In all my searching, which was at times very painful, because you get to a point when you feel the need to part ways with strongly entrenched beliefs and ideas, I have arrived at a very peaceful and happy place. I no longer believe in the bible god, since I have seen the evidence that this book is not from the Creator. But....I still believe there is a creator, I found Deism to be what best identifies with what I now believe, there are many people that believe this way, but have never heard of Deism. Many of the founding fathers of the US were Deists, like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine the author of "The Age of Reason" a great book, reading it was the final nail in the coffin, when it came to believing that the bible is from god, funny thing is he only used the bible itself to prove the bible was not the inspired word of god. If anyone is interested in finding out more about this you can go to www.deism.com. Below is a snipet of what Deists believe.
The antiquated practice of forming an idea of God based on purely past material experience, such as referring to God as "King", is also rejected by Deism. The extremely limited picture of God as the jealous and paranoid king of kings sitting on his throne upset that his subjects were going to reach "heaven" by building a brick tower is due to the limited vision which the Bible writers had of both the Creator and of the universe. This fear the Bible god had of the Tower of Babel is based on fear of humanities acquisition of knowledge. The Creator the Deist venerates invites all of us to learn as much as possible about absolutely everything, for this is the best way to learn about God.
Another problem with the idea of God as promoted by the revealed religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam is its depiction of God as a man. By limiting God to the status of a man, women are consciously and subconsciously relegated to a lesser standing in society. After all, if God is characterized as a man, then men are closer to God then women. Perhaps this accounts for the multiple instances of women bashing found throughout the various "holy books." By limiting the advancement of women through their subjugation to men, revealed religion has limited the advancement and progress of all of society. And a very sad element of this anti-progress mind-set, advanced by revealed religion, is that it claims God as its author.
DEISM REJECTS VIOLENCE
All religions claim they reject violence. History, of course, proves them wrong. From the grotesque horror stories of slaughter and rape at the alleged command of God found throughout the Old Testament, to the claimed words of Jesus regarding bringing not peace but a sword, to the blood soaked Inquisition through religiously approved contemporary wars, revealed religion goes happily hand in hand with violence and war.
Deism's rejection of divine revelation excludes it from falling into the same violence promoting business that the revealed religions are in. There are no written words from the Almighty that can be twisted to sanctify one human being killing another. This makes Deism less useful to the ambitions of the power-elites. Could this be why very few people are aware of Deism and of the Deistic influence of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution?
Nuclear realities have made the waging of war an unacceptable proposition. War was never justifiable, it only exposed man's mental limitations at being able to formulate a workable solution to a problem. However, in the nuclear age humanities ignorance can lead to the extermination of civilization and life itself on our planet. The shallow chauvinism of the various revealed religions take us all one step closer to that irreversible catastrophe. Deism, by its reliance on reason and rejection of violence, serves as a block to the apocalyptic nightmare that is so central to the major revealed religions.
