BothAndBlog Forum

Hi fellow freethinkers! My name is Brad and I live in Australia. I am a 41 year old Primary School teacher. Years ago I use to be on the Positive Deism and Church of Natures Gods forums under the name spiritseeker.

I was good friends with Chuck Clendenan and was right into learning about Deism and just chatting with open people. I wrote a chapter in Chucks book Deist! So thats what I am. At that point in time I had decided to look further into progressive/emerging Christianity and read books from authors like Marcus Borg, Rob Bell and a host of others. I have also been reading the Bible and other literature to try and figure out what Jesus means to me. I have also been attending an Anglican Church where the minister is very progressive and open.

Anyway, recently I just haven't been feeling great about my spirituality and where I feel comfortable. Deism sprung back to my mind (which it hasn't for years) and I thought I would dip my toe in the water again. I have just started reading some books by Jayson X to wet my appetite.

So basically all I can really say is that I 100% believe in God because the world doesn't make sense to me without one. I am up in the air as to where Jesus fits and I have no idea what to do with the Bible. I do want to read "The Jefferson Bible" and also "Evolution of the Word" by Marcus Borg.

I am considering going back to a monthly Quaker meeting where we sit in silent contemplation and try and connect to God in some way.

I look forward to chatting with you all and I hope I haven't bored you with my introduction!

Welcome to the BothAnd forum SS.

Looks like your screen-name is appropriate. You seem to be "spiritual but not religious", and still seeking a spiritual home to fill the vacancy left by uprooting your Christian upbringing. I too, left behind my fundamentalist religion, and wandered from Agnostic, to Freethinker, to Deist. I don't consider Deism to be my religion, though. It's simply a convenient label for my personal philosophical worldview, with its unconventional god-concept.

Rational & intellectual online Deism lacks most of the social & emotional features of a real religion. But I think it could serve as the seed philosophy for a variety of religious forms in the future. That's what the Neo-Deism as a Religious Philosophy for the 21st century thread is all about.

Since most Deists have rejected their traditional churches and ancient scriptures as authoritative sources of information about God and God's Will, I have proposed a collaborative project to write a new "scripture" for our modern technological and multicultural world. It wouldn't be divinely inspired, but it would combine the latest knowledge of how the world works, with ancient wisdom about how humans should act, along with some guesses as to why the "creation" is so imperfect, and where we can find some overarching meaning for our little dead-end lives.

Of course, I don't really expect such a silly little pamphlet to have much immediate impact in our religiously and politically polarized world. But maybe it could gradually infiltrate into high-minded conversations, a different, and less divisive, perspective on the whole concept of what a religion should & could be. Besides, it would be a fun project for cat-like freethinkers to try to work as a team to produce a unifying document around which to build a plausible belief system, and perhaps a flexible religious structure, to help pull humanity back together again.

Full disclosure, though : I am an extreme introvert. So I'm more motivated by the idea of a unifying religion, than by the urge to actually join a crowd of sweaty lost souls seeking communion with their creator.

You are unsure where Jesus and the Bible fit into your spirituality. Well, join the club. Most Deists go through a phase of trying to hold on to the warm-blooded human counterpart of an abstract timeless deity. But I now view Jesus as an ordinary Jewish reformer, whose modest story was inflated by Paul into a world-saving Christ, and avatar of God. Jefferson's Bible was an attempt to hold onto the moral teachings of the humble preacher of righteousness, while leaving behind the mythical magical exaggerations of Paul's and John's operatic armageddon-warrior hero. Jesus was never a Christian.

As a Deist, you'll have to get used to the idea of a non-intervening deity, who may or may not care about your welfare. For PanDeists, God is Nature. And Nature is indifferent toward human feelings. That leaves it up to us to work together to make the world a better place for sensitive & vulnerable humans to live, and perhaps to thrive. That was also the message of the real Jesus.

