i - lies of Vir ginia, by Bishop Wil liam Meade, I, p Even Mr. Jef fer son, and George Wythe, who did not con ceal their dis be lief in Chris tian ity, took their parts in the du ties of ves try men, the one at Williamsburg, the other at Albemarle; for they wished to be men of influence. George Wash ing ton, like many of Amer ica s found ers who took part in the Amer i can Rev o lu tion, was of fi cially an 85

86 Deism: A Revolution in Religion Epis co pa lian. How ever, as the very im por tant book George Wash ing ton and Re li gion by Paul F. Boller, Jr. makes clear, George Wash ing ton was a De ist. On page 82 of his out - stand ing book, Boller in cludes a quote from a Pres by te rian min is ter, Ar thur B. Brad ford, who was an as so ci ate of Ashbel Green an other Pres by te rian min is ter who had known George Wash ing ton per son ally. Brad ford wrote that Green, of ten said in my hear ing, though very sor row fully, of course, that while Wash ing ton was very def er en tial to re - li gion and its cer e mo nies, like nearly all the found ers of the Republic, he was not a Christian, but a Deist. Many pol i ti cians to day like to pan der to the re li gious right who profit greatly from the lie that Amer ica was founded as a Chris tian na tion. A good ex am ple is John McCain who in an in ter view with beliefnet.com openly stated that the U.S. Con sti tu tion es tab lished Amer ica as a Chris tian na - tion. The in ter viewer did not ask him how he can be lieve such a thing when the words God, Bi ble, Je sus, or Chris tian are not to be found any where in the found ing doc u ment. McCain also was not asked how the Con sti tu tion could es - tab lish the U.S. as a Chris tian na tion with out plainly say ing so. I would love to know what McCain s answers would be! Per haps John McCain never read the Dec la ra tion of In de - pend ence or the U.S. Con sti tu tion. Maybe he only re lies on the lead ers of the re li gious right to tell him what is writ ten in these im por tant doc u ments. When we read what Pat Rob ert son wrote on page 270 of his book The Turn ing Tide we see it is in line with McCain s mis con cep tion. Rob ert - son wrote: It is cer tainly true that the pre cepts of faith are in ter wo ven through out the found ing doc u ments of this na - tion. The forms of our con sti tu tional gov ern ment - as im - ple mented by Jef fer son, Mad i son, Frank lin, Washington, Ad ams, and oth ers - were care fully de signed to ac knowl - 86

87 Deism: A Revolution in You edge the au thor ity of the Scrip tures and our de pend ence upon the Cre ator. Not only did he name five found ers who were not Chris tians be cause they did not be lieve in the di - vin ity of Je sus and who were De ists with the ex cep tion of Ad ams (if he s re fer ring to Sam Ad ams who was a Chris - tian he s cor rect but I be lieve he s re fer ring to John Ad - ams), who was a Uni tar ian, he is just plain wrong as is his fel low Chris tian John McCain. Not only are they in cor rect that the pre cepts of faith are in ter wo ven through out the found ing doc u ments of this na tion as is more than ob vi ous by the com plete lack of any men tion of faith or re li gion in the U.S. Con sti tu tion, with the ex cep tion of the First Amend ment which does not pro mote Chris tian ity or Ju da - ism but in stead says, Con gress shall make no law re spect - ing an es tab lish ment of re li gion, or prohibiting the free ex er cise thereof, which is the di rect op po site of what Rob - ert son is say ing. Rob ert son s other lie about Amer ica s found ers set ting the forms of our con sti tu tional gov ern - ment... to ac knowl edge the au thor ity of Scrip tures is fully ex posed when we re al ize Ar ti cle 4, Sec tion 4 of the U.S. Con sti tu tion guar an tees a re publican form of govern - ment which is in di rect con flict with the type of gov ern - ment the Bi ble pro motes at Deu ter on omy 17:15 which has God tell ing the He brews that he will de cide who shall be king. In re al ity, of course, the priests de cide who will be king, not God. To prove this point all we need to do is go up a few verses to Deu ter on omy 17:12-13 where the priests wrote that God said, And the man that will do pre sump tu - ously, and will not hear ken unto the priest that standeth to min is ter there be fore the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Is rael. And all the peo ple shall hear, and fear, and do no more pre sump tu ously. Does this sound Con sti tu tional to you, to have priests tell the people who God wants as president or king??? And to have anyone who doesn t agree 87

