Okay...let's see...where was I...

Good post, Tal.

Frank: just out of curiosity, if you do think that there is something superior to humanity...what do you think it might be? I've given my hypothesis; what's yours?

As I said earlier...I consider homo sapiens to be a fairly primative species...rather recently down out of the trees. It would be amazing to me if there are not species much, much, much, much, much more evolved in terms of distance from "primative."

Perhaps evolution along branches that have not even budded yet on Earth is the superior to humanity that I imagine.

Idle speculation, in any case, on my part.

Frank wrote:


Interesting. Is there any reason why concept of a "God" is lower on your probability string than another race? I'll admit that it makes more scientific sense than the "God" option, but most people usually lean towards a "god", and I'm curious as to why you haven't.

Thanks for the response.

It is not lower on my probability string.

There may be a god. There may be superior "non-god" beings.

Who knows?

In any case, I certainly do not rule out the possibility of a god....even a creator god. I doubt very seriously that any god that might exist, however, would conduct itself in any way like the thing from the Bible.

As I have pointed out often...the worst insult to any god that exists....is supposing it is even near to being accurately descibed in the Bible.

Ooops...one last thought.

My estimate of the chances of ever finding out if there is a god....is damn near zero. If there is a god....and the god wanted us to know it exists....WE WOULD KNOW WITHOUT QUESTION.

My estimate of the chances of ever finding out if there are more advanced species is that they are quite good. Provided we do not destroy ourselves before we gain the technology necessary for deep space exploration.

Frank wrote:


Heh. Your top comment actually gives me some insight into your philosophy...I don't think you've put it that succinctly before. Well done.




My point wasn't that you don't think there could be a "God", but rather that, when asked what you thought there was as a "superior being", you went the route of (more)intelligent life elsewhere in the universe...instead of the "God" route.

My question was why you didn't answer something like "if there's a "higher being", it's might be a God like _____", instead of "Perhaps evolution along branches that have not even budded yet on Earth is the superior to humanity that I imagine", thereby indicating that you thought the "extra-terrestrial" option (for lack of a better phrase) was more likely.

I hope that clarifies what was probably a very muddled question.

Frank
Frank, if I had to choose an alternative to atheism, it probably would be Deism---except I doubt I would acceptance the existence of a God. I would be in good company. ---BBB

Deism is a belief in God based on reason and nature. More specifically, it is a belief in God that created the universe and set it in motion to run by natural processes (laws), and is based on the observation of orderly nature (universe) and human reason (speculation), rather than on holy books. Generally, it's a rational belief in God without accepting the creeds of any particular traditional religion.

Deism is a philosophy that can be a thinking person's religion. It has the attractive features of:

Nature as revelation to God is universal without limits of language, location, or time.

Encouraging maximum use of science and individualistic rational thinking.

Affording personal freedom to seek spirituality and meaning.

Providing a fellowship for discussion and support.

Having no authoritarian creeds, rituals, or tithes.
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Deism has its roots as far back as when people first instinctively pondered God as creator of the universe. It has flourished historically with support from Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Italian and English scientists such as Galileo and Newton, English and French Enlightenment writers such as Hume and Voltaire, American Founding Fathers such as Jefferson and Franklin, and modern scientists such as Einstein, but most consider Thomas Paine's The Age Of Reason as the definitive Deistic writing.
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"The Creation speaketh a universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God."
--- Thomas Paine

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye."
--- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means given us knowledge which we can attain by them."
--- Galileo Galilei

"Life becomes religious whenever we make it so: when some new light is seen, when some deeper appreciation is felt, when some larger outlook is gained, when some nobler purpose is formed, when some task is well done."
--- Sophia Lyon Fahs

More on Deism and Pantheism
Deism?-What if God Made the World and Then Left it Alone?

Deists hold a view of God very much like the Christian view, except they don't think God performs miracles?-ever. They agree that God made the world, but He just lets it run on natural principles. He oversees human history, but He doesn't intervene. They might compare God to a watchmaker who made the watch, wound it up, and then left it alone to run down.

