In 2018 Donald Trump, in order to win support from billionaires and Jewish Zionists Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, as well as support from millions of bible-believing Christian Zionists, recognized the illegally and brutally Israeli-occupied city of Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital. In December of 2018 Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison also recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump's recognition of Jerusalem included all of Jerusalem, while Australia only recognized West Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Also, Trump had the US Embassy moved from Israel's legal capital, Tel Aviv, to occupied Jerusalem, but Australia did not move its embassy from Tel Aviv.
Today Australia's foreign minister announced that Australia has reversed the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and is now recognizing Tel Aviv as Israel's capital.
The ancient "revealed" religion of Judaism is today's driving force behind Israeli demands that all of Jerusalem belongs to Israel. This is seen in the statement made by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid who said, in response to Australia now recognizing Tel Aviv and not Jerusalem as Israel's capital, "Jerusalem is the eternal undivided capital of Israel and nothing will change that."
The Jewish state of Israel has been making the false claim that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital since 1949. With the growing power and wealth of Israel's lobby in the US, coupled with billions of Gentile people believing the collection of writings by ancient Jewish clergymen known as the Bible is the Word of God, US politicians from both parties clamor to win favor with Israel. A pathetic, foolish and dangerous example of this is seen in many US state legislatures passing resolutions such as this one from the South Carolina legislature. It states in part:
Whereas, Israel has been granted her lands under and through the oldest recorded deed as reported in the Old Testament, a tome of scripture held sacred and reverenced by Jew and Christian, alike, as the acts and words of God; and Whereas, as the Grantor of said lands, God stated to the Jewish people in the Old Testament; in Leviticus, Chapter 20, Verse 24: "Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey";
Whenever Israel is criticized for its cruel, illegal and expanding occupation of Palestinian land, Israel relies on the ancient myths of the Bible for justification of its religious terrorism and violence of its occupation. This was seen in 2016 when Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon spoke at the UN. He held up a copy of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament and said:
We do have biblical rights to the land. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, or Jew - you read the Bible, you read the stories of the Bible - it's all there. This is our deed to the land. That's biblical.
This statement shows why it's very important for Deists and all freethinkers to do all we can to promote our innate God-given reason and Deism. Danon's words make clear that ancient religious superstitions and myths are causing very real religious violence, suffering and death right here and now in the 21st century. Deism can help humanity evolve out of these ancient mindsets inflicted on us by the ancient "revealed" religions. The "revealed" religions all portray The Supreme Intelligence/God as cruel and genocidal. This is evident not only in Judaism, but in Christianity and Islam as well. For example, Luke 12:5 has Jesus teaching people to fear God because God can not only kill our body, God can burn us in hell for eternity. What an insult to The Supreme Intelligence/God! The Quran paints The Supreme Intelligence/God with the same ungodly, cruel and repulsive brush.
We need to recognize the truth to Thomas Paine's statement, "Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man." We should all embrace Paine's position on cruelty, which he expressed when he wrote in The Age of Reason, "I detest everything that is cruel." In addition to recognizing and embracing these Deistic anti-cruelty standards, we need to follow-up with action by advancing reason and Deism to the very best of our ability! Doing so would be in line with this advice and warning from Albert Einstein:
The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking that we have done so far, has created problems we cannot solve at the level of thinking at which we created them.... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.
