Church of The Modern Deist

Jesus was Robin Hood? Read on, it doesn’t mean what you likely think it does.

I was asked in a comment recently what the “Deist View of Jesus” is?  Like many questions I really can’t answer that for anyone but me.  Asking what a Deist thinks of Jesus is like asking what a scientist thinks about the origin of the universe.  The number of answers you get may be damn close to the number of folks you ask.

There are people that call themselves “Christan Deists”, they believe in Jesus the man and his message, see him as a profit of the creator that actually broke away from organized faith.  The problem I see there is Jesus did claim to be not only the son of God in the bible but also to the door by which man gets into heaven.  Now some Deists simply dismiss this, point to the lost Gospels and say, but I don’t believe that.  They believe in Gnostic Christianity where Jesus is just one example and say we should ignore the things added to the canonized Gospel and simply see the message of Jesus as the way to live.

I personally feel most of such people are trying to cling to a shred of their Christian heritage because it comforts them, if so fine, there is no harm in it.  I also think many are in very tight families where “church” is a big deal.  They just can’t walk away, it is too hard.  It results in being ostracized and frankly harassed as those you left behind try to save your soul and drag you back in.  So they embrace Deism and when required to participate with family religious activities they are able to tolerate it.  Most such people eventually walk away all together and become what is known as a “Christmas and Easter Catholic” in the Catholic Church.  They go when the torment of family exceeds their desire to resist.

Then there are true Deists that just really embrace the morality of the Judeo Christian faith.  Thomas Jefferson was one such Deist.  He created the “Jefferson Bible”, which was the Gospels with all the miracles, claims of deity and such removed leaving only the basic teachings of Jesus.  He did so because his claim was that basic Christian ethics were the finest example he knew of in the world.  But Jefferson was not a Christian.  So we have Deists that associate with Christian teachings but they are not Christians.

This isn’t really anything unusual when you think in context.  For example I am a huge fan of much of the teachings of the Buddhist faith.  I derive a lot of wisdom from it and read about it.  It helps me frame my view of the world.  I have a deep respect for Buddhists, but I am not a Buddhist and don’t believe their religion, I just value their way of viewing life.  I am certainly not a vegetarian!  I also love the history and lore in the Pagan faith.  The duality of the God and Goddess makes sense to me more than one god that looks like well, King Neptune!  I love the way Pagans understand the earth, I really love the “holy days” how they are seasonal and frankly as a guy that grows a lot of my own food, very useful.  But I am not a Pagan.

I think many of us in the Deist world view most faiths this way.  If there is a reason we are particularly harsh on main stream Christianity it is well, it is two reasons.  The first is most of us were beaten over the head with it as we come from that background.    The second is that we seldom see a Buddhist knocking on our door to tell us about “detachment” and interrupt our football game on Sunday.  Nor do Pagans walk up to us say at a mall, hand us a tract telling us about a new temple and then ask to publicly pray over us.  If you think the encounter at a store is a stretch, I live in the south and in the bible belt.  I have had this happen three times in my life.  I DO NOT appreciate it, when someone starts praying over me and following me around with raised hands in a public place.

These are the things that make us as Deists be unfair to the Christian tradition compared to our view of other faiths at times.  But that doesn’t really answer the question does it?  Well again different Deists have different opinions about Jesus the man we hear about in the bible.  Here for example are two totally different views, both written by Deists at Deism.com presented side by side…

Did Jesus Exist

In the first one we have a take that yes Jesus existed and probably thought he was god.  The 12 apostles were real and devoted in spite of the fact that Jesus was just a man.  The resurrection is explained mostly this way.  Mary Magdalene was nuts (as anyone described as having 7 demons would be by today’s standards) but the other apostles believed her because they wanted to.   The reason Jesus looked different after the resurrection was because he was someone else.   I personally think this is certainly possible.

In the second the take away is Jesus never even existed, there is no real historical record outside the bible and likely the whole thing was just made up.  I think this is also possible but less likely so, then the above.

For instance we know for a fact Paul existed, there is record of that.  Seems Peter was also real, generally people like this have to have someone to believe in or they won’t allow themselves killed for their faiths.  So Peter and Paul likely were basing their beliefs on something or someone.  These men and other members of this sect were motivated enough to spread the word.  Authors wrote the books we call the Gospel in the names of such people and a new faith was created.

In Christian schools of thought though we get the illusion that these books were written soon after Christ died.  Yet we know the earliest estimate of the Gospel of Mark, which is the oldest known gospel was written about 66-70 CE.  The best guess for the year of the crucifixion as described in the bible is 29 CE.  That is 37 years and all the other gospels came after that.  Can we put that into some perspective for a moment.

