New Blog and Forum

Although the new web site is still being built, I have have already activated my new blog and community forum.

This blog has been transferred to my own servers, rather then being hosted here at blogger.com. You will need to change your RSS feed with the link available in the blog to receive new entries. Please click on the following link and add to your bookmarks for the new blog site:
http://blog.deismtoday.net/

The new community forum is set up and ready to go, albeit a bit barren at the moment. I'd like to invite everyone interested in Deism to come on over, register, and join in the discussions. It's going to be a race to see who will be the very first registrants on the new forum! Discussions will generally be limited to Deism and its promotion, plus there is a large area for general discussions as well. Enjoy our community of like-minded people! Please click on the following link to the forum, and bookmark so you can get back:
http://forum.deismtoday.net

To be continued at the new site. See you there!

One Deist Φ

New Deism Website Coming Soon

I am pleased to announce the creation of a new website for Deists! The site will eventually include information and reference material, my blog, and community forum.

I have already installed server-side software (Word Press) and database for the blog. It's uploaded and current and ready to go. Once I announce the new site I will close down my Blogger account.

Also installed is the community forum. I went with AEF which looks and feels great! Just putting together the finishing touches before making it public.

The website itself is completely lacking any substance. It just says "Under Construction" when browsed. I may just let the blog and forums "be" the site - I don't know yet, we shall see.

Admittedly I'm not real active on my blog, but it's the community forums I'm most excited about. Hopefully we will get a lot of members and tons of participation. An active community of Deists will be our biggest asset! These forums will be managed professionally and fairly, by admin and mods. 

Stay tuned. I should be announcing the new location for my blog and opening of the new forums very soon!

One Deist Φ

Thomas Paine Day

Happy Birthday Thomas Paine! (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809)

You helped shape nations, including our own, and your writings have inspired us for over 200 years.

Today we honor you!

So Now What?

It has been months since my last post to this blog. It's not that I don't want to add more. Nor is it that I don't have any further ideas to share. It's almost as if I kind of "got it out of my system" - like I ran a sprint instead of a marathon. But I don't want to be one of "those" bloggers. You know, they make one or two posts and that's it forever.

This eye opening conversion to Deism still consumes me. Almost every waking moment I draw comparisons to what is now, for me, and what was then. I see the inspirational billboards for a Christian church. I see the old shopping strips where three out of seven stores are actually a "church". (If still a Christian, I could never do the shopping strip store front church thing, by the way. And yes I understand that it's not the building, but the people who make the church. Whatever ... that's not a church to me.) The giant electric billboard-type sign outside another church flashing a well known Aesop quote as if it's biblical. The construction of a new church near an affluent part of town, with the biggest concrete cross in the state, I would think, complete with neon highlights. Jewish leaders running radio ads condemning the trouble in the middle east. The middle east fighting their perpetual wars in the name of Allah. (Seriously, is it so ingrained that you cannot even consider peace?!) The revealed religions continue to march on.

So now what for Deism? No question we need to share our story - we have so much to offer humanity. We have wisdom, we have peace, we have inspiration and hope and love. But how do we share these aspects with the world? This challenge is made more difficult because of a couple of our fundamental precepts - no dogma and no revealed texts. For instance I feel more wise and totally at peace with my belief in Deism. I feel more inspiration and hope and love then at any other point in my life. Not because of the untruths from man made religions of old, but because of the truths I have discovered thanks to Deism, science, books and the internet; and the likes of Paine, Jefferson and Johnson.

Perhaps what we should do in Deism is simply march on as well. Let's share our principles and history every chance we get.

Letter To My Mother

Dear Mom,
First, I want you to know how much I love you and Dad. In fact, my love for you has grown tremendously over the years. I'm in my forties now, but because I've always lived so far away since becoming an adult, I miss you more then ever.

I admire you, Mom. You have taught me more then you will ever know. You brought me up in a strong Christian home, even though this faith was rejected by much of the extended family. Your belief in Christianity and its principles surely gave us a foundation that others only wished they had. Your intense belief in the Bible motivated you to do decades of research into it, even to the point of publishing a book on your findings and beliefs. All of this while battling personal obstacles that might have crushed anyone else. You, Mom, are an amazing woman.

