How I became a Deist
The purpose this tumblr page was to talk about religion, ideas, and primarily my belief in Deism. If you would like to follow me on my more lighter and every day to day stuff I do recommend visiting my other tumblr at thecaleb. For a while I’ve sat on this page wondering where to begin and I guess like all things I should begin at the beginning. With that being said this will be a long post.
Before I get into this allow me to state something. While I do not believe in revealed religions I have nothing against the individuals. If you have truly considered and thought about what you believe and it truly makes you happy and at peace in your life then please keep on believing. But if you are one of those people that uses it to exploit others, twists it to get what you want, uses it to condemn and ridicule people, are closed minded about it, and refuse to think on your own about anything then yes I am after you. If you are confused or unsure and are following a crowd then I am here to speak to you. In the end you will have your beliefs and I will have mine. I accept that and wish you the best in life.
I was born into a devout Christian family. Mostly conservative Christians but they were and are for the most part very kind and fair people. My first and middle name are marks of my family’s beliefs: Caleb Joshua. At a very early age Who, What, where, and why ruled me and science has always been something I love greatly. I am still this way. There was a vast world of knowledge out there and I had to know it all. This is not always encouraged among religious groups.
As an aside naming your child after two major Christian characters is a lot to live up to especially when their stories are read to said child repeatedly.
Even at an early age some stories in the bible confused me. One of the ones I loved so much but at the same time did not make sense was the tale about the Tower of Babel. I remember as a child thinking about how great people back then must have been trying to build a tower to God. Yet part of my child’s mind wondered about what God thought about space flight and satellites. I asked this question a few times but never got a real answer.
I remember that I was 12 years old when I first started my heavy research of the bible. I first broke down into topics, then read it straight through, then looked up more topics. The more I read the bible the more questions I had and the more confusing things became. My questions were always deflected with “It’s god’s will” or “You must have faith.” Faith and belief I had but God and his appointed voices (pastors, preachers, priests, etc) were not giving me the answers to my questions. Yet I was told my answer could be found through prayer and study of the bible. So I did this.
I found that different denominations and different Churches within those denominations all had slightly different beliefs and different ideas on how to interpret the bible. Which in itself was confusing to my child and teenage mind. I believed that some piece was missing with the bible and that I could find that piece somewhere in historic and religious studies. I found lots of ancient religions paralleled and even interwove with Christian beliefs; religions that even predated Christianity. Through out this I prayed and prayed hard that God would temper my soul and mind and guide me through my research.
When I was about 16 I decided that I was going to prove the bible was correct. If it truly was the word of God then it would hold up to history, science, and against other religions. If something is given by the divine then it should be fact. I started studying religions feverishly and always trying to stay on tract with the bible. I found a lot of wonderful things in a lot of other religions but they left all the same questions. I discussed with believers and nonbelievers. I started trying to distort science fact itself to prove things in the bible correct and all I became was frustrated beyond belief.
I smacked into a wall, so to speak. My mind was full of information and I still felt like I was missing that one critical piece that would tie everything together and prove my mission correct. My research slowed but never stopped. In my late teens and very early twenties I started studying with denominations of Christianity again and while very interesting it felt like circling back to the beginning questions. I even studied with Jehovah’s witnesses for a while; very interesting people but they leave the same holes and questions as Catholics to Protestants and Mormons to Christ Scientists.
A problem I had with religion is that they denounce evolution. Yet we see organisms evolving all the time. Also in my teen years I began to wonder why a God would create a universe that was constantly changing but then would not create its organisms to evolve with the universe. This led me to believe a lot of theories that Christians that were also scientists proposed. Yet even those theories had way too many holes in them to be comfortable.
After all the years of studying I was stuck in a state of limbo. A state of confusion. When people would ask me my belief system I would tell them Christian but really that was a lie. I doubted Christianity but I could not full understand why I doubted it. In my mind I was still looking for that one piece that would answer all the questions. Then as things go I fell upon information about Deism. It was one of those ideas that I had never researched.
While reading about Deism I came across essays written by Thomas Paine. Then I read The Age of Reason, also by Thomas Paine. It was while reading his essays that I had the greatest epiphany. All the answers I was looking for I had already found. The answers had been blocked by first the conditioning of being raised in a church my whole life. Then it was too simple of an answer and I was looking for something more complex.
The answer was simple. The Israelites were some of the best plagiarist of history taking stuff from other religions to build their own. Many of these considered mythologies now. It was all things I had seen but had yet to connect the dots. They also were corrupt and to make their acts more acceptable they used a God as a way of justifying their actions.
It was in this very moment. The moment that I realized the bible and Christianity has been the greatest lie of all times that I released the last of my beliefs in Christianity that I truly felt at peace with myself. For once in my life I felt the peace of mind that was always promised me by so many religions but never truly given. The greatest weight I have ever felt was lifted from my mind and the “scales fell from my eyes” and for once everything was clear to me.
So what is Deism? The World Union of Deists describes it as thus: “Deism is knowledge of God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature. The designs presuppose a Designer. Deism is therefore a natural religion and is not a “revealed” religion.” A simpler definition is the belief in a Creator/God using reason.
I am now 26 years old. I’m currently the happiest I’ve ever been. I am also more morally aligned then ever before. Religious studies are still a hobby of mine and I am always more then willing to discuss it with others. In this tumblr blog I hope to show further evidence on why I believe what I do and even include scientific theories to show the existence of a creator, because if a Creator created all this including the laws that govern the universe then those laws should point back to said Creator. Here at the beginning I will pick on Christianity pretty heavy but I do plan on bring up many other revealed religions as time moves on.