Today it is 2014 and 37 years ago it was 1977.  Let us say you are old enough that you were a young man in 77 say in your mid 20s and you had a good friend named Jessie and you and Jessie ran around together and did a lot of cool and crazy stuff.  Now years later you are known to have been a friend of Jessie, he is now dead and famous and people want to know exactly what happened at some of the things you did together.   If you then tried to write down say 1974-1977 as to your journeys with Jessie to the level of detail in the bible, how accurate would it be?  Now this would be if you really were Jessie’s friend.

What if instead tons of stories about Jessie were being told for all those years.  Things he said were written down and many things someone said he said.  Now you know the name of one of his friends that is also dead and gone or perhaps went off and found a new life and just wanted to forget about those crazy old days.  But you are able to write as him and the government will say you are him, you now assemble this montage of information into a story, how accurate is that?  This is the origin of the new testaments of the bible folks.

And this leads to what I believe, Jesus was Robin Hood!  Heck the title got you to read this long right, now we finally get to it.

Now look I am not saying Jesus robbed the rich and gave to the poor or that he came back in tights and miraculously split arrows!  No I am saying the origin of the myth of Jesus is likely similar to the myth of Robin Hood.  There was no one man that was Robin Hood.  Old Mr. Hood is an amalgamation of several real people and a bunch of completely made up fiction that have been combined into a series of stories.  This is the bible as a whole and certainly to me how we ended up with Jesus as we know him today.

There was likely a charismatic guy that Peter and the other apostles knew that got himself executed.  Doing that wasn’t hard at the time.  Peter and the boys likely believed in him, enough to die for him, this proves nothing magical, history is full of people that did such things.  There were many such messiahs though at the time and putting something one did or said in the name of a better known name was common.  I mean this is why we have the last gospel written in about 90 CE.  That is 61 years after the death of Jesus.  It is possible that some of the apostles made it that long but very unlikely, if they did how much do you trust the memory of a 90 year old?

So as the story grew, actions, deeds and words of many of the Jesus like figures were combined.  Completely fictitious components we added to comply with “prophecy” and astrological components came in like the number 12.  Yes there are 12 tribes of Israel but you do realize that there are 12 months right?  Anyway in the end we have an astrological literary hybrid of the story of one man, that is likely the story of several real men and plenty of things there were simply either made up or modified gossip!  Hmm, never thought of it but gospel and gossip seem quite similar as words don’t they?

Now if you want to debate me, specifically as an offended Christian, please realize I have a right to my opinion, and that is all this is.  It is when I examine history in context and consider human nature and the desire of government and religion to control people the most likely explanation.  I can’t prove my theory and really don’t see the point in trying.  Based on what I believe as a Deist it doesn’t matter if I am wrong at all.  My view of the Bible doesn’t change my choices in my life or my personal faith.  So whether Jesus never existed, was a real man that was made into a God figure or is as I say a hybrid of several people along with total fiction and literary license, has no long term implications for me.

I do think it is an interesting idea to explore though.  And when I do I am left with this simple opinion.  Who was Jesus?  Well, he was Robin Hood.

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I do, I genuinely pity atheists.  Now mind you an atheist is generally a lot easier to have a discussion with about life than a born again full on evangelical by a long shot.  They tend to be rational people, and most tend to be in my view “good people”.  As honest as most if not more so.  Most “keep the commandments” though they don’t say it that way.  They respect their parents, don’t steal, don’t want what you have at your expense, they don’t murder, etc.  Now they don’t keep the Sabbath or worry about “the lords name in vain” but hell, those things do not apply to their beliefs so why would they.  My point is simply that beyond the overt religious components of most faiths, most such people are ethical even in the eyes of a person of a revealed religion.

Most atheists I know are also dramatically intelligent people.  Many are highly successful in life and in general happy and optimistic.

So why do I pity them?  In simple terms it is the lack of a sense of wonder.  When I look at the stars, I know full well scientifically what they are, giant balls of gas, nuclear fusion reactors, nothing more in reality.  Yet the dreamer in me understands that the very essence of that star, the same dust that makes up that star, also makes up my body, your body and the very earth itself.  The difference for the Deist in seeing this fact which many atheists acknowledge by the way is its meaning.