I must tell you, Mom, that one of the most powerful things you taught me, whether it was intentional or not, was to think on my own - to question things and come to my own conclusions. This, I feel, was your greatest lesson for me.

It probably won't come as a tremendous shock to you, but may disappoint you - I no longer consider myself a Christian. I too have done a lot of research, and believe that all of the revealed religions, such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and the like, are no more then man made belief systems made up of fantasies, superstitions, folk lore, myths and fables. I also believe that these religions were created, at best, as guides for human existence, but more probably to control or favor different groups of people. I believe these faiths have been both a tremendous blessing, and terrible curse to humanity.

I want to point out that I absolutely, positively, unequivocally believe in God, the single supreme creator of the Universe. I believe this through the observance of Nature and the divine gift of Reason. I want to tell you, Mom, that I'm a Deist.

Please know that just because I've given up the dogma of Christianity, it in no way means that I relinquish its values. In fact, as a Deist I hold myself to an even higher standard. Through the God given gift of Reason I now understand that it benefits all of us to live a good life, to obey the laws of humanity (such as the Golden Rule; be honest and don't lie, cheat or steal; freedom, dignity and equality for everyone; etc.) and to give back and support others in these endeavors.

Mom, I'm trying to think of what you may be thinking. That I'm a heretic? Well, as a Christian I was heretical to many other faiths. Maybe that I'll miss the rapture, won't go to heaven, or will go to hell? If these concepts were real, I'd be concerned too - but they are a man made fabrication. Maybe that I'll now lead a sinful life or that the whole world will fall into chaos and anarchy if they were to convert to Deism? No way! The whole idea of Deism is to believe in God based on Nature and Reason, and to live a good life based on the laws of humanity. If everyone believed these principles, the world would certainly be a better place.

I give thanks to God every day, Mom - for you and Dad and our family; for my wife, child and grandchildren; for the challenges and the blessings that befall me; and especially for this life that I live, as humble as it may be. God did good in creating our Universe, and I'm happy to be a tiny little part of it.

I love you Mom.
Your son,
One Deist Φ

Jerome Bixby's "The Man From Earth"

So what if this movie was not at the top of the box office charts; and maybe it is a low-budget snoozer. You simply must see this movie!

From the producers:

On a cold night in a remote cabin Professor John Oldman gathers his most trusted colleagues for an extraordinary announcement: He is an immortal who has migrated through 140 centuries of evolution and must now move on. Is Oldman truly Cro-Magnon or simply insane? Now one man will force these scientists and scholars to confront their own notions of history religion and humanity all leading to a final revelation that may shatter their world forever.

It is a very well written and wonderfully acted story that may as well have been written by a team of ... us! Now let's see; if 100 Deists got together to create a movie, what would they want to tell the world? Jerome Bixby did us all a huge favor in writing this. His final work, by the way, finished by dictation from his deathbed.

One Deist Φ

Extra Points for Originality

Although there will surely be other postings in this blog, there is no other subject that betrays my trust in "revealed" religions more than the one I'm going to cover here. My search for a religion or faith to apply in my personal life ends now. The topic discussed here puts the final nail in the coffin of "revealed" religions and guides me to the purest form of belief in God - Deism.

My quest for faith has always centered primarily on originality. I always felt that if I could just find the source for all religions - that is, the root of all religions which eventually branched out into the faiths of the world - then surely it would be the one true divine belief system. Only then could I have a deeply personal relationship with God, and apply His principles to my life. The problem is that every time I discovered a great original source in my personal quest, eventually there would be another older source to take its place; or there would be a parallel belief system - as if two faiths borrowed from each other - not original at all. And now I believe there are completely non-divine sources for them all.