I happen to lean more toward PanEnDeism, which is closer to the original monotheistic notion of a supernatural eternal creator, except that the creation was intended to find its own way, via evolution, toward its final destiny, without any supernatural interventions. But for all practical purposes, they are both flavors of general Deism, and its a matter of taste which god-model appeals to you.

Thanks for the awesome reply Gnomon! I look forward to seeing where this forum goes and how the Neo-Deism as a Religious Philosophy for the 21st Century progresses.

I am a free thinker and am open minded but I am not a deep thinker and I am not really into science but somehow I find myself here. I did also use to attend Quaker meetings and I am contemplating going back as I miss the silent reflection.

Sometimes when I read the Bible It just doesn't ring true or make sense. Sorry if I sound very basic but I am going to ask a couple of questions that I am curious with:

What are your thoughts regarding miracles in the Bible? Why did Jesus have such a big following and crowds? I don't believe it all but we're there any supernatural events?

What are your thoughts on the supernatural such as ghosts and clairvoyants?

Thanks for putting up with me as I am happy to put my thoughts out there in an environment that isn't Jesus centric!

SS

When I used to ask childish questions about questionable Bible passages, I was typically told not to worry my little head about such doubts, just rest assured that there are smart people who understand what the Bible writers really meant by their confusing or conflicting statements. Now that I am older & wiser, I realize that those "smart" people argue among themselves about the interpretation of almost everything in the Bible. Consequently, I no longer accept the Christian or Muslim propaganda that the Bible/Koran writers were directly inspired by God. Instead, it's obvious to me that they were ordinary humans grappling with the same problems that were discussed in ancient Greek myths, and in the Hindu scriptures. So my current position is to lump the Christian Bible into the same category as all other ancient literature : some good moral lessons, some bad moral examples, and lots of erroneous portrayals of humanoid deities.

Fundamentalist Christians are adamant that the biblical miracles were real, and that prophecies were fulfilled. But after years of seeing different perspectives on such supernatural events, I find them no more believable than the magic & divinations in Egyptian & Greek myths. I don't know if Jesus actually accompanied his sermons with magic tricks, or if they were attributed to him later to make him seem to have supernatural gifts. Most great religious personalities of all cultures had magical powers, if you believe the myths that arose after their deaths . Many were said to have virgin births (note 1). But you'll have to choose which of those various fictionalized stories (note 2) you want to accept as true. Because they are mutually incompatible, and Christianity explicitly denies the validity of any unauthorized "gospels".

Some Deists believe in an afterlife, so they may also accept the notion of Ghosts hanging around to spook or comfort the living. But, since I have no revelation from God on the topic, I remain agnostic about life after life, and skeptical about ghosts. It seems much more likely, that bereaved people would imagine that their loved ones are still out there, even though their bodies have crumbled into dust. Popular psychic channelers seem to me to be con-artists, making money by telling survivors what they want to hear : that emotional ties remain unbroken, even after the physical forms have vanished.

My worldview is no longer Jesus-centric, but like Deist Thomas Jefferson, I find many of his teachings to be useful even in our modern world, so far removed from the donkey-dung streets of Jerusalem. In my opinion though, Jesus has no more supernatural wisdom than the Buddha, but both had some practical advice for coping with the stresses of life.

Note 1 : Virgin birth myths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births
Note 2 : Remember that the fiction section of your local bookstore, or video store, is many times larger than the non-fiction. What does that tell you about human interest in mundane facts?

Thanks for your message mate. In regards to Psychic channellers I definitely agree that there are rip off merchants out there but for some reason I don't think that every single person in the world who claims to be a psychic is a con artist. Maybe I am too generous in my thinking though.

Also with Deism, what books would you recommend? Are there other Deist websites that would help me get back into it?

I am very happy to be here though!

G'day mate!

First to be clear, this is not a Deism website. It's a personal vanity blog, so I don't speak for other Deists, or for Deism in general. I'm not a member of any Deist organization. So anything I say here is just my personal opinion, gained from 72 years of observing how the world works. My views are not necessarily those of Classical Deists, or perhaps of the current mainstream. The religious aspects of my Deist worldview are being expressed in the blog and the forum under the name "Neo-Deism".