88 Deism: A Revolution in Religion with the clergy put to death doesn t sound very reasonable or American to me, either! This pro mo tion of fear to con trol peo ple which the Bi ble is drip ping with is ex actly why the neoconservatives want a so ci ety and world based on the He brew Bi ble. Fear is a great tool for the ar ti fi cial ar is toc racy to use to con trol free thought and peo ple. This is very un-amer i can and anti-pro - gres sive! Thank God Amer ica s found ers fol lowed their own God-given rea son and their own God-given con - sciences and not the un godly back wards Bi ble! Could you imag ine liv ing in a coun try where the likes of Pat Rob ert - son or Benny Hinn would make the an nounce ment of who God told them should be King of Amer ica or of any other coun try??? And if you or any one else had the com mon sense and cour age to ques tion these reverends you would be put to death! Pat Rob ert son seems to be chang ing his tac tics by dis in ge - nu ously shift ing from say ing the Dec la ra tion of Independ - ence and the U.S. Con sti tu tion are Chris tian doc u ments to go ing back over 100 years prior to ei ther of these doc u - ments, all the way back to the pil grims! In his book, The Ten Of fenses, he writes, The Su preme Court s re cent in ter - pre ta tion of sep a ra tion of Church and State would have been un think able to our Found ers in 1607 and 1620, be - cause for them their Chris tian faith and their government were as one. Yes, Pat, you are cor rect in that the pil grims did be lieve church and state should be united. How ever, these are the same peo ple and the same think ing mired in Bib li cal in san - ity and un godly un rea son able ness which brought us the Sa - lem witch ex e cu tions! And they are not the Found ers of the Amer i can Re pub lic, are they? They had ab so lutely noth ing to do with the Dec la ra tion of In de pend ence, the U.S. Con - sti tu tion or the Amer i can Re pub lic. In fact, their twisted 88

89 Deism: A Revolution in You think ing, falsely be liev ing that the Brit ish mon ar chy was rul ing over them be cause it was God s will is the same type of twisted think ing em braced by those who were alive dur - ing the Amer i can Rev o lu tion and who op posed it. They were the To ries. They did all they could to fight against Amer ica s founders and the rebel cause for independence. One lit tle known doc u ment that plainly states that Amer ica was NOT founded on the Chris tian re li gion is the Treaty of Peace and Friend ship be tween the United States and the Bey and Sub jects of Tri poli of Bar bary. Ar ti cle 11 of this of fi cial U.S. treaty, pic tured above, which was started dur - ing the ad min is tra tion of George Wash ing ton and was rat i - fied dur ing the ad min is tra tion of John Ad ams plainly and clearly states, As the Gov ern ment of the United States of Amer ica is not, in any sense, founded on the Chris tian re li - 89

