Part Deist, Part Atheist

Actually, my friend, I am a Deist. I know; doesn’t ring a church bell. Voltaire summed up the Deists by saying god is a comic playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh. For the record, Deism was the dominant religion of the Eighteenth Century. What is fascinating is that many of the founders and framers of this supposed “Christian nation” were Deists. Thomas Paine. Thomas Jefferson. Ben Franklin. Deists believe in a creator who was the watchmaker that wound things up, but then splits, leaving us morally alone. Deists find comfort in the seasons not creeds. No need for stained glass, weekly collections, and pews. God is no more moral than god is blue or square. Morality is the false hope that people are redeemable, with conscience. Morality is a human creation to relieve our guilty conscience of the heinous horrors we have imposed on each other since civilization began. We are the Christian nation that wiped out the Native Americans. We are the Christian nation that enslaved blacks and openly lynched them. We are the Christian nation, the only nation, to have dropped two nuclear bombs on another country. We are the Christian nation whose hands are covered in blood.

Exactly when was civilization totally civil?…Moral?

We are all a little broken. We fight the demons we create in our minds. Ironically, the more broken and tormented, the more interesting we become. Especially the ones who don’t even realize how broken they are. Recognizing one’s damage is the first step in repairing the damage. As Charles Baudelaire wrote “wickedness is always inexcusable, but there is some merit in knowing that one is wicked, and the most irreparable of vices is to do evil without knowing it.”