It appears that there is general agreement by scholars and theologians that Moses did not write much of the Pentateuch, (the Torah, or first five books of the Old Testament) traditionally attributed to him. Reviewing a website that defends the Bible, they say a standard argument against Moses writing these books is because there was no writing in his day. After all, we are referring to the late Bronze Age to early Iron Age. The website goes on to prove there was writing long before Moses, pointing out the Ebla Tablets and the Code of Hammurabi [alt link]. The former dates to about 2250 BCE, and the latter dates to about 1750 BCE, while Moses lived somewhere in the 14th to 13th century BCE. Both the Ebla Tablets and the Code of Hammurabi are written in cuneiform script.

The Code of Hammurabi was produced on a basalt stele by the sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi. It is a column listing 282 crimes, punishments, and dispute settlements for the people of his kingdom. Hammurabi believed that he was chosen by the gods to deliver these laws to his people. That sounds familiar. Also familiar, the repetitive nature of punishments in these laws, which specifically mandate an "eye for an eye", "tooth for a tooth", "limb for a limb", and "life for a life".

The Ebla Tablets (first made public in 1981) are even more revealing, yet they are much older. There are over 15,000 tablets describing the life and times of Ebla, a city-state in what is now modern day Syria. Most of the tablets are written in Sumerian, but about 20% were written in a previously unknown language called Eblaite. Part of this collection includes extremely detailed vocabulary lists, which allows for translation between the two languages. The Eblaite language holds amazing similarities to references in the Bible, including personal names, cultural events, and city names from the region, like no other language. These include Adam, Eve, Jabal, Abraham, Ishma-el, Esau, Mika-el, Saul, David, Ashtaroth, Sinai, Jerusalem, Sodom, and Gomorrah. Also, there have been about three creation hymns found in the tablets, all of which follow the same theme and may sound vaguely familiar:

Lord of heaven and earth:
the earth was not, you created it,
the light of day was not, you created it,
the morning light you had not [yet] made exist.

Not only do these tablets predate Moses, but Abraham too! Man has certainly been on this path of discovery for God, for a relationship with Him, and for spiritual fulfillment, a very long time. I believe man took a wrong turn early on, and the rest just stayed the course, fine tuning religions to uplift only themselves and their people. What selfishness - how ungodly!

I believe God's presence has always been directly in front of us, but we haven't been able to see the forest for the trees. Step back just a bit - stop chopping down the trees for the texts of man-made religions - you will see the glorious nature of God, not only in seeing the forest, but the Earth and beyond. Remember, it is only you and I who are even capable of contemplating such notions. Only God could have created the opportunity for humans to have this power. Such is the originality of God!

One Deist Φ

No Apology Needed

Question: How many apologists does it take to rationalize the "revealed" religions?
Answer: All of them! (And more if you got 'em!)

Why would so many people through the ages believe a holy text that needs explanation and excuses right from the start? Maybe it wasn't - isn't - so perfect and holy after all. Wouldn't God know how to do it right in the first place?!

It's like preaching "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" was real. Then, when someone challenges the new faith, that reindeer can't really fly, you either slaughter the sinful heretic or explain in the most pious way that reindeer do fly in spirit. They must believe in Rudolph and the unerring holy texts which have been dutifully transcribed, word for word, by his eight stag-only disciples, to be saved in the afterlife. (Rudolph was a humble and wise, yet illiterate sage. In fact, Rudolph used to hang out in the biggest herds, boasting just how wise he was, and that humility was his strongest suit!) So you tearfully beg the doubter to join the Reindeerists, lest he be lost to eternal damnation. Oh, you also explain he must never eat clover or fir, but it is mandatory to wear the Reindeerist undies - called The Garment - which itch like crazy! Well, at least the hats are fun. I'll be on my way to Heaven now, thank you very much! Come on people! Sheesh!

Thank God for Deism! The beauty of His text lies open before us. God's holy book, the Creation, can never be adulterated by man; and it is absolutely perfect! God and His Creation has no precedent nor equal; it is everything, and we are in it. We each can find His words in our own way, whether the delicate beauty and smell of a flower, or the grandeur of a mountain. In an intricate latticework of a microscopic specimen, or seeing a star birth through a powerful telescope. We are surrounded by God's word and work! Apologists need not apply.

We are living within the work of God, and the coolest part is that
only we humans have the capability to acknowledge that fact!!

