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August 15, 2010

"Religious Moderate": is it even possible?

By Bob Johnson

"Revealed" religions have cause violence and division among humanity for thousands of years. Now it's time for a natural and reasonable religious philosophy to replace the "revealed" religions: Deism.

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We hear a lot these days about "religious moderates", particularly in regards to Islam. The label of "moderate" in regards to religions usually means someone who is not radical or extreme in their religious views. However, when we look at the big three "revealed" religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we see only an extremest could seriously endorse them.

Judaism requires that its followers take the extreme measure of turning their backs on their God-given reason in order to believe in a talking snake in the Garden of Eden, that God chose the Hebrew/Jewish people "above all people that are upon the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 7:6), that the Sun revolves around the Earth and that the Torah god made the Sun stop revolving around the Earth so Joshua and the Hebrews would have more time to slaughter their neighbors (Joshua 10:12-13), that Moses parted the Red Sea, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Christianity requires that its followers take the extreme measure of turning their backs on their God-given reason in order to believe all of the above plus that God made a teen-age Jewish girl pregnant with himself/the Son of God, that whoever does not believe this will burn in Hell for eternity, that Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead and that Christians will be able/are able to do these things plus "greater works" than what Jesus did (John 14:12-13), etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam.

Islam requires that its followers take the extreme measure of turning their backs on their God-given reason in order to believe in talking ants (Surah 27:18), that the Sun sets every day in a "muddy spring" (Surah 18:86), that God is an enemy to everyone who does not believe in Islam and that non-Islamic people are "miscreants" (Surah 2:98-99), etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam.

The common thread snaking its way through all three of these Abrahamic "revealed" religions is the demand of rejecting God-given reason and blindly accepting ancient man-made nonsense. This is not moderate at all and is in fact very unnaturally extreme and unnaturally radical.

The genius Albert Einstein said, "We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." A substantially new manner of thinking in religious beliefs would go light years in eradicating much of the unnatural man-made divisions humanity has infected itself with. Divisions that in a nuclear age can be irreversibly deadly. The first step in applying Einstein's instruction for a substantially new way of thinking which will fundamentally and profoundly improve our chances of survival and progress can be found in Deism. As Thomas Paine wrote, "There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found in any other system of religion."

One of Deism's powerful unifying factors is that all of the various "revealed" religions are Deistic in their first article of belief - a belief in God. To quote Thomas Paine again, "It is on this article . . . that the Deist builds his church, and here he rests. Whenever we step aside from this article, by mixing it with articles of human invention, we wander into a labyrinth of uncertainty and fable, and become exposed to every kind of imposition by pretenders to revelation."

Add to this the fact that an estimated 34 million people in America alone already hold Deistic beliefs, and we see that Deism's potential for real profound good is virtually unlimited.


Authors Bio:
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 site devoted to Deism, www.deism.com. He is listed in Who's Who in Hell and is the author of Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You and of An Answer to C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. He wrote the introduction to The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition and to Principles of Nature and also writes for Examiner.com and strike-the-root.com.

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