Springing out of the eighteenth-century enlightenment, deists put reason above revelation (which is a miracle). Some famous deists include Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson used his deistic views to cut all of the miracles from the Bible. His Gospel of John ends in chapter 19 with the words, "Now, in the place where He was crucified, there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never a man yet laid. There they laid Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed."3 Everything after that (John 20-21) is about the Resurrection.

What Do Deists Believe About God?

Deists believe almost everything that a theist does about God, except that they don't believe in miracles. They believe He is beyond the world, personal, all-good, all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing. They even pray to Him. However, they believe that God never specially intervenes in the world to help mankind. Since this also means that Jesus was not God (that would be a miracle), there is no reason for them to believe that God is a Trinity. The idea of three Persons in one nature (the Trinity) is to them just bad math. Because judgment would be an intervention of God in human affairs, some deists are universalists, claiming that no one will be judged.

What Do Deists Believe About the World?

Like theists, deists think the world was created by God and that we can know something about God by looking at the world. In fact, they say that the world is God's only revelation. He has given us reason so that we might understand Him through the things He has made.

What Do Deists Believe About Evil?

Deists agree that man's actions are the source of evil. Most deists recognize an evil principle at work within man. Some blame evil on the abuse or neglect of using reason to rule one's life. For most deists, then, man will face either reward or judgment in the afterlife.

What Do Deists Believe About Values?

They hold that all moral laws are grounded in nature; however, since reason is the only means of knowing moral laws, there is disagreement as to what laws are binding and how universal they are. Some recognize the human desire for happiness as the single moral principle which guides all actions. All specific moral laws would then be applied differently in different circumstances as reason dictates.

How Should We Respond to Deism?

Deism is inconsistent on its most basic premise. Deists believe in the biggest miracle of all (Creation) but reject what they consider to be all the little miracles. If God was good enough and powerful enough to create the world, isn't it reasonable to assume that He could and would take care of it too? If He can make something out of nothing, then He can certainly make something out of something; as for example, Jesus made wine out of water. Unlike the seventeenth-century Enlightenment thinkers, scientists today do not consider natural laws to be universal or absolute. They describe what we see in nature, but they do not dictate what ought to be.

Pantheism?-What if the World is God?

Eastern religions have long been the seat of pantheistic thought, but this philosophy is now coming to the West through the New Age movement in the form of yoga, meditation, macrobiotic diets, and channeling. The central focus of pantheism is that all is God and God is all. In addition to Hinduism, Taoism, and some forms of Buddhism, pantheism is also the view of Western religions such as Christian Science, Unity, Scientology, and Theosophy. Even some early Greek philosophers were pantheistic, as were later European thinkers like G.W.F. Hegel and Benedict de Spinoza. This worldview has recently been popularized in the Star Wars films.

What Do Pantheists Believe About God?

God, to a pantheist, is the absolute being that unites all things. Some say that God is simply above multiplicity, others that He manifests Himself in many forms, and still others that He is a force which permeates all things. However, they agree that He is an it, not a person. Also, it is so completely different from anything we know that we cannot know anything about it. So reason is of no benefit in understanding ultimate reality. One Hindu Scripture says,

Him [Brahman] the eye does not see, nor the tongue express, nor the mind grasp. Him we neither know nor are able to teach. Different is he from the known, and... from the unknown.

He truly knows Brahman who knows him as beyond knowledge; he who thinks he knows, knows not. The ignorant think that Brahman is known, but the wise know him to be beyond knowledge.4

The condition for coming to know anything about God (or the Tao) is to realize that truth is found in contradictions (in Taoism, this is called the Tao). So one must meditate to empty the mind of reason and then contemplate such questions as, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" These questions, which have no answer except the question itself, are designed to open the mind to the realization that atman (the world, multiplicity, evil, illusion) is Brahman (God, unity, good, reality). Hence, God is all and all is God. Man exists to realize that he too is God.

Though not known by reason, the essence of God is that He is mind. Hence, there can be no material existence, because mind is all. (What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind.) As D.T. Suzuki put it, "This Nature [i.e., man's spiritual nature] is the Mind, and the Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Way, and the Way is Zen."5 Likewise, the third-century A.D. philosopher Plotinus said that the first emanation from the Absolute One was Nous (Latin for mind), wherein God thinks about Himself and all multiplicity flows from there.