90 Deism: A Revolution in Religion gion...! Surely, even the most zeal ous neoconservatives and Chris tian evan gel i cals can un der stand what this means! Now, all they have to do is act ac cord ingly! Up un til the Amer i can Rev o lu tion peo ple mistakenly be - lieved that God or dained the mon ar chies to rule over so ci - ety and man kind. Re li gion was thor oughly and inextricably mixed with gov ern ment. This is what brought about such things as the Sa lem Witch Tri als. As in Eu rope, pre-rev o lu - tion ary Amer ica, which was just an ex ten sion of Eu rope, held the Bi ble in high es teem and se ri ously be lieved in it. It seems most peo ple don t re al ize that to say you be lieve in the Bi ble means you must be lieve in witches and wiz ards and that you should kill peo ple you think are witches and wiz ards! Ex o dus 22:18 states, Thou shalt not suf fer a witch to live. Le vit i cus 20:27 reads, A man also or woman that hath a fa mil iar spirit, or that is a wiz ard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. This type of Bib li cal think ing caused the peo ple of Sa lem, Mas sa chu setts from June through Sep tem ber of 1692 to kill 20 of their neigh bors, 19 by hang ing and one 80 year old man by hav ing heavy stones placed on him un til his chest, heart and lungs were crushed, be cause they be lieved they were witches and wiz ards! Chris tian ity had smashed their God-given rea son to the point of ac tu ally be liev ing fic - tional char ac ters found in the Bi ble such as witches and wiz ards were real! If the Amer i can Rev o lu tion had not been fought and won with its en su ing prin ci ple of sep a ra - tion of church and state, it is very pos si ble that to day we would still be sub ject to this same type of deadly Biblical ignorance. To day pol i ti cians from both ma jor U.S. po lit i cal par ties, the Dem o crats and the Re pub li cans, pan der to the re vealed re li gions. A case in point is the faith based /re li gious or - 90

91 Deism: A Revolution in You ga ni za tions that get hun dreds of mil lions of tax payer dol - lars in hand outs from the pol i ti cians, thus unit ing re li gion with gov ern ment. This is clearly un con sti tu tional! It vi o - lates the Jef fer so nian sep a ra tion of church and state. One of our De ist fore fa thers re al ized this fact and as Pres i dent of the United States he ve toed an at tempt by Con gress in 1811 to pass an act that would have given pub lic money to a re li - gious or ga ni za tion. James Mad i son, the fa ther of the Con - sti tu tion, wrote a Veto Mes sage to Con gress on Feb ru ary 21, 1811 ex plain ing why he ve toed it. In his mes sage he wrote, Be cause the Bill vests in this said in cor po rated Church, an au thor ity to pro vide for the sup port of the poor chil dren of the same; and au thor ity, which be ing al to gether su per flu ous if the pro vi sion is to be the re sult of pi ous char - ity, would be a pre ce dent for giv ing to religious Societies as such, a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civic duty. For get ting about the U.S. Con sti tu tion which he swore un - der oath to up hold and de fend, newly elected Dem o crat Pres i dent Barack Obama is ex pand ing former Republican Pres i dent George W. Bush s White House Of fice of Faith-Based and Neigh bor hood Part ner ships and is add ing a new ad vi sory board which in cludes mem bers of the clergy. The Pen te cos tal min is ter who Obama ap pointed to lead the of fice, Joshua DuBois, will take ad vice from the board on how to spend tax payer money on re vealed re li - gious or ga ni za tions. This un con sti tu tional White House pro gram and ad vi sory board shows how Amer ica s rea son based De ist roots are be ing smoth ered by re vealed religious organizations steeped in superstition. I m happy to know that teach ers are start ing to cover the De is tic roots of Amer ica more in their class rooms. This is a very real his tory that is too of ten ei ther not men tioned at all or is only briefly glossed over in our ed u ca tional sys tem. 91

92 Deism: A Revolution in Religion This is wrong. Ev ery stu dent should be fully aware of Amer ica s De is tic roots and the im por tant role they played in Amer i can his tory. Thomas Paine s The Age of Rea son should be read by all stu dents in or der to help them better pro tect them selves in all sit u a tions with God s gift to them of reason. 92

