The Journey to Deism from Islam

I have an attraction on my mirror stating, “Life is not about finding yourself – life is about creating yourself.”, “commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw". This is my statement I live by.
Many people do not understand the meaning of Deism and why I am saying it, or maybe the first thing that jump in their mind is Atheist. These two believes are totally different; Atheist is unbeliever whereas Deist is about believing in God who is identified through nature and reason. In Deism our reason and belief become happily united with the wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes.

It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures with that beautiful unique complexity, teaches us our duty toward each other by forgetting and feeling mercy.
I became who I am today after long journey of questions, wonders, confusions. In fact, I was born in Muslim society where questioning religion is forbidden and my parents are westernize and open minded as well. They believe on Education and knowledge. I was naughty boy who liked to ask a lot of questions that put me sometimes in trouble with others. However, I had a lot of argument about Islam in the things that never made any sense in my head; music was one of this things. I believe that music as like the language for everyone no matter who you are or where you come from or what language do you speak we all enjoy it. I love music and dance since my childhood, It was my passion with no tensions or no confusions but where I came from I was told all the time in school and public, listening to music, dancing are prohibited and celebrities are demons. I was wondering and asking myself how music that make people happy, make us fly with our emotions can be prohibited.

One time I got brave enough to ask our Islamic teacher at school some questions such as: why do we believe in Allah (God), he got angry at me and said, “Your question is stupid. You know you shouldn't ask these questions. We should believe in Allah as a Muslim without questions, Quran said that and it's our faith." I asked him again, “Did Quran say we can't ask, and how we know is Islam the only right religion, why not Christian?” He looked at me with wide opened eyes and full of anger, said "If you don't stop asking these questions I will punish you, put you failure in this subject and tell the school director to kick you out of the school." I was scared because my parents would be upset.
Since then, I tried to search by myself looking for convince answers for my questions but I couldn’t find any satisfied answers, all I found is that religious scripts to obey and follow. I couldn’t find answer for my questions though I tried to watch T.V religious series, read Islamic books publications and did a lot of searching on the Internet. Since then, I knew Islam is not what I want to believe, as God give me brain to think and that definitely for reason. I am not going to follow these people who want me to shut up my brain and mouth to follow them like a goat without questioning, though I was forced to act like them and keep my thought for myself because I knew if I talk much they won't hesitate persecute me or harm my family. I felt scared and at the same time fed up to act like someone who not I am.

My parents started to worried about me because I started to express my thoughts about religious issues with some friends by some local religious figures in my community. Therefore, they sent me aboard to study, I went first to Germany and end in China where I got my bachelor degree. At that time, I felt relief and be myself though the previous question still wondering on my mind looking for answers.

Couple of years later I decide to study and read about religions from different perspectives as we say 'think out of the box'. I started reading, watching different documentaries and historical researches of religions such as: Islam, Christian and Judaism, but every time I dig deeper in each one I face a lot of questions. I felt like I am flying in black whole with no end. During my studies I arrived to the conclusion that religious through time been political more than faith. It's about having authority or power to control people, because logically you cannot control people thought or force them to do what you want unless you have high power or authority that make people follow without argument or rejection.

On Oct.1st 2012 I received a call from my mother telling me that my Grandpa Dr. Ali Seif was murdered in Yemen by AQAP which is terrorist group under AL-Qaeda’s Ideology, that news killed me. I loved my grandpa so much, he was my Idol. He was well educated and a great guy who used to help a lot of poor people and did a lot of nonprofit surgeries for them. When he retired in United States where he grew up, study and practiced plastic surgery, he went back to Yemen hoping to make some changes and teach them some of his knowledge on medical and plastic surgeries but at the end he was killed just because he was an American citizen nationality. According to Muslim stupid mentality on their believe who would agree to kill an innocent old man because of his nationality, this incident affected me a lot and made me believe that I was right about Islam.

I decided to follow my brain that lead me through this life till the day I started searching on Google website, "I believe in God, but I don't believe in any religion." There I found a webpage shows that somebody had already asked the same question. He was told that he's a Deist, and that's how I learned about Deism. I was very impressed by it, it's clear concepts about the right of freedom to think and believe on what I was always searching for. I have read about core Deism principles and I found that in Deism God gave us the reason and conscience to develop our own moral and ethical principles. Additionally in Deism all human beings should be free to find, know and worship God in their own way. At the same time all beliefs or views should be respected as long as it doesn’t cause harm or oppress others, those principles relieved me and helped me find answers that match my own way of thinking.

In my opinion, no need to practice or commit for religious rituals and customs by praying, fasting or any other kind of rituals to be a good person. I think practicing civilized human values are more logical and wiser than believe in religious rites which from my point of view collide with reason and human civilization. I want to be myself, have freedom to read, write and express myself, live my life peacefully with myself listen to my favorite music, felling content and the inner peace.