To me this means so much more than galactic recycling of matter, it is also the recycling of energy.  In fact I personally see the lines between energy and matter as blurred, and while science is now confirming this, it takes some level of “faith” to truly extrapolate what that means.  When I see a leaf I don’t just see a photosynthetic solar panel, I see the marvel of life itself.  To the atheist the universe seems mechanical, where the Deists and even the religious see it as energetic.

There is also what is next, to the atheist there is nothing next for the living when we die.  You are dust, worm food, gone forever.  I have written before about afterlife so I won’t go deep here but I do believe something happens, I don’t know what, I just know in my very being something does.  Do we remember our lives, I don’t know, may be, may be not.  We may simply become energy and only imprints of our prior life remains in the energy, just the raw information.  Or we may remain in spirit far more like revealed religions believe.  I really do not know, but the fact that something of our lives remains in some way, matters to me.

There is just part of humans I feel that is connected to the creation and when one cuts that off, something inherently human is then cut off from the individual as well.  I feel I was made to be part of the creation, to be a co creator with it in my own tiny small way.  Just like you were, atheists can’t comprehend how this is possible, we are too small to matter they say, one person doesn’t matter to the universe, in fact man doesn’t as a species.  When we are gone the universe itself will not even miss us.

Let me put it this way, I feel all living beings that see, hear, perceive, wonder at, participate in the creation are very much, “the eyes of God”.  It is with this wonder that I study science, nature, history, etc.  I don’t sit around praying or believing that one say God will save us.  I don’t wait for the day I die with anticipation of heaven, nor do I feel hell but I do marvel at the creation and its wonder and simply feel that is lacking for the atheist.

In my next text I will discuss why I personally feel many become atheists and why they feel it is the right choice.

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This Question is Deeper Than You Think It Is?

Let me start out by saying I get what I mean and what most proclaimed Deists mean when they say, “I am a Deist”.  The self declared Deist largely rejects all organized faiths, such as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, etc.   Frankly if you want to discuss religion with me you will be just as likely to prove a point by quoting a X-Men comic as the Bible or the Qur’an.  So don’t take my question here or my answer the wrong way.  My hope is to help those who are examining Deism simply understand the core of what it means to be a Deist.

So here is my premise to you.  Anyone that believes in a single God or a singularity of thought and energy for that matter is in essence a Deist, just not necessarily what the modern term has come to mean.  A Deist is a person that believes in a Deity of some sort, a God, a singularity, a source, a creator, a great architect of the universe, the sum of all consciousness, etc.  Now in the modern Deist movement there is more but let us first stop there.  Let us simply ask do most people who call themselves Christians, Jews, etc. believe in such a thing, the answer is yes of course they do.

When we move into faiths like Buddhist and Hinduism with multiple Gods you might be tempted to point out that and say, well Deism sounds like monotheism and that is clearly in conflict with a “multiple Gods system”.  Frankly though no it isn’t, such faiths always end up with a singularity eventually.  Concepts such as the origins of the Gods themselves lead you there.  Even in Pagan duality the masculine and the feminine, aka the God and Goddess the reality is both are seen in the end as a single source with duality of manifestation.

Now look you can nit pick technicalities above but if you are a Deist you are not bound by any of these faiths or traditions so you should be able to examine them with out emotional attachment.  The simple premise here is that most people of any “faith” first and foremost believe in a Deity or group there of, said group though has a single origin in the end.  I simply point to this and say, all belief in such things creates an origin in Deism for all faiths.

True it tends to go wrong from there.  Yet if we understand this origin than leaving behind a faith we have been mostly brainwashed into becomes much easier for many people.  As a former Catholic I can tell you by my late teens I  had fully determined the church was in my view full of shit.  I in effect believed in nothing they they were telling me was true.  Yet as certain things came into my life such as sexual relationships there were fleeting moments of guilt.  I would catch myself and simply realize that I did not believe this programming but understood it was still in me.

Now frankly I am one of the most strong willed people I know.  I will fight to the last breath for a person in need, I live my life on my terms and always have.  So today looking back over 20 years ago and remembering these tinges of guilt, I have to wonder what it is like for people less strong willed, less rebellious and frankly less intelligent then I am.  If the last part sounds arrogant I apologize, I do have a very high IQ and it places me far into the top 2% of the population.  So I am simply acknowledging this as something that will effect a person’s ability to reason and break free of programming.

So as a self declared Deist for over a decade now I often talk to people that want to “let go” but struggle.  I often wonder why and I think this may be the place it leads to, we who believe in anything beyond the phyical world in a sense are all Deists.  If you read this blog you likely have questions, you may not accept my answers but they help you find your own right?  Just the very nature of knowing that there is a God no matter how you personally define God, leads to some level of a need to understand.