93 Chapter Eight The Future is Deism I don t have a religion. I believe in God. Jennifer Aniston Evo lu tion, which is one of the De signer s de signs, teaches us that the spe cies that adapts to its chang ing en vi ron ment is the spe cies that sur vives and is there fore al lowed the op - por tu nity to con tinue to live, to pro cre ate and to prog ress. Our en vi ron ment has changed con sid er ably from the days when the an cient He brews wrote the Bi ble. We now have, thanks to peo ple who went di rectly against the dog mas of the Abrahamic re vealed re li gions, med i cal ad vance ments that al low for a lon ger and better life, in ven tions and dis - cov er ies such as elec tric ity, ra dio, tele vi sion, tele phones, com put ers, the Internet and in ter nal combustion engines, to name only a few, which al low us to com mu ni cate with each other re gard less of our geo graphic lo ca tion and to travel great dis tances in a rel a tively short pe riod of time, thus truly mak ing the world a much smaller place. Yet, at the same time all these changes have taken place, and con tinue to take place, we have not changed or adapted our spir i tual/re li gious think ing. It has largely re mained stuck in the ancient past. This can be irreversibly catastrophic in our nuclear age! We des per ately need to make real prog ress in our think ing about God. We need to pull our spir i tual thoughts up along - side our tech ni cal and sci en tific ad vance ments. One way to do this is to imag ine what the world and our lives would be like if in stead of just throw ing our spir i tual selves in re - 93

94 Deism: A Revolution in Religion verse in or der to keep them com pat i ble with the Bi ble or Ko ran, with Ju da ism, Chris tian ity and Is lam, we also sub - jected all other as pects of our lives to these books and teach ings of su per sti tion. For ex am ple, we would talk to our friends and fam ily as if the world were flat, we would sug gest some one with ep i lepsy was not sick but sim ply was pos sessed by a demon, women who are men stru at ing would be sep a rated from so ci ety for seven days in keep ing with the Bib li cal teach ings of Le vit i cus 15: 19-30, etc. Just imag in ing this is enough for a sane per son to get a glimpse of the to tal dis re pair their spir i tual lives are in be cause of fol low ing these an cient non sen si cal re vealed re li gions and books of myth, and what real phys i cal dan ger the world is in for the same rea son. If we re ally want a world based on rea son, prog ress and peace for our selves and for our chil dren, we must fi nally let go of teach ings and tra di tions that pro mote un rea son able - ness and bru tal vi o lence which can only hin der prog ress and peace and ac tu ally put an end to Na ture s pur pose for us which the De signer de signed into our DNA: to continue to procreate and to advance in our knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Nu clear re al i ties have made the wag ing of war an un ac cept - able prop o si tion. War is very rarely jus ti fi able; it only ex - poses ei ther man kind s greed or its men tal lim i ta tions at be ing able to for mu late a ra tio nal work able so lu tion to a prob lem. How ever, in the nu clear age our ig no rance can lead to the ex ter mi na tion of civ i li za tion and life it self on our beau ti ful planet. The shal low chau vin ism of the var i ous re vealed re li gions takes us all one gi ant step closer to that ir re vers ible ca tas tro phe. De ism, by its re li ance on rea son and re jec tion of non-de fen sive vi o lence, serves as an un as - sail able block to the self-ful fill ing proph ecy of an apoc a - 94

95 Deism: A Revolution in You lyp tic nightmare that is so central to the major revealed religions. The sim plic ity of De ism is des per ately needed to day. This pure and sim ple be lief in God can, on a per sonal level, pro - tect us from the ma nip u lat ing ego cen tric clergy and their lim it less am bi tions for fi nan cial gain. De ism helps us re al - ize the truth of what co me dian and documentarian Bill Maher said, Re li gion, to me, is a bu reau cracy be tween man and God that I don t need. This pro found re al iza tion brings with it such in tense hap pi ness and re lief that it is hard to ac tu ally de scribe! Re al iz ing that we don t need the bu reau cracy of clergy and the vol umes of pre tended rev e la - tions be tween us and God empowers everyone who embraces it! As the founder and di rec tor of the World Un ion of De ists I fre quently hear from peo ple who ve been greatly helped by De ism. One such per son was a vic tim of a pedophile. He re lated how when he was a lit tle child he thought God sin - gled him out for ha tred be cause while he was be ing mo - lested he could n t un der stand why it was hap pen ing to him since he was taught Je sus loves the lit tle chil dren. Af ter learn ing about De ism he re al ized that Je sus is not God and God had noth ing to do with the per son who made the de ci - sion to do evil by re peat edly mo lest ing him. Here is how he re lates about how he dis cov ered De ism: It was while ca su - ally surf ing the internet one af ter noon that I hap pened upon a website on De ism. As I read the con tents, my ex cite ment be gan to grow with each para graph. It was as if a light had switched on in my brain! This is what I had been search ing for all along and I was stoked. I de voured ev ery thing I could find on De ism and the more I read, the more en light - ened I be came. Since that day, I have com piled a vast col - lec tion of material on Deism that I study avidly on a daily basis. 95