Written by Sami A. Qasem. Reviewed and approved by Dr. Ben Johnson, Doctor of Divinity

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Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans

Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion.

How much do you know about religion? Try answering a sampling of questions asked in a phone survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible,

Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life. On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith. Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences. “Even after all these other factors, including education, are taken into account, atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons still outperform all the other religious groups in our survey,” said Greg Smith, a senior researcher at Pew. That finding might surprise some, but not Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, an advocacy group for nonbelievers that was founded by Madalyn Murray O’Hair. “I have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,” Mr. Silverman said. “Atheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge.

I gave a Bible to my daughter. That’s how you make atheists.” Among the topics covered in the survey were: Where was Jesus born? What is Ramadan? Whose writings inspired the Protestant Reformation? Which Biblical figure led the exodus from Egypt? What religion is the Dalai Lama?

Joseph Smith? Mother Teresa? In most cases, the format was multiple choice. The researchers said that the questionnaire was designed to represent a breadth of knowledge about religion, but was not intended to be regarded as a list of the most essential facts about the subject. Most of the questions were easy, but a few were difficult enough to discern which respondents were highly knowledgeable.

 On questions about the Bible and Christianity, the groups that answered the most right were Mormons and white evangelical Protestants. On questions about world religions, like Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism, the groups that did the best were atheists, agnostics and Jews. One finding that may grab the attention of policy makers is that most Americans wrongly believe that anything having to do with religion is prohibited in public schools. An overwhelming 89 percent of respondents, asked whether public school teachers are permitted to lead a class in prayer, correctly answered no. But fewer than one of four knew that a public school teacher is permitted “to read from the Bible as an example of literature.” And only about one third knew that a public school teacher is permitted to offer a class comparing the world’s religions.

 The survey’s authors concluded that there was “widespread confusion” about “the line between teaching and preaching.” Mr. Smith said the survey appeared to be the first comprehensive effort at assessing the basic religious knowledge of Americans, so it is impossible to tell whether they are more or less informed than in the past. The phone interviews were conducted in English and Spanish in May and June.

There were not enough Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu respondents to say how those groups ranked. Clergy members who are concerned that their congregants know little about the essentials of their own faith will no doubt be appalled by some of these findings.

 Fifty-three percent of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the man who started the Protestant Reformation.

Forty-five percent of Catholics did not know that their church teaches that the consecrated bread and wine in holy communion are not merely symbols, but actually become the body and blood of Christ.

Forty-three percent of Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the foremost rabbinical authorities and philosophers, was Jewish. The question about Maimonides was the one that the fewest people answered correctly. But 51 percent knew that Joseph Smith was Mormon, and 82 percent knew that Mother Teresa was Roman Catholic. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: September 29, 2010 An article on Tuesday about a poll in which Americans fared poorly in answering questions about religion misspelled the name of a beatified Roman Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner. She was Mother Teresa, not Theresa. A version of this article appeared in print on September 28, 2010, on page A17 of the New York edition.

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: September 28, 2010

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A Christian Deist's View of Bible Study and Prayer

I have written other essays relating to the practice of Christian deism as a personal religion. In the essay, "Christian Deism as a Personal Religion," I focused on what it means to "love God" and "love neighbor" as we live each day. I also focused on repentance by us, and our forgiveness of others. In the essay, "Christian Deists: Christians Without Churches," I focused on the meaning of worship "in spirit and in truth." In this essay, I will try to address the subjects of Bible study and prayer in the practice of Christian deism. In regard to "Bible study," my focus as a Christian deist is on the teachings of Jesus found in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the New Testament.

Preceding these books in the "Bible" is the Hebrew Bible, which Christians erroneously refer to as the "Old Testament." The Hebrew Bible presents the story of a primitive people (the Jews) struggling to survive in an environment of conflict with other nations. In that conflict, the Jewish leaders clearly believed that "might makes right" even if it meant the slaughter of innocent women and children of other nations in the Jews' pursuit of a land of their own (Numbers 31:13-17).

What makes this even worse is that this brutality was allegedly done in obedience to "God's will." Although there are some valuable passages in the "Old Testament," these are too few to be of much value to a Christian deist. Following the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the book called "The Acts of the Apostles" provides some history about the early years of the Christian movement, at least as it was viewed by the writer about fifty years (or more) later.

The remainder of the "New Testament" includes letters that Paul (a Jew from Tarsus) wrote, expressing his interpretation of Christianity which varies significantly from the teachings of Jesus. Also included are some letters and books, by unknown writers, reflecting late first Christian century theology, much of which was influenced by Paul. Finally, in the New Testament, there is a book called "Revelation" predicting an imminent end of the world to encourage persecuted Christians to hope for a "new heaven and a new earth" after the destruction of "evil doers."