One thing I have learned from my skeptical observations of religious, political, and economic behavior -- much to my chagrin -- is how easily people can be deceived by those who tell them what they desperately want to hear. That's how con-men, such as Donald Trump get to be billionaires and presidents : by recognizing and beguiling motivated suckers.

My opinion about psychics comes from years of reading second hand reports, but no personal experience. The ones I've seen on TV and videos though, obviously use manipulative tricks, such as "cold reading" to gain information from their targets, then feed it back to them as-if it was coming from their loved-ones in the spirit realm. If the psychics could occasionally transmit some information that couldn't be obtained from such manipulations of flesh & blood humans, I would be more impressed with their claims to communicate with the dead.

Here's a link to a list of Deist books, on one of the few remaining Deist websites. Most sites that I was familiar with 5 - 10 years ago are gone. Which may be an indication that internet Deism is in decline, or that everyone has moved to Facebook, which for me (as a socially-isolated introvert) is a foreign world. There are so many other options for spiritual seekers that are more emotionally rewarding, and don't put too much emphasis on hard reasoning, that intellectual Deism is just not competitive in the selfie-posting, please-like-me Facebook marketplace.

Deist books :
http://www.deism.com/deistbookstore.htm

Cold Reading video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGBXCpGgns

Quote from a previous post:
<< Now that I am older & wiser, I realize that those "smart" people argue among themselves about the interpretation of almost everything in the Bible.>>

I just came across a fictional short story that amusingly illustrated the dubious role of interpretation for understanding the deeper meanings of religious & philosophical works. You simply can't take most authoritative proclamations at face value. And you can't always rely on the interpretations of experts. So, it's best if you develop your own personal wisdom, so you can interpret debatable topics for yourself.

The title of the story is The Truth. In it a wisdom seeker suddenly discovered the ultimate truth in a flash of enlightenment. So she published her findings in a 10,000 word tome, entitled The Truth. When that book was found to be incomprehensible, an explanation was published called, How to Interpret 'The Truth'. That one raised so many new questions that a second sequel came out with the title, How to Interpret "How to interpret 'The Truth'".

As I see it, the moral of that story is, don't depend on others to interpret the world for you. Learn to understand it for yourself, and be appropriately skeptical of most authoritative expert interpretations. As long as you are dependent on others to interpret the world for you, like a child, you will be vulnerable to strange men bearing sweet notions.

The Bible says, "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom", but I disagree. First, know thyself, then learn how the world really works. if you still find God fearful, then you have misinterpreted the world. But that's just my personal interpretation.


PS___Regarding my debatable opinion on ghosts see this forum post on Deists & Death :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5#p26

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know any good books on the science behind ghosts and the paranormal?

I would love to learn more from the science or skeptic side.

Thanks.

Hi, SS

Since I don't believe in ghosts, they don't bother me. But apparently they do bother some people. Psychics prey on the bereaved by pretending to speak to & for the dead, and Ghost-Busters sell their services to emotionally agitated people bothered by strange noises and spooky feelings. Rational people have other ways of dealing with minor fears and uncertainties.

Some Deists believe that there "ought to be" an afterlife. Yet I'm not convinced by anecdotes of past lives and near death experiences. But as I said, I'm not emotionally motivated toward such things. So It seems more likely to me that people "see" what they really really want to see. Unlike animals, imaginative humans can see things that are not real. That's a good talent when we explore possibilities, but not so good when we merely feed our fears with fantasies.

The blog doesn't get into the pros & cons of ghosts and afterlife theories, but there are a couple of posts that touch on such topics : 12. Spirituality without Spooks, and 18. Spirituality for Scientists.

Here's a link to a PDF booklet on this specific topic. It may have a list of references if you need more :

https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/th ... ee-ghosts/