What Do Pantheists Believe About the World?

The world was not created by God, but eternally emanates from Him. Theists say that God created from nothing (ex nihilo), but pantheists say that God brings forth the world from Himself (ex Deo). Of course, some pantheists (such as most Hindus and Mary Baker Eddy) say that the world does not really exist at all. It is illusion (maya). In order to overcome the illusion of matter, pain, and evil, we must learn to believe that all is God, including ourselves, and the illusion will have no grip on us.

Because God is not beyond the world but in it, there can be no miracles in the sense of supernatural events. There can be supernormal events, though, such as levitation, prophecy through channeling, healings, and ability to resist pain (like walking on hot coals). These things are not done by any power outside the universe, however. They are accomplished by people realizing their divine potential and using the divine power all around them.

What Do Pantheists Believe About Evil?

"Here also is found... the cardinal point in Christian Science, that matter and evil (including sin, disease, death) are unreal."6 That is the consensus of pantheism. If God is all, and God is good, then anything evil must not really exist. After all, if it existed, it would be God. On a higher level, however, God is beyond good and evil. Those are rational opposites that cannot exist in the Absolute One. Many of the images for God in Hinduism are ugly and evil to demonstrate that truth. The goddess Kali the Destroyer is also the symbol of motherhood. The truth of her being is that she is both kind and cruel and, at the same time, neither kind nor cruel. God is beyond good and evil.

What Do Pantheists Believe About Values?

Pantheist writings are filled with moral appeals to goodness and self-sacrifice. However, these only apply to the lower levels of spiritual attainment. Once an initiate moves beyond these levels, his goal is to achieve union with God and "he has no further concern with moral laws."7 If he is to be like God, then he too must be beyond good and evil. Ethical conduct is a means for spiritual growth. There is no absolute basis for morality.

The following is a typical statement about pantheistic values:

...Every action [meaning any kind of action], under certain circumstances and for certain people, may be a stepping-stone to spiritual growth, if it is done in a spirit of detachment. All good and evil are relative to the individual point of growth.... But, in the highest sense, there can be neither good nor evil.8

How Should We Respond to Pantheism?

Pantheism requires absolute devotion of its followers and it provides an overall view of all reality. Also it rightly stresses the fact that we cannot place the restrictions of our limited language on God. However, the basic claim of pantheism is self-defeating.

For example, the claim that reason does not apply to ultimate reality is also self-defeating. The statement, "Reason can tell us nothing about God," is either a reasonable statement (meaning it is either true or false, for that is the essence of all logic) or it is not. On the face of it, it appears to be a reasonable statement that reason gives us no information about God?-except that it just did.

It just told us that we can't use reason. So we have to use reason to deny the use of reason, which makes logic an inescapable reality. If the pantheist avoids this by saying that it was not a reasonable statement, then we have no reason to believe it. It is simply gibberish on the order of a two-year-old's singsong.

Further, pantheists believe that there is one absolute, unchanging reality (God). They also believe that we can come to realize that we are God. However, if I come to realize something, then I have changed. But God cannot change. Therefore, anyone who "comes to realize that he is God" isn't! The unchanging God always knew that He is God.

Also, we must ask why the illusion of matter seems so real to us. If life in the material world is a dream of our own creation, why are we all having such a bad dream? Why are physical relations still needed to produce children? Why do devout Christian Scientists, who deny the reality of matter and renounce pain, still suffer and die in childbirth? (The childbirth sanitarium in Los Angeles was closed by the health department because of the number of deaths that occurred there.) Even devout pantheists who have supposedly mastered life in the world still live with physical limitations like eating, or moving from here to there. Mark Twain pointed out this dissonance of proverb and practice in his treatise on Christian Science:

"Nothing exists but Mind?"

"Nothing," she answered. "All else is substanceless, all else is imaginary."