 This fantasy writing continues to inspire modern-day "end-of-the-world" fanatics to lead their followers to disappointment (at best) and destruction (at worst). Christian deists should view this book as useless. In reading the books of the New Testament, a Christian deist must put each idea to the test of reason. The basic theology of Paul, with his idea of the crucifixion of Jesus being a sacrifice to pay for the sins of humankind, should be summarily dismissed. However, a Christian deist can identify with Paul's statements about faith, hope, and love in the letter called First Corinthians, chapter 13.

Unfortunately, the scope of Paul's love did not include persons of a different sexual orientation. In studying the life and teachings of Jesus, a Christian deist should keep in mind that Jesus was a human being like ourselves. Some of his ideas simply express the cultural views common among Jews two thousand years ago in a pre-scientific age.

Some ideas, such as "demons" causing epilepsy, have no validity. The idea of a "devil" tempting and misleading people is also a sign of that time, and has no place in a religion based on reason. Let me say this clearly: If you find an idea in the Bible that does not seem reasonable to you, you do not have to believe it.

God gave you a mind to use, so use it. 

 In the New Testament, it is clear that Jesus began his career as a Jewish revolutionary who was seeking liberation of the Jews from the Romans, but Jesus gradually came to recognize that the rulership of God (the "kingdom of God") on earth would not become a reality by military force but by the gradual recognition of God's laws "in the heart" of individuals. This concept was too "unorthodox" for his compatriots to accept at the time, but Jesus' view of the "kingdom of God" came to be understood later when Jesus' teachings, especially his parables, were collected. Now, let us think about prayer. What is the meaning of prayer to me as a Christian deist? Put quite simply, prayer is communion with God. Jesus taught that "God is spirit" and it is the "spirit that gives life" to us as individuals (John 4:24 and 6:63). In other words, the essence of God and our own being is spirit. This is not an idea that originated with Jesus. Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus over 500 years before Jesus, recognized that a "creative intelligence" (they called "logos") was responsible for the creation of order in the world, and for the creation of "intelligence" in individual human beings.

In other words, there is a "Mind" which we call "God" and we each have a "mind" through which we can communicate "mind-to-Mind." Prayer was important to Jesus, and we can learn much from how Jesus prayed. Usually, Jesus prayed by himself, away from the company of others (Matthew 14:23; Matthew 26:36; Luke 6:12).

Sometimes Jesus prayed in the presence of a few close friends (Luke 9:28; John 17:1).

Jesus cautioned against making a public display of prayer (Matthew 6:5) and he urged his disciples to "go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Matthew 6:6).

 Jesus urged his disciples to pray simply. He said, "And in praying, do not heap up empty phrases .... for your Father knows what you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:7-8). Some Christians have a misconception about prayer based on their reading of Jesus' statement (Mark 11:24),

 "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and you will." Many Christians are disappointed when they fail to receive what they pray for. Some blame themselves for not having a strong enough "faith," or belief that they will receive what they have prayed for. Others blame God for failing to keep Jesus' promise. The truth is that Jesus often taught by hyperbole (exaggeration). In the verses preceding Mark 11:24, Jesus told his disciples, "Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him" (Mark 11:22-23).

This is an example of a hyperbole to express the importance of faith in God when we pray. But even Jesus did not believe that whatever he prayed for would come to pass. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed that he would not die ("let this cup pass from me"), but he prefaced his prayer request with the words, "If it be possible" (Matthew 26:39).

Here, Jesus recognized that sometimes what he asked for in prayer was not possible. We, too, must accept the fact that sometimes what we seek is not possible. Nevertheless, we may not know what is possible or not possible, so we should express our hopes in prayer.

Believing that something is possible may be a deciding factor in something becoming a reality. Personal faith has been proven to be a factor in healing some illnesses, but not all illnesses can be healed by faith. And faith healing is not a substitute for medical treatment.

 To me, prayer is more than just "talking" to God. It is also "listening" to God. I do not mean that God's voice will come "out of the clouds," but I am convinced that God can help us think of some solutions to our problems. Prayer provides a means of focusing our attention on problems in a way that may open our minds to possible solutions.

I have prayed about a problem at bedtime and have awakened to find a possible solution in my mind the next morning. Perhaps this is the way God communicates with us. I also believe that prayer is a channel through which we can receive strength to cope with our problems. Jesus told his disciples to "pray that you may have strength" so they would not be "weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life" (Luke 21:34-36).

The Hebrew psalmist wrote, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1).

 I believe that prayer is not just "communication" with God. Prayer is COMMUNION with God. In some way when we direct our thoughts to God in prayer, we join our individual spirit with the Spirit that gives us life. The Hebrew psalmist claimed that God spoke these words, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

Without saying a word, we can pray by just being still and knowing that God is with us. Jesus taught his disciples to pray by giving them an example which we call the "Lord's Prayer." "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us; And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:9-13).