96 Deism: A Revolution in Religion To day, I am happy and con tent, know ing that I have the truth to rely on and not the de struc tive lies that the Bi ble and Chris tian ity evoke. I love De ism. As De ism con tin ues to grow it will con tinue to help count - less other peo ple who are in sim i lar dire sit u a tions as the De ist quoted above was in. De ism will also help on a global scale to pull hu man ity back from the brink of the Bib li cal self-ful fill ing deadly proph esy of Armageddon. In or der to ac com plish these es sen tial goals it is of par a mount im por tance that De ists DO all they can to let others know about Deism! I be lieve the best way to spread De ism is to be hon est and straight for ward about it. There is no need or re quire ment to soft-pedal De ism. Com pro mis ing the truth is never right and never works in the long run. I fully em brace the mes - sage Thomas Paine con veyed to Elihu Palmer in ref er ence to Palmer s thought pro vok ing book The Prin ci ples of Na - ture; or, A De vel op ment of the Moral Causes of Hap pi ness and Mis ery Among the Hu man Spe cies. Paine wrote, I re - ceived by Mr. Livingston the let ter you wrote me, and the ex cel lent work you have pub lished. I see you have thought deeply on the sub ject, and ex pressed your thoughts in a strong and clear style. The hint ing and in ti mat ing man ner of writ ing that was for merly used on sub jects of this kind pro duced skep ti cism, but not con vic tion. It is nec es sary to be bold. De ists must be bold in their presentation of Deism to new people. At the same time we are boldly pro mot ing De ism, we need to do it in a nonintrusive way. For ex am ple, we should bring it up when ever the op por tu nity arises but stop talk ing about it once the per son or per sons we are talk ing to make it clear they are not in ter ested. How ever, we should not stop talk ing about it just be cause some one dis agrees with us. Dis agree ment al lows for a civil free ex change of ideas 96

97 Deism: A Revolution in You which is a re quire ment for prog ress. And just be cause we are, for ex am ple, point ing out ab sur di ties in the Bi ble or Ko ran does n t mean we can t do it in a very po lite way. We should al ways be po lite and avoid at tack ing peo ple per son - ally. Al ways re mem ber that De ists don t hate the superstitious, we just hate the superstition! As De ism con tin ues to grow we will be able to open De ist Rea son Cen ters around the world. De ist Rea son Cen ters will be places peo ple can go to who want to learn about De ism. They would be staffed by De ists who would an swer any ques tions peo ple may have about De ism. They would have a li brary of De ist and freethought books and lit er a ture as well as vid eos and DVDs for peo ple to use in or der to get a better un der stand ing of De ism. Each De ist Rea son Cen ter would have a qual ity tele scope and some one knowl - edge able about as tron omy who can help peo ple study and en joy the pro foundly beau ti ful plan ets and the stars that point us to our Cre ator. I would also like to have vol un teer doc tors, nurses and den tists who could help and treat peo - ple who ei ther have no in sur ance or who are underinsured. And, of course, to help those who were not able to get a healing from a faith-healer! If we are to greatly strengthen the like li hood of con tin u ing our ex is tence into the fu ture, we need the nat u ral tool of De ism to do it. When we look at ex trem ism and what many peo ple look at as the lu na tic fringe, we see much of it is some form of one of the re vealed re li gions. From Heaven s Gate, which preached that the end was near and the only es cape was sui cide, to the Jew ish state of Is rael that teaches from the He brew Bi ble that 3,000 years ago God gave them the land the Pal es tin ians are now liv ing on and it is their di vine right to take it from them, the lu na tic fringe has largely gone with out any mean ing ful op po si tion. With De ism we fi nally see the ar rival of that pow er ful op - 97

