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December 4, 2020

Truth is Priceless, So We Should Act Accordingly

By Bob Johnson

As the John Lennon song says, "Gimme some truth". The first step in discovering what is true is to detect what is false, so you can eliminate the falsehoods. Reason is the tool we use to do this. Deism sees innate reason as God-given. Yet, the religions, which claim to represent God, reject God-given reason. This causes very real suffering in the world.

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25/365: A post-truth world, full of alternative facts?
25/365: A post-truth world, full of alternative facts?
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One definition of truth is, "that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality."

A definition of true is, "being in accordance with the actual state or conditions; conforming to reality or fact; not false: a true story. real; genuine; authentic: true gold; true feelings. sincere; not deceitful: a true interest in someone's welfare."

Our Creator has given us the means of finding the truth. That means of finding the truth is our innate God-given reason. Through critical thinking we apply our reason to everything we encounter in life. It was by doing this that humanity was able to make its way out of caves and head to the stars! There is no other way to make progress except by using our innate reason to distinguish between fact and fiction, between myth and reality and then to take action based on the discovered truths and facts.

Ironically, the last place in human society to oppose and reject God-given reason is religion, which allegedly teaches people about God, the giver of the reason which they reject. The "revealed" religions all, without exception, attack reason and replace it among their members with a thing the clergy call faith. The Deist Thomas Jefferson did a wonderful job in pointing this out when he wrote: "... man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such person, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck."

Thomas Jefferson's friend and fellow Deist, Thomas Paine, let us all know that it is wrong to dishonor truth by accepting by our silence falsehoods. In The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition Paine wrote, "It is an affront to truth to treat falsehoods with complaisance."

Not only is it morally wrong to treat falsehoods with complaisance, doing so has horrific consequences. It causes deaths of innocent and helpless children whose Christian parents believe the nonsense in the Christian Bible regarding faith healing. It causes religious terrorism by the Jewish state of Israel via its expanding and brutal occupation of Palestinian land. It causes Islamic terrorism and its ungodly murders and mass killings.

Just as being silent about the ungodly and foolish teachings of the "revealed" religions has very negative consequences, so speaking out about them, and shining the light of our God-given innate reason on them, has very positive consequences. Not only does it have very positive consequences, as our "Why Deism?" section of deism.com shows, it is the only way to permanently put an end to the negative realities of believing irrational and harmful religious teachings. Once we achieve the Deism goal of reaching a large enough number of people with Deism and the knowledge that our Creator gave us reason and not religion, the ungodly consequences of the "revealed" religions will be over.



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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