I gave her an imaginary check, and now she is suing me for substantial dollars. It looks inconsistent.9

The lack of moral foundation in pantheism is quite unsatisfying. It not only leaves one with no rule to guide his actions, but actually promotes cruelty in the name of spiritual expansion. This is seen quite graphically in the traditional lack of social concern in India. If people suffer because of their karma (the law of cause and effect that determines destiny, not to be confused with moral guilt), then to help that individual would be working against God. It would stop him from working off his own karmic debt, and it would show that I am still attached to the world rather than indifferent to it. Hence, it is better to ignore all suffering than do anything to alleviate it. Action beyond good and evil equates evil with goodness.

Footnotes:

3. Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Bible, ed. by Douglas Lurton (New York: Wilfred Funck, 1943), p. 132.
4. "Kena," The Upanishads: Breath of Eternal, trans. by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester (New York: Mentor Books, 1957), pp. 30-31.
5. D.T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism, ed. by William Barrett (Garden City, NJ.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), p. 88.
6. Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings (Boston: Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy, 1924), p. 27.
7. Swami Prabhavananda, The Spiritual Heritage of India (Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1963), p. 65.
8. Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, "Appendix II: The Gita and War," in Bhagavad Gita (Bergerfleld, N.J.: The New American Library, Inc., 1972), p. 140.
9. Mark Twain, Christian Science (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, n.d.), p. 38.

America's Most Famous Deists
America's Most Famous Deists

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
-George Washington

"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels."
-The Rev. Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister and historian (lamented in an 1831 sermon)

Founding Father Quotes You Won't Hear on the 700 Club

Ex-Judge Moore felt that keeping a monument of the 10 Commandments in a courthouse was appropriate because he felt it was the foundation of American law. He obviously never read the Constitution of the United States.

"...but America was founded as a Christian nation," many say. Not so. Most of the more famous Founding Fathers were, in fact, Deists. Just listen to their own words.

The Constitution of the United States

Article VI, Section 3: "...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."

George Washington

George Washington to Tench Tilghman, (March 24, 1784):
"I am a good deal in want of a House Joiner and Bricklayer, (who really understand their profession) and you would do me a favor by purchasing one of each, for me. I would not confine you to Palatines. If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mahometans, Jews or Christian of an Sect, or they may be Atheists."

John Adams

From a letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756):
"Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ?'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'"

A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787-88:
"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. … It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service [forming the U.S. government] had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. …Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery… are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind"

Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11: Written during the Administration of George Washington and signed into law by John Adams.
"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, (July 16, 1814):
"Cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires."

Thomas Jefferson

Letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moore, August 14, 1800
"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man. They are still so in many countries & even in some of these United States. Even in 1783, we doubted the stability of our recent measures for reducing them to the footing of other useful callings. It now appears that our means were effectual."

Letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800
"[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man"

Thomas Jefferson, March 4, 1801, First Inaugural Address
"And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions."

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Dowse, April 19, 1803
"I will never, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."

Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, January 19, 1810
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."

Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."

Letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"

Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, January 10, 1816
"You judge truly that I am not afraid of the priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering, without being able to give me one moment of pain. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West, and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance of those on whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develope itself. If it does, they excite against it the public opinion which they command, & by little, but incessant and teasing persecutions, drive it from among them. Their present emigrations to the Western country are real flights from persecution, religious & political, but the abandonment of the country by those who wish to enjoy freedom of opinion leaves the despotism over the residue more intense, more oppressive. They are now looking to the flesh pots of the South and aiming at foothold there by their missionary teachers. They have lately come forward boldly with their plan to establish " a qualified religious instructor over every thousand souls in the US." And they seem to consider none as qualified but their own sect."

Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, May 5, 1817
"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.'

Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
"One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

Jefferson's Autobiography
"[A]n amendment was proposed by inserting ?'Jesus Christ,' so that [the preamble] should read ?'A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion'; the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination"

James Madison

Letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise"

Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, Section 7, 1785:
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

Ibid, Section 8:
"What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries"

James Madison, introducing the Bill of Rights at the First Federal Congress, Congressional Register, June 8, 1789:
"[The] civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner or on any pretext infringed."

James Madison, Detached Memoranda, believed to have been written circa 1817.
"The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship against the members whose creeds and consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics and Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."

James Madison, letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819
"The Civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State."

James Madison, letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822:
"I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Cong[ress], when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Nat[ional] Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Const[itution] the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat."