I think this basic belief is coded into us.  It is why almost all people of the world have some sort of a religion, spirituality or faith.  Atheism is a very modern invention and I believe it is mostly a direct rebellion against religion’s attempt to control society and the many contradictions and frankly ridiculous contentions that all revealed religions have.   Most people won’t make the leap to Atheism because in their hearts and though their reason they know there is something beyond ourselves.  Again I think it is mostly hard coded into our being, we know because we are all a part of the creation, so an echo of the creator is within us all.

So that longing is filled with what ever faith most of us are born into.  If we are not born into a faith, it is filled by what ever the prevailing evangelism around us turns out to be.  In that faith we find answers, we find community, we find structure and we find acceptance.  Many of us though also find a murderous God, nonsensical claims, ridiculous rules and many things that clearly don’t add up.  So we depart from one faith, often to another only to find the same results.  Eventually many people just sort of believe in their faith but don’t practice it.  This is very true of both Christianity and Judaism.

I think many more people would be open to Deism or find it easier to accept if they simply understood all of this that perhaps it is the Deist in them, who has attached itself to a religion.  That it has done so because it has a need for something beyond the phyical world.  That their faith of choice was simply what happened to be available and fit best for a time.  So to any with this struggle let me say.

1. Deism makes no demands of you, if you think something in wrong and your former faith also says so, don’t do it, no one will judge you on this side of things for that.  We would only ask that you set said social convention for yourself, not for others.
2. Deism has one real rule, do no harm to others.  We believe this though reason and enlightenment not due to fear of punishment.  Do not fear that leaving behind an archaic faith will lead to a life of evil deeds.  Likely you are a good person because that is simply who you are intrinsically.  It is also likely that you understand harming others is not only wrong but in the end does you equal or worse harm, that this is simply how the universe and therefore society works.
3. There is no need to “convert to Deism”, it isn’t an organized faith, there are no “police”, no one gets to tell you what Deism is, you discover this in time.  Deists communicate with others, present ideas and use reason and logic to form their own moral codes and conceive of answers to big questions.  Most see life as a wondrous journey.  In this journey metaphorically you may want to go see the Grand Canyon and I the Beaches of the Gulf Coast.  We can discuss what each experiences but I have no desire to drag you to Florida and you have no need to insist I go to Arizona.  We may both choose to do so with each other or perhaps visit on our own or with others at a later time.

I hope this makes sense.  Being a Deist is simply a choice when it comes to base your life on logic and reason while acknowledging something beyond what we can see.  That the creator exists but isn’t marking down demerits.  There is indeed a creator but he/she/it is not a murderer of children.  An understanding that free will is just that, free will.  We come here largely by choice, we live by our own choices and we are free to explore with a limitless idealism.  We are also free to limit ourselves with religions, self loathing, etc.  It is up to us, most Deists just think the creation is so marvelous we don’t need to be limited at all, as our knowledge evolves our limitations fall.

We know there is something more, some just accept that and enjoy the creation and their lives from there.  Some ask and examine deeper questions.  Some are very “spiritual” and others academic.  The common bond is only that something beyond what we understand exists and that logic and reason tell us that.  As to how we let that knowledge impact our lives, well we think free will is exactly that, freedom to choose for ourselves at the individual level.

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Some Questions Require an Open Mind if an Answer is to be Given.

Let me say right up front this question actually pissed me off.  It wasn’t from a person interested in Deism it was from a Christian who was angry that I had the damn nerve to be a Deist in the first place and choose it over Christianity.  Frankly it wasn’t really a question it was more a demand…

Why is Deism Superior to Christianity!

As though I owed it to him to justify my choice, so much for free will!  The truth is I believe Deism speaks for itself and it is a choice, I have no desire to convert anyone from anything to Deism.  If any group is out there I most want to reach it is the atheist who I feel is missing out on so much and I know most have become atheists due to people like the guy that asked me this question.  They feel religion is so unbelievable that atheism is the only answer.  Most do not even know that there is such a thing as Deism or what it is.  Those people I hope do at least learn there is a middle ground but I also respect their choice.