98 Deism: A Revolution in Religion po si tion! De ism changes the pa ram e ters and mean ing of just what de fines the lu na tic fringe. It changes it from re - ject ing widely ac cepted ideas to re ject ing rea son and Na - ture based ideas. For too long peo ple have felt if you did n t be lieve the pre vail ing thoughts and ideas of so ci ety you were in the lu na tic fringe. How ever, some of the strong be - liefs of main stream so ci ety were not and are not rea son - able. For ex am ple, in Sa lem, Mas sa chu setts in the 1600s you would be con sid ered a mem ber of the lu na tic fringe if you did not be lieve in witches and wiz ards. De ism sets a new stan dard to judge things by: Na ture and rea son. In the Sa lem ex am ple, De ists would laugh at the idea of witches and wizards because the idea of them being a reality is unnatural and unreasonable. As we move deeper into the twenty-first cen tury let us rec - og nize that it will be what we make it. Through De ism and the rea son it pro motes we can fash ion the new cen tury with new pos i tive and pro gres sive ideas and prin ci ples which will make for a much better world. 98

99 Deist Glossary Compiled by the World Union of Deists taken from Cult: In De ism, a cult is an em brac ing of un rea son able be liefs by a group of peo ple. Based on this def i ni tion, Ju da - ism, Chris tian ity and Is lam are all cults be cause their mem - bers sus pend their God-given rea son in or der to be lieve or ac cept the un rea son able dog matic teach ings and su per sti - tions such as God giv ing real es tate as a gift to the Jews, the res ur rec tion and as cen sion of Je sus, faith-heal ing and Mo ham med s as cen sion to heaven, among many more false and un rea son able claims. Be cause De ism al ways pro motes free and in de pend ent thought and reason, it is impossible for Deism to become a cult. De ism: De ism is the rec og ni tion of an eter nal uni ver sal cre ative force greater than that dem on strated by man kind, sup ported by per sonal ob ser va tion of laws and de signs in Na ture and the uni verse, per pet u ated and val i dated by the in nate abil ity of hu man rea son cou pled with the re jec tion of claims made by in di vid u als and or ganized religions of hav - ing received special divine revelation. Faith: This word has been so ter ri bly abused by re - vealed re li gions that it has come to re ally mean the sus - pen sion of an in di vid ual s God-given rea son in or der to ac cept, or at least to tol er ate, an un rea son able claim made by a re vealed re li gion. It is the only way re vealed re li - gions can get peo ple to ac cept such in sane and un rea son - able claims and ideas as orig i nal sin, walk ing on wa ter, heal ing the sick with out med i cal care, split ting the Red Sea, etc. De ists pre fer to use the word trust in stead of faith due to the twisted mean ing the word faith has ac - 99

100 Deism: A Revolution in Religion quired af ter cen tu ries of abuse from the revealed religions. One key dif fer ence be tween De ism and the re vealed re li - gions is that De ists don t be lieve faith is re quired to be lieve in God. This quote from Vol taire sums it up, What is faith? Is it to be lieve that which is ev i dent? No. It is per - fectly ev i dent to my mind that there ex ists a nec es sary, eter - nal, su preme, and in tel li gent be ing. This is no mat ter of faith, but of reason. God: The eter nal uni ver sal cre ative force which is the source of the laws and de signs found through out Na ture. In tel li gent De sign: In tel li gent De sign re fers to the struc - tures in Na ture, such as that of DNA, which can be ob - served and the com plex ity of which re quired an in tel li gent De signer. In this con text struc ture means some thing ar - ranged in a def i nite pat tern of or ga ni za tion. In De ism, In tel - li gent De sign has ab so lutely noth ing to do with the un rea son able Biblical myth of creation. Nat u ral Re li gion: Be lief in God based on the ap pli ca tion of rea son on the laws/de signs of Na ture as op posed to re - vealed re li gion which is based on al leged revelations. Philosophy: The study of the truths and prin ci ples of be - ing, knowl edge, or con duct. Rea son: The men tal pow ers used in form ing con clu sions or in fer ences based on facts. De ists look at rea son as the sec ond great est gift from Na ture s God to hu man ity, sec ond only to life itself. Re li gion: A set of be liefs con cern ing the cause, Na ture and pur pose of the uni verse. Rev e la tion: The act of re veal ing or of mak ing known. In the re li gious sense, rev e la tion usu ally means di vine rev e la - 100