One Deist Φ

You and I in the Grand Scheme of Things

Reviewing a previous post, "God's Awesome Power", reminded me of an internal concept I've had of our place in the Universe. In that post I gave you some very elementary statistics about our Universe, both near and far, yet the numbers are almost incomprehensible.

For instance, our tiny corner of the Universe - the Milky Way galaxy - is 100,000 light years across. At six trillion miles per light year, that equates to 600,000,000,000,000,000 miles in diameter, which is 600 quadrillion miles. It's important to note that this number is tiny in comparison to the Universe - infinitesimally small. Then we can zoom in to our solar system within the galaxy, and then our planet within the solar system, and finally to each of our little plots on the planet. Now, I don't know about you, but those kind of figures really make me feel small - not insignificant, but small.

It makes me realize how unimaginably great God is - truly, ineffably grand. I believe God exists, not in spite of this vastness, but because of it. I don't resent my smallness in the Universe, I am inspired by it. In no greater way do I believe the Universe could exist, except by God.

I don't believe any human has ever spoken to God, as this would be paramount to communication greater then the Universe. I don't believe any human has seen God, as this would be paramount to vision greater then the Universe. I don't believe I can comprehend God, nor can anyone else, but I can certainly recognize His work.

One Deist Φ

Pick a Prophet, Follow a Faith

I have come to the conclusion that the success of any given "revealed" religion is merely a popularity contest. It's whatever is in vogue or fashionable for a given period of time in human history. Problem is, we humans have always taken our beliefs so seriously - so fervently - that we often massacre anyone who doesn't follow the fashion.

No question there has been tremendous sincerity in our various religions. Every sect believes their religion is the only true and righteous way, and they want to make sure you and I are a part of it. Their beliefs are the only way to bring good fortune, live a holy life, and be saved in the afterlife.

Our perception of God has dramatically changed throughout history. No longer do we think Emperors and Pharaohs are God. Few if any people still believe a volcano, the sun, or an animal is God. No longer do we make human sacrifices to the Gods as some cultures did. But I'm certain the people who once believed these things knew they were being Holy and doing the right thing. They were simply living in the culture of their time - these things were in vogue. Would we consider them Holy now? Would we think they were (or are) heaven-bound? Well, eventually someone comes along and says, "Hold on folks. You have it all wrong."

Here's a not so little list I unashamedly borrowed from Wikipedia. It shows many of the religions throughout history and who founded them. (Please don't hold it against me if there are issues with the data. It's purpose is only to demonstrate an idea for this post.)

