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Deism Can Unite People, But Can't Unite Religions

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Deism (the belief in The Supreme Intelligence/God based on reason and Nature) has the ability to unite people. It is the one religious/spiritual belief that can remove the forces of division that have brought, and which still bring, so much pain, suffering and misery to humanity. Deism's unrelenting promotion of our innate God-given reason and our innate God-given conscience is what makes Deism truly universal. Everyone has both innate reason and an innate conscience.

Humanity is naturally united. President John F. Kennedy did a great job of pointing this out in his speech on June 10, 1963 at American University. President Kennedy said:

"Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal."

Belief in the Abrahamic "revealed" religions overrides and conceals these vitally important, basic and natural unifying realities mentioned by President Kennedy by injecting falsehoods into the minds of billions of people, falsehoods such as one group of people being chosen by God "above all people that are upon the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6), or the command to spread Christianity to "all nations" and teaching them to follow all the commands Jesus allegedly commanded the apostles to follow (Matthew 28:18-20), which would include following the ungodly and cruel commands in the Hebrew Bible which Jesus mistakenly believed was the Word of God (Mark 7:1-13), or Islam's command found in the Quran at 47:4,

"Now when ye meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when ye have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That (is the ordinance)..."

One overriding falsehood that prevents the "revealed" religions from removing these harmful and religious violence promoting teachings and commands is the falsehood that the "holy" book of each "revealed" religion is the Word of God. This delusion makes it impossible for the violence producing and fear-based superstitions all of the "revealed" religions have from ever being removed from the "holy" scriptures. From the perspective of a revealed religionist, it is tantamount to people changing God's Word. This obstacle can only be removed by educating these people that none of the "holy" books are God's Word, and that the true Word of God is found in Nature and the Universe, which Thomas Paine beautifully expressed in The Age of Reason when he wrote:

"I believe it is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a Word of God can unite. The Creation speaks a universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God."

I recently watched an interview of Dakota Meyer. Meyer was a US Marine who fought in Afghanistan and who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is America's highest medal given to American military people for recognition of extraordinary acts of valor. During the action for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, one of the things he did was he killed a Taliban terrorist in hand-to-hand combat. In the interview he said he wonders why people can't put war and violence behind them. He said he reflects on his killing the Taliban terrorist and realizes the Taliban terrorist he killed had, just like he does, a life, a mother and father who loved and cared about him, probably had brothers and sister and children who loved and cared about him.

The reason, in the vast majority of cases, why people cannot yet put war and violence behind them is because of the "revealed" religions. In the case of Dakota Meyer and the Taliban terrorist, the Taliban terrorist had his brain polluted by Islam; in particular, Sunni Islam. That is why the Taliban demand women be covered from head to toe with burkas and why they believe girls and women should not receive an education and why they believe men have a God-given right to physically beat women (Quran 4:34). That is why they believe people who are not Sunni Muslims are guilty of blasphemy against God and against Islam and should be killed. The list goes on and on.

The vast majority of people around the world belong to a "revealed" religion, though, thankfully, there is a growing number of people who believe in God but are not associated with a "revealed" religion. (These people are frequently classified as nones, and they have a home in Deism, even though the majority of them have never heard of Deism.) A Pew Research Center survey in 2010 found that 84% of the world's population is "religiously affiliated" with a major religion. Deism offers Deists a way to connect with these people and to get them to apply their innate God-given reason to their "revealed" religion and to God. The way we can connect with them is our shared belief in God/The Supreme Intelligence, which all Deists have. Once they learn about Deism and that God gave them reason and not religion, a large number of them will leave their "revealed" religion for Deism. This will not only improve their lives, it will weaken the "revealed" religions they leave, which will weaken the ability of the "revealed" religions to start and spread religious violence, and at the same time it will strengthen Deism and freethought.

With God-given reason Deism dismantles all of the divisive dogmas of the "revealed" religions. This, in and of itself, opens the door to a united humanity and to a world with much less violence and no religious violence. Imagine what a wonderful world that will be!

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Bob Johnson is a paralegal and a freelance writer in Florida. He was raised Roman Catholic, but after reading Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason, he became a Deist. In 1993 he founded the World Union of Deists and in 1996 he launched the first web (more...)
 
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