Benjamin Franklin

From Franklin's autobiography:
"Scarcely was I arrived at fifteen years of age, when, after having doubted in turn of different tenets, according as I found them combated in the different books that I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself "

"...Some books against Deism fell into my hands....It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quote to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations, in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."

Benjamin Franklin, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: London, 1757 - 1775
"If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England."

Ethan Allen

From Religion of the American Enlightenment:
"Denominated a Deist, the reality of which I have never disputed, being conscious that I am no Christian."


Thomas Paine

Excerpts from The Age of Reason:

"My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."

"Whenever we read the obscene stores (of the Bible), the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the Word of God."

"...when I see throughout the greater part of this book (the Bible) scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by His name."

"(The Christian) despises the choicest gift of God to man, the Gift of Reason; and having endeavored to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls if 'human reason' as if man could give reason to himself."

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself than this thing called Christianity"

Thomas Paine, Answers to Friends regarding The Age of Reason, Paris, May 12, 1797

"As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New."

"It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor?"

BBB

Thanks for all that information. I've read a lot about deism over the years....and the material you presented is right in line with what I've discovered.

Deism shares a negative with theism and atheism that I simply will not abide.

Theism involves guesses about the unknown....the nature of the Ultimate REALITY.

Atheism involves guesses about the unknown....the nature of the Ultimate REALITY.

Deism involves guesses about the unknown....the nature of the Ultimate REALITY.

The world would be a much better place if adherents of all three disciplines simply acknowledged that the unknown....is unknown. And that the information available to unravel the unknown is much, much, much too scant and ambiguous to allow for meaningful guesses of any kind.

Sorry that doesn't appeal to you.

But deism doesn't appeal to me any more than theism and atheism do.

Re: Okay...let's see...where was I...

I don't know if they do. I don't know if Blatham and Lola even exist anymore. I don't know that they don't exist either. And I don't want to guess -- sometimes you have to acknowledge that you just don't know. Did you know that this is a sign of strength, not of weakness really?

we exist and you know it, mr. Thomas. Sometimes you have to recognize what you do know or that what you believe is so likely (given scientific facts, defined as so close to sure that it's considered to be a fact until proven otherwise) that you call it knowing. If we're talking about the ability to be absolutely sure, then of course we don't know, but as you point out, if that's the case, we actually know nothing. And if we know nothing, then how do we benefit from science in the first place? So yes, you don't know, but actually you do. See?

or stated another way, I know there is no God as well as I know that it's hot outside today (and it IS hot)

Well, Lola, my own opinion is that agnosticism is for sissies. Real men, those who can bring themselves to admit that being agnostic about god is as pointless as being agnostic about unicorns and fairies, don't need such a cowardly cop-out. But I would never say this to Frank, who might get himself exiled again if I did. So I thought I'd break the ice with some nice, civilized teasing. Anyway, Frank is a good fellow. He will eventually give up this decaf, aspartame, agnostic stuff and discover the one true path of atheism.

Re: Okay...let's see...where was I...


Very funny.

However....you and Blatham did meet in New York. You remember....the time I was excluded.

But I want you to know that I do not hold any of that against either you or Bernie....you dirty rotten rashenfrashens.

Yeah! Sure you do!

Just like the theists claim they know there is a God as well as they know it is hot outside today. (and it is a scorcher!)

Ahhh...you theists and atheists are good for laughs, though.

Real men are not afraid of the truth. Real men are not afraid to say, "I do not know" when they do not know.

You seem to be a good guy, Thomas. But pretending you know stuff you don't....like the theists do....is beneath the dignity of real men.

And arguing that you are right...and the agnostic position is inferior....is ludicrous.

Perhaps that is why you folks never actually argue that position...but merely assert it.

Hey....once you start asserting stuff without substance....it becomes an addiction. Tough habit to break.

But if you work on it, you might make some progress.

I'm still waiting for Lola or Blatham to actually make any arguments that atheism....the guess that there are no gods....is superior to agnosticism...the acknowledgement that the answer to that question appears to be unknown....and that the evidence available for guessing about it is too ambiguous to be useful.

Will that happen sometime this century?

It's good to have you back, Frank!