January 15, 2018 Monday
Bedtime story
On Deism
Deism is less of a religious belief and
more of a philosophical position that posits God is a starting point of the
universe in having set the rule of the game or if you will, laws of the
universe.
And that is it.
It then takes no part in the affairs of the
universe, including not answering prayers, not intervening divinely, not
performing miracles and the entire gamut of beliefs that is commonly held by
most orthodox believers.
It is odd that though deists reject
atheism, the more traditional religious believers consider them to be atheists.
Deists hold two salient beliefs which most
other believers would agree with them:
(a) God exists and God created the universe
(b) God gave humans the ability to reason
These two beliefs are almost universal to
all religions and thus they are no grounds for any controversy.
The disparity with others comes in what
they do not believe or what is also known as the critical elements of deism
which is chiefly three fold:
(a) Deists completely reject any religion
based on books and thereby revelation
(b) Deists completely reject all religious
dogmas, rituals, display and demagogy
(c) Skepticism if not outright rejection of
all claims of miracles, magic, prophecies and so called religious mysteries
It will be obvious to you now that to an
outright atheist like me, deists would fall in the category of believers but to
any average religious believer, a deist discards off everything that makes
religion so attractive and most importantly, so lucrative.
One of the greatest grievances that an average
believer would hold against deism is the use of reason as a critical tool for
exposing and rejecting what they would see as nonsense.
Religion on the other hand prides itself in
keeping reason and logic out in the matters of faith.
Somewhere I recall a cartoon on religion
that has always stuck to my dismal memory:
It shows a mosque or a temple, some
religious place where at the entrance a board is placed which proudly proclaims:
LEAVE YOUR SHOES AND BRAINS AT THE DOORSTEP.
This one cartoon says everything about
religion; it is purely a matter of faith and belief, and the more ridiculous
and irrational its ideas the greater is its appeal to the faith holders.
So when deism sees reason and knowledge as
one of its key elements, it is not surprising that the “real” believers not
only find it repulsive but also threatening.
I think Einstein was one of those atheists
who very often spoke in the language of deists and would often invoke the word
god for anything that was mysterious or unknown in physics.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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