Where do I start? First, I want to thank God for giving me the reason to see him truly how he is. And I think myself, and other folks that follow Deism exercise special gifts. The gifts of reason and logic. Strong reasoning that elevated us over the propaganda of revealed religions. We have to admit, it has a strong hold of most of the people in this world, and it will be a monumental task to overcome this simple-mindedness. But through love, and our daily walk of being the best person you can be, we can show people this is the true teaching of God, and that's how we show our love and appreciation for the Creator.
We have to overcome this ("revealed" religion) or our world is doomed. We must, when appropriate, spread the true meaning of life. It has been only a couple days since I have accepted the belief of Deism. But I feel like a new man, and to know that I'm not the only one that understands what I have believed most of my life; that our Creator is a God of Love, and a just God. Not the one that is depicted in the Bible that scared me as a little kid. Most of my life, I knew that revealed religions were not the answer, just a part of the problem. But at the same time, I knew that there was a "higher power", and it left me confused, and I struggled with the thought. I knew atheism was not the answer, because you can't convince me that everything just happened out of chance, because I see so much beauty in the world, that I knew there is a Creator. So I felt trapped in my spirituality, because I believed that you were either a person of revealed religion, or an atheist. At times, I felt that I was more of an atheist, because I rejected the teachings of revealed religion so much, that this is what I felt was the only path of enlightenment. But not to believe in God or the Creator didn't sit well with me. So I thought for a while I was a "lazy" Christian, because I felt the bible didn't do it for me, and I hated going to church. But I believed that there was a meaning for us being here, and there is something spiritual about being alive on Earth.
Looking back on my life growing up, I was very confused. I grew up in a strict Christian household. My mother, believing that she was doing what was best for me, made me go to church every Sunday. My dad was a Christian, but he would of rather stayed home to watch football, which made me upset, because I wanted to watch the games with him, but I had to go to church. I love my mother so much, and she is a great woman, but she is lost in revealed religion. As a kid, I would notice a big difference in my mother from Monday to Saturday compared to Sundays. Sundays is my favorite day of the week now, but for a while growing up, it was the day I dreaded. My mother was a kind, hard working woman, and did everything to make sure her kids succeeded in a place where I could have been deterred by other evil factors. She made sure education was important to us, and because of that, I have been a success in that part, making her proud when I graduated from college. But she is a religious zealot who believes that whatever she did was right because she was "holy". And even today, how much I love her, I can't have a conversation with her without her religion getting involved in the conversation which makes it hard for me to go to her with problems or issues in my life because her only answer would be to ask God, and start reading me quotes from the Bible. Sunday would come, and I would awake to a screaming woman, telling me to get up and go to church. Her whole loving mood would change, because she had to get ready to worship. As a child, you notice these things more than others, especially from the person that was most important to you. She would turn into this other woman, and I would wonder why? Because of that, I hated Sundays and I hated church. But of course, I didn't say anything, because I thought something was wrong with me. I believe the old Christian saying, "the Lord works in mysterious ways", because the Creator does. In a midst of religious zealotry all around me, I still had questions about the validity of the Christian God. Why was he so mean? Why did he do these things in the Bible? I had a lot of "whys" that I kept to myself, because I really believed something was wrong with me, and I was so scared of hell, I thought I had to force my way out of this thinking. I remember faking my commitment to the Christian God to satisfy everyone around me. As a little kid, I had this thinking, in which I believe the Creator gave me strong reasoning capabilities, like he did for a lot of us. I will never forget a session of Sunday School, when we were talking about who goes to heaven and hell.
I have been glued to Deism.com the past couple days, and have read a lot of the articles, and one brought me to tears when I read From Baptist to Deist-No One Really Knows by Larry Langston. I identify more with his conversion because that was the denomination that I was brought up in. The arguments he made in that article are what I have been wrestling with my whole life and holds very true to me. Especially the one point that he stated in the third paragraph, “Now, if each created human had equal opportunity (for salvation) you would have equal disbursement of tiny dots of blue and red all over the globe so that any distinction of groups would be impossible to detect. This point simply reflects the fallacy of the idea that each individual has equal opportunity for salvation and consequently, the fallacy of Christianity." He was talking about how in revealed religion, especially Christianity, that in order to please God and go to Heaven, you have to be "saved". But how is that fair to a person in India, where the culture is mostly Hindu? So you're saying that person is going to hell because of where he was born? I asked that question in my Sunday School class as a 10 year old boy. At that time, I just thought I was asking a simple question. But when I look back on it, it shows to me that even then, I was looking for truth and logic behind what I was trying my best to believe in. I remember that the Sunday School teacher never gave me a straight answer, and I was still left with questions. As a teen, I started to drift away from Christianity in my mind, but to please my mother, I still acted like I was a devout Christian, because that would be the ultimate disappointment to her. So I continued throughout my teens, and in my 20s wrestling with am I a Christian or not. I started to think, was I an atheist? I didn't want to be a godless person, because I still knew in my heart that there is a God.
These last couple of days, I feel like I have been reborn. I was reading an article about how religion has declined in our nation. One woman commented on the article, and was responding to a comment of why our leaders have to be a Christian to win in big time politics. And this woman stated how some of our first Presidents were Deists. I had no idea what that was, and being the history and political nerd that I am, I decided to look up what that meant. This could have been one of the best decisions of my life. I read on Wikipedia about what Deism is, who were some of the prominent people of Deism, and what Deists stand for, and I was in awe. This was something I felt was true to my heart for a long time just by seeing the beauty that is in the world. Our Creator has blessed us with reasoning and a free will. He is an awesome God when you look at the beauty in the world. It is the fallacy of revealed religion and evil factors that make this world a scary place a lot of the time. I try to be the best person I can be. I respect other people, and their differences. And still, I wondered if I was going to go to hell, even though I have tried my entire life to be a good man, even though I was not a Christian. But I know what holds true, and that is logic, and that is all our Creator wants for us. He loves us, and he shows us he loves us every day with the beauties of the world. Loving another person, helping others with their needs. Sunsets over the ocean. We show him love when we show love for others, and when we appreciate His creation, which could only have been done through His design.
One of my hobbies is landscape photography. To me, it was a spiritual journey for me to go to these beautiful places, and take pictures, put them on my computer, and sit for hours in awe of the beauty. But now, I think that was my spirituality, and my walk with the Creator. And my walk with God was shown through these escapades. I always knew I loved God as he truly is. A loving God. He has given me the capability to be who I am today. Now I feel whole, because I know that I am right. Deism is the path of enlightenment. Loving God as he truly is should be a joy, not pain. Love, not hatred and discrimination against people not like you. Peace, not violence. We Deists have a job, and that is to spread the true love of God. Because that is the path to love and peace. What really pushes my buttons is when Christians use the Bible to make their point on why they're right, like that is the ultimate evidence. If God really had something that he wanted to say, we would know, because he would reveal it, and you would know for sure it is a message from the Creator. I know that my mother would be really disappointed, and she would think she would have failed as a mother if I would tell her I found a different path to understanding the Creator. But I have to do what I believe, and reason and logic tells me that revealed religion is an ill to this world, and will destroy this world unless we can come to an understanding about who God truly is. And if you're new to Deism, and you're reading this, you have come to right place. You're not crazy. You are a reasonable human being that believes loves conquers all. And our God does love you just how you are. And he gave you God-given reason and logic to understand His love as it truly is. Wonderful.
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