101 Deism: A Revolution in You tion. This is mean ing less, since rev e la tion can only be rev e - la tion in the first in stance. For ex am ple, if God re vealed some thing to me, that would be a di vine rev e la tion to me. If I then told some one else what God told me it would be mere hear say to the per son I tell. If that per son be lieved what I said, they would not be putt ing their trust in God, but in me, be liev ing what I told them was actually true. Re vealed Re li gion: An or ga nized sys tem of be lief in and wor ship of God based on the be lief that God com mu ni - cated/com mu ni cates with cer tain in dividual founders, lead - ers, and/or mem bers of the par tic u lar re vealed re li gion. As men tioned above, by be liev ing in any of the re vealed re li - gions a be liever is not putt ing their trust in God, but in the per son, peo ple or or ga ni za tion mak ing the claim of receiving the divine revelation. Trust: Trust is con fi dence in a per son or thing based on rea son and ex pe ri ence. 101

102 Deism: A Revolution in Religion This gal axy, M51, is ac tu ally made up of two gal ax ies which are con nected by a bridge of stars. As men tioned in chap ter six, the com ing to gether of two gal ax ies is part of the evo lu tion of the Uni verse and even tu ally pro duces yet more stars, plan ets and life! 102

103 Fre quently Asked Questions about De ism What is the ba sis of De ism? Rea son and Na ture. We see the de sign found through out the known uni verse and this re al iza tion brings us to a sound be lief in a De signer or God. Is De ism a form of athe ism? No. Athe ism teaches that there is no God. De ism teaches there is a God. De ism re - jects the rev e la tions of the re vealed re li gions but does not re ject God. If De ism teaches a be lief in God, then what is the dif fer - ence be tween De ism and the other re li gions like Chris - tian ity, Ju da ism, Is lam, Bud dhism, etc.? De ism is, as stated above, based on Na ture and rea son, not rev e la tion. All the other re li gions (with the pos si ble ex cep tion of Tao - ism, al though su per sti tion does play a role in both Bud - dhism and Tao ism) make claim to spe cial di vine rev e la tion or they have req ui site holy books. De ism has nei ther. In De ism there is no need for a preacher, priest or rabbi. All one needs in De ism is their own com mon sense and the creation to contemplate. Also, re vealed re li gions, es pe cially Chris tian ity and Is - lam, use greed and fear to catch and hold con verts. The greed is be long ing to their re vealed re li gion so you can get re wards such as eter nal life, and in Chris tian ity, any - thing you ask for. In com bi na tion with greed they use fear of death. De ism does nei ther. De ism teaches that we should do what is right sim ply be cause it s the right thing to do. And De ism does n t pre tend we know what, if any thing, hap pens to us af ter our bod ies die. We love and trust God enough not to worry about it. As Thomas Paine wrote, I 103