Prophet or Founder	Religion or Belief	Era
Akhenaten	Atenism	~1300 BCE
Zoroaster	Zoroastrianism	~1200 BCE
Moses	Judaism	~1200 BCE
Numa Pompilius	Codified and organized Roman religion	717-673BCE
Laozi	Taoism	~600 BCE
Siddhārtha Gautama	Buddhism	563-483BCE
Confucius	Confucianism	551-479BCE
Pythagoras	Pythagoreanism	520 BCE
Mahavira	Jainism	~500 BCE
Mozi	Mohism	470-390BCE
Leucippus	Atomism	440 BCE
Plato	Platonic Realism	427-347BCE
Epicurus	Epicureanism	307 BCE
Zeno of Citium	Stoicism	333-264BCE
Patanjali	Raja Yoga	~100 BCE
Jesus of Nazareth	Early Christianity	6BCE-27 CE
Paul of Tarsus	Pauline Christianity	~50 CE
Simon Peter	Petrine Christianity	~50 CE
Judah haNasi	Talmudic Judaism	~100 CE
Nagarjuna	Madhyamaka	150 - 250
Plotinus	Neoplatonism	205 - 270
Marcion of Sinope	Marcionism	110 - 160
Mani	Manichaeism	210 - 276
Arius	Arianism	250 - 336
Nestorius	Nestorianism	386 - 451
Eutyches	Monophysitism	380 - 456
Mazdak	Mazdakism	~500 CE
Bodhidharma	Zen	~500 CE
Muhammad	Islam	570 - 632
Songtsän Gampo	Tibetan Buddhism	~600 CE
Padmasambhava	Nyingma	~700 CE
Adi Shankara	Advaita Vedanta	~800 CE
Kūkai	Shingon	~800 CE
Ad-Darazi	Druze	~1000 CE
Basava	Lingayatism	~1100 CE
Madhvacharya	Dvaita	1238 - 1317
Ramananda	Sant Mat Vaishnavism	~1400 CE
Kabir	Kabir Panth, see Sikhism	1440 - 1518
Srimanta Sankardeva	Mahapuruxiya Dharma	1449 - 1568
Guru Nanak Dev	Sikhism	1469 - 1539
Baba Sri Chand	Udasi	1494 - 1629
Vallabha Acharya	Shuddhadvaita	1479 - 1531
Martin Luther	Lutheranism	1483 - 1546
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu	Achintya Bheda Abheda	1486 - 1534
Henry VIII of England	Anglicanism	1491 - 1547
Conrad Grebel	Swiss Brethren, Anabaptism	1498 - 1526
John Calvin	Calvinism	1509 - 1564
Akbar the Great	Din-i-Ilahi	1542 - 1605
George Fox	Religious Society of Friends	1624 - 1691
Raja Ram Mohan Roy	Brahmo Samaj	1772 - 1833
Ghanshyam Pande	Swaminarayan	1781 - 1830
Nakayama Miki	Tenrikyo	1798 - 1887
Allan Kardec	Spiritism	1804 - 1869
Joseph Smith, Jr.	Latter Day Saints	1805 - 1844
Jamgon Kongtrul	Rime movement	1813 - 1899
Báb	Bábí Faith	1819 - 1850
Bahá'u'lláh	Bahá'í Faith	1817 - 1892
Ellen G. White	Seventh-day Adventist Church	1827 - 1915
Madame Blavatsky	Theosophy	1831 - 1891
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad	Ahmadiyya	1835 - 1908
Swami Vivekananda	Ramakrishna Mission	1863 - 1902
Aleister Crowley	Thelema	1875 - 1947
Gerald Gardner	Wicca	1884 - 1964
Mary Baker Eddy	Christian Science	1821 - 1910
Swami Dayananda Saraswati	Arya Samaj	1824 - 1883
Guido von List	Armanism (Germanic Mysticism)	1848 - 1919
Sri Aurobindo	Integral Yoga	1872 - 1950
Charles Fox Parham	Pentecostalism	1873 - 1929
Ngô Văn Chiêu	Cao Dai	1878 - 1926
Ernest Holmes	Religious Science	1887 - 1960
Wallace Fard Muhammad	Nation of Islam	1891
Paramahansa Yogananda	Self-Realization Fellowship	1893 - 1952
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada	International Society for Krishna Consciousness	1896 - 1977
Zélio Fernandino de Moraes	Umbanda	~1900 CE
L. Ron Hubbard	Church of Scientology	1911 - 1986
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi	Transcendental Meditation	1917 - 2008
Sun Myung Moon	Unification Church	1920
Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar	Ananda Marga	1921 - 1990
Mestre Gabriel	União do Vegetal	1922 - 1971
Nirmala Srivastava	Sahaja Yoga	1923
Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson	Ásatrú	1924 - 1993
Sathya Sai Baba	Sathya Sai Organization	1926
Anton Szandor LaVey	Church of Satan	1930 - 1997
Osho	Osho movement	1931 - 1990
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar	Art of Living Foundation	1956
Vissarion	Church of the Last Testament	1961
Tamara Siuda	Kemetic Orthodoxy	1969

Here's the point: Not a single faith on this list was founded by God. Not a single one. Every religion and sect was formed by - you guessed it - man! Sure, these men may say they are chosen; they may say they are a prophet; they may say God spoke to them; they may even say they are God. Wow, man sure says a lot! Imagine the number of people who have believed these delusions and fantasies throughout history, even to the death.

Well, I'm not God, nor prophet, nor chosen - I'm just a man. Using God's gift of Reason, this I say:Believe in God. Have faith in yourself.

One Deist Φ