Episode-09- The Struggle of Leaving Organized Faith and Lack of Deist Community
Today’s episode expands on Episode 8 as to how Deism can make us better people. Even though the original email that prompted Episode 8 is almost a year old, it actually turned up on a lap top during my vacation by coincidence or perhaps providence? In any event I read that email today and it is far deeper than how we an be better people via Deism, it is about what you leave behind when you leave “the church”, things beyond belief but fellowship, community and tradition that do have value. I do my best with this one, but frankly it is a tough subject with few easy answers, likely one topic that I will address many more times in the future.
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Nice episode. My main response to this is why can’t Deists have a Church of their own? After all, each of these episodes is essentially a Deist “sermon”. So why can’t Deists gather for an hour every week to read some passages from great works of literature (Bible, Homer, Thomas Paine, Maya Angelou, or whatever), hear a great sermon (not telling us what to think, but more discussions and questions like this podcast), sing some songs, say some prayers, and then go eat pancakes and drink coffee together afterwords? I think for Deism to really flower and be a force in our culture we need to have a gathering place, otherwise it will remain a sort of heady, ambiguous religion/philosophy that is not well known.
Likely because there is not racket to be had in it, no collection plates and means of control via fear. There are Deist meetup groups and such. If I started one our church would be a bar in Uber distance from my home!
That may be a part of it, but I think the bigger issue may be that deists’ beliefs are so diverse. It’s hard to rally a strong community under such a large umbrella. I certainly wish it were more common. Since my beliefs no longer align with Christianity, I’ve quietly left my church (though I guess I’m still technically a “member”). I sorely miss the strong community that church provides, but I didn’t feel that sense of community the last several years anyway. Intellectually and emotionally, we were on a different page.