104 Deism: A Revolution in Religion con sider my self in the hands of my Cre ator, and that He will dis pose of me af ter this life con sis tently with His jus - tice and good ness. I leave all these mat ter to Him, as my Cre ator and friend, and I hold it to be pre sump tion in man to make an ar ti cle of faith as to what the Creator will do with us hereafter. Do De ists be lieve that God cre ated the cre ation and the world and then just stepped back from it? Some De ists do and some be lieve God may in ter vene in hu man af fairs. For ex am ple, when George Wash ing ton was faced with ei - ther a very risky evac u a tion of the Amer i can troops from Long Is land or sur ren der ing them, he chose the more risky evac u a tion. When ques tioned about the pos sibility of hav - ing them an ni hi lated he said it was the best he could do and the rest was up to Providence. Do De ists pray? Only prayers of thanks and ap pre ci a tion. We don t dic tate to God. How do De ists view God? We view God as an eter nal en - tity whose power is equal to his/her will. The fol low ing quote from Al bert Ein stein also of fers a good De is tic de - scrip tion of God: My re li gion con sists of a hum ble ad mi - ra tion of the il lim it able su pe rior spirit who re veals him self in the slight de tails we are able to per ceive with our frail and fee ble minds. That deeply emo tional con vic tion of the pres ence of a su pe rior rea son ing power, which is re vealed in the in com pre hen si ble universe, forms my idea of God. Is De ism a cult? It s im pos si ble for De ism to be a cult be cause De ism teaches self-re li ance and en cour ages peo ple to con stantly use their rea son. De ism teaches to ques tion au thor ity no mat ter what the cost. Un like the re vealed re li gions, De ism makes no un rea son - able claims. The re vealed re li gions en cour age peo ple to give up, or at least to sus pend, their God-given rea son. 104

105 Deism: A Revolution in You They like to call it faith. For ex am ple, how log i cal is it to be lieve that Mo ses parted the Red Sea, or that Je sus walked on wa ter, or that Mo ham med re ceived the Ko ran from an an gel? Sus pend ing your rea son enough to be lieve these tales only sets a pre ce dent that leads to be liev ing a Jim Jones or David Koresh. What s De ism s an swer to all the evil in the world? Much of the evil in the world could be over come or re - moved if hu man ity had em braced our God-given rea son from our ear li est evo lu tion ary stages. Af ter all, all the laws of Na ture that we ve dis cov ered and learned to use to our ad van tage that make ev ery thing from com put ers to med i - cine to space travel re al i ties, have ex isted eter nally. But we ve de cided we d rather live in su per sti tion and fear in - stead of learn ing and gain ing knowl edge. It s much more sooth ing to be lieve we re not re spon si ble for our own ac - tions than to ac tu ally do the hard work re quired for suc cess and progress. Also, please see chapter six. De ism does n t claim to have all the an swers to ev ery thing, we just claim to be on the right path to those an swers. 105

106 About the author Bob Johnson Bob John son has been a De ist since 1984 and is the founder and di rec tor of the World Un ion of De ists. The World Un - ion of De ists was founded on April 10, 1993 at the same time as he be gan the first De is tic pub li ca tion since the days of Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer, THINK!. In 1996 he launched the first website ded i cated to De ism, ism.com. Cur rently the World Un ion of De ists of - fers three De ist webzines. THINKonline! is a monthly and Bruno s Bul le tin which is pub lished at least twice a month. Both of these webzines are free. To help se cure the nec es - sary fund ing to prop erly and ef fec tively pro mote De ism, De is tic Thought & Ac tion! is pub lished monthly and re - quires a sub scrip tion. The World Un ion of De ists strives to make De ism a house - hold word so that peo ple can be em pow ered by know ing that there is such a thing as De ism and that they have a rea - son able, nat u ral and pow er ful al ter na tive to re vealed re li - gion, Athe ism and Ag nos ti cism in Deism. 106

107 Deism: A Revolution in You To or der ad di tional cop ies of this book visit: ism.com/deismbook or send $10.00 plus $3.95 ship ping to: World Un ion of De ists, Box 4052, Clearwater, FL

108 De ism is a nat u ral and ra tio nal bridge that unites our rea son to our be lief in God. It pro pels us from the false and de struc - tive an cient myths to a space-age be lief sys tem that is in line with our God-given rea son. This book, writ ten in a con cise and co gent style, in tro duces the reader to De ism, a way of life that is free of the old con flicts be tween rea son and re li gion. The re moval of these con flicts al lows us to en - joy and ap pre ci ate a much more pro found and sat is fy ing be lief in Na ture s God while help ing us to live a more pro duc tive and mean ing ful life. PRINT EDITION: $10.00 US / $12.00 CAN / 7.00 UK