Last month, after two ungodly and brutal physical attacks against Jews which killed and seriously wounded the victims, "No Hate - No Fear" demonstrations were held across the US with thousands of people in attendance. Islamic groups also sometimes use that phrase regarding attacks on Islam and Muslims.
Most Deists are familiar with the true contents of the "holy" books the "revealed" religions are based upon. All of them, without exception, promote religious violence against non-believers and those people outside of their group, and they are all inseparable regarding fear. Without fear, none of the man-made "revealed" religions would be able to exist, for it's a promise of avoidance of a cruel and violent god who will burn them in hell for eternity that attracts people to their ranks.
They all teach that God is to be feared. A strong case in point, and a foundational belief of all of the Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religions is found in the repulsive and ungodly Bible story of Abraham and of God commanding Abraham to kill his own son. The reason God gave Abraham his command is found in Genesis 22:12 which states God gave Abraham the command to kill his son just to see if Abraham would actually do it. When, as the Bible story goes, Abraham was about to kill his son Isaac, he was stopped by God or an angel, the story is not clear which. The Jewish clergyman who wrote this ungodly story then claims the intervening entity said to Abraham,
"And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me."
Since this disgusting anti-God and fear promoting story, which has reached into the 21st century and taken the lives of innocent children, is believed by all of the Abrahamic "revealed" religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and Baha'i, none of the followers of these religions has the right to demand "no fear".
Jesus, who, IF he really did exist as a man, was a religious/superstitious Jew who falsely believed the Hebrew Bible, what Christians call the Old Testament, was the Word of God. The fear promoted in the Hebrew Bible/OT comes through in Jesus many times. One strong example is found in Luke 12:5 which says that Jesus said,
"But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
In the Quran we find that same Abrahamic fear being promoted and tied to God. In the Quran at 8:12 we read:
"When thy Lord inspired the angels, (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger."
Regarding hate, Leviticus 19:17 states,
"Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him."
However, the following verse shows this command against hate is between Jews, as the next verse states,
"Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD."
This Jewish solidarity that does not apply to Gentiles is made obvious by Leviticus 25:44-46 which has God commanding the Jews not to own their fellow Jews as slaves, but to instead take all of their slaves from the Gentile people to own forever. Add to this all the cases in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in which God commands the Jews to commit genocide and rape against their neighbors, and it's obvious that hate is clearly a part of Judaism.
Christianity has Jesus actually instructing his followers that they cannot be his disciples if they don't hate their families and the life that God gave them. Luke 14:26 has Jesus teaching,
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
The World Union of Deists has a page up about this hate teaching of Jesus here.
The Islamic doctrine of Al-wala' wa-l-bara' is a doctrine which instructs Muslims to love God/Islam and to hate everything that is not Islamic. It is a central part of Islam and makes it, coupled with religious violence promoting teachings in the Quran, easy to see why there is so much Islamic religious violence in the world today.
Deism doesn't promote hate against anyone, and Deism does not promote fear in any way. A current case of a French teen girl who needs to be in hiding for expressing her ideas about Islam online is a great example of what Deism is not. The girl was attacked online for being gay. The exchange eventually went to her attackers' Islamic beliefs. She attacked the nonsense of Islam and soon started receiving thousands of death threats. Responding to criticism of Deism, Deists would only wish to discuss and debate the criticism of Deism in a free exchange of ideas, and would never resort to threats of violence. Deists take seriously the principles expressed by our fellow Deist Thomas Jefferson who said:
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
It was this Jeffersonian principle of following truth wherever it leads that caused the former leading Atheist, Antony Flew, to leave Atheism for Deism.
The world needs to be introduced to Deism on a large scale if we are to move ourselves out of Bronze Age thinking and free ourselves from the mental and spiritual shackles of the anti-God and irrational "revealed" religions and their manifestation of religious violence. With Deism we can build a future that is truly free of hate and fear-based superstition. As the great Deist Thomas Paine wrote, "We have it in our power to begin the world over again."