Christians though I have no desire to convert because it is generally difficult to even discuss faith with them.  They tend to want to quote bible verses and don’t get something that is so important for them to understand in talking with a non believer in their faith.  If you are a Christian please pay attention to this, I am not being offensive I am just trying to help you understand a fact

“When you quote the bible to people that don’t believe in the bible you are no more likely to convince them of something then if you quoted something from a Harry Potter book”

Again I mean no disrespect we just do not believe what you do, your book has no power over us and using it is pointless with us.  You can chant John 3:16 for a hundred years and it won’t “save us”.   I don’t object to debate with an open minded Christian but man is it more productive for both of us if they understand the above, sadly most don’t and next thing you hear is “But in Romans 1 we are told” and they just don’t get that we don’t care what it says, you might as well say to us, “but Dumbledore said to Harry” because it will mean about as much to us.  We may see wisdom in some of it but we also find wisdom at times in things like a comic strip or a TV commercial too.

The person who asked me this question and demanded an answer was coming from this twisted view point.  It would not matter what I said he would have never been happy so I simply didn’t respond.  I have no desire to convert this man to Deism at all.  He was looking for a fight and I simply didn’t give him one.

My view is Christianity is full of reasons in its own book to doubt it as the “divinely inspired word of God”  hell the comparisons between Jesus and the Egyptian God Horus should give anyone pause, you can see them here.  God testing a man by asking him to kill his own son?  Stoning people to death for sin?  The only man worth saving in a city was willing to give his daughters to a crowd and allow them to be raped?  I am such an evil, vile piece of crap that Jesus took my place on the cross because that is what I deserve?  God who is all powerful and wise killed everyone in his own creation because he was angry? God who is perfect is jealous?  It goes on and on.  Most Christians that want to debate non Christians are well versed in this stuff and convince themselves they are right, they call it faith.

I don’t bring up these issues to convince anyone who believes in the Bible in spite of them of anything.  There is no point to that, I only point out that they exist and any Christian with a conscious will eventually find them in their own hearts.  Some are so addicted to their faith they will accept nonsensical answers as fact and move on, others will begin to truly examine them though and it is indeed why many choose to leave what ever form or a Church they are part of.  It is for such people only that I will answer this question.

Further I must add, I am not answering it in the way I would answer why is one football team better then another.  I can analyze players for that, build a case, use their past records and make an impartial judgement based on known facts.  In religion much isn’t known, it is about belief even for a Deist, much of what I consider to be true is based on what I believe based on logic and reason.  For that reason I can’t say that Deism is superior to any faith for anyone but myself.  These are my personal top ten reasons I feel Deism offers me more then Christianity ever could, if you don’t agree that is your choice and I honor your right to it.

1.  Deism isn’t guilty of the false promise of free will.  Christianity says you have free will then instantly says you have rules to follow.  Not rules that you are guided by based on your own logic and reason but rules written for you in a book based on oral tradition.  I truly have free will as a deist and that I consider a gift of my creation.

2.  The God of Deism has never killed a child, hardened a heart, wiped out all life on a planet or sentenced anyone to an eternity of suffering for not doing what he wanted them to.  In short as a Deist I at no time have to make an excuse for a judgmental, jealous, malicious and murderous God.

3.  The God of Deism doesn’t consider any group of people based on race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. superior to another.  In other words my god isn’t a bigot.

4.  My God doesn’t require worship, why would anyone want such a thing, specifically a perfect being?

5.  My God doesn’t judge me he/she/it trusts that I am capable of doing that myself.

6.  The God of Deism has never resulted in a crusade, a witch burning, a holy war or death of anyone simply because they had a different belief.

7.  The God of Deism doesn’t let me blame my failings on a mythical Satan which he himself created.

8.  The God of Deism has never gambled on the fate of a human being with an adversary such as he did with Job.  The Deist god doesn’t gamble with human suffering for his own agenda.

9.  The God of Deism allows for a duality of the creator meaning possessing both masculine and feminine attributes.  There is no way a male entity could be all knowing this entity would have to have feminine attributes as well to understand its own creation.  In other words my God isn’t a male chauvinist.

10.  Most importantly Deism doesn’t claim to have all the answers, there is no guarantee of what happens when we die, how humanity will or will not fail to adapt to the future.  The end isn’t written, as a Deist I know I am literally a co-creator with God, that my actions as small as they seem are actually creating a future that is of yet unwritten.  I know that I am responsible for more then just myself but yet I am free to choose how I help, who I help and why I do so it up to me.  There is no get out of jail free card and no opportunity to say anything doesn’t matter because in the end we expect God to show up and establish a perfect kingdom anyway.

Again this is what I believe, personally.  I am sure someone like the guy that asked the original question will show up here at some point and be offended by this and try to save me or others from my line of thinking.  Just know you are free to believe what you want to, I wrote this not to change your mind but for the person who has already decided that they no longer will follow dogma and myth and is now exploring for answers outside of revealed religions.

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