 As we know, Jesus viewed God as being like a loving father. In this prayer, Jesus distinguishes God from a human father by referring to God as a heavenly Father.

Then Jesus expresses respect for the sacred authority of God by using the words "hallowed" (sacred) and "name" (authority). Then Jesus gets to the heart of the prayer by seeking the coming of God's kingdom (rule) on earth, which Jesus equates with "God's will."

 The request for "daily bread" is a recognition of the fact that we are dependent on God for the very basics for life (such as bread) that come from what God provides (such as seed, earth, rain).

This recognition of God's gifts is also an implied expression of thanksgiving to God for these provisions. Thanksgiving should always be a part of our prayers. The request for God's forgiveness of our sins (our failures to love others) is directly tied to our obligation to forgive those who repent of their sins against us.

 Finally, the prayer concludes with a request for strength to resist temptation to do evil, and a request for help in protecting ourselves against those who would do evil against us. This prayer is a good model to guide us in our own praying. This short essay certainly does not cover all that should be said about Bible study and prayer, but I hope that it is enough to suggest an approach consistent with our beliefs as Christian deists.

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A Panendeist's Explaination of Why Evil Exists

To understand why bad things happen, we must first imagine a world without them.

What Would Life Look Like Without Evil?

To understand why evil happens, I think we must first ask ourselves, what would the world look like if it was absolutely perfect? If you just scratch the top of that though experiment, you'll probably get some very positive imagery, maybe some picture of you running through a meadow under a perfectly blue sky, but, if you follow that thought process all the way through, you'll arrive at a horrifyingly meaningless form of existence. Why? Because there is only one perfect response and action to every choice you make, in fact, there may only be one utterly perfect thing for you to be doing - ever.

A Day in a Perfect Life

For the sake of illustration, lets imagine that there were multiple perfect things that you could engage in. Now imagine waking up in your perfect home (which is identical to everyone else's perfect home), surrounded by your perfect family, who loves you not because they have a choice, but because that's the only thing they can do - after all, they're perfect too. You get out of your perfect bed and have the perfect breakfast, followed by the most utterly perfect mid-day activities and family time. You wow as you enjoy the perfect picnic at the perfect park, your taste-buds burst in ecstasy as you consume the perfect dinner with your perfect family. After your dinner, you engage in the most remarkably perfect sex in the most perfect position with your perfect wife, and at night, you and your family all lie together in the meadow, looking up at the perfect stars in the perfect night sky - each of you has gone through the entire day in an unshakable and unrelenting mental state of ecstatic loving bliss.

Now imagine that every single family on earth is doing the exact same thing that you're doing, perhaps at different times (depending on geographic location), and all without any choice to deviate from this objective 'perfect' state of being. Imagine that every day will be exactly the same and that you will never die, nor will you ever deviate from this state of existence.

'Perfection' Eliminates the Purpose of Being and Free Will

Besides being terrifying to imagine, a perfect world, with perfect beings, and a perfect material nature cannot accommodate purpose, actual freedom, or a reason for being. In a perfect world, there are no problems to solve, no diseases to cure, no triumphs, no struggles, no tears, and no victories. In such a world, we would simply exist as choice-less beings with no objective meaningful purpose or means of defining our own existence.

Bad Defines Good and Good Defines Bad

Without bad to define good, good is nothing. When you see a beautiful sky on a sunny day, you can appreciate it because you've seen stormy skies that bring rain and destruction. In the same sort of way, when you love deeply, you can appreciate it, because you've known what it means to feel alone.

A perfect world is like a perfectly white room in which you, and everything around you are also perfectly white. In this room, you see nothing, because there is no contrast to define one thing from another. The same would be true of a perfectly black room. It is only by allowing the freedom of both elements, black and white, that innumerable variations of grey can lend form and meaning to this room and all that lies within it.

So in our perfect world scenario, you can't really love or really enjoy anything, because you have nothing to define what makes anything worthy of love or enjoyment in the first place. Everything you do, and everything that happens around you, is simply a set of incomprehensible actions that take place without anyone ever having chosen to do them.

The Scope of Good and Evil

Since good and evil are two parts of an integral whole and necessary to define one another, we must consider that the greatest possible experiences of love, joy, or attainment exist in polarized contrast to equally powerful capacities for hate, sorrow, and failure. We, our world, and the universe it occupies are free, and such freedom requires both good and evil to exist as unrestricted elements. To limit the scope of how bad things could be, would be to limit scope of how good they could be also, ultimately this would diminish our own freedom and depth of experience.

Because Evil Exists, We Have Purpose and Meaning

As humans, it is our transcendent purpose to choose good over evil. When we choose to engage in things like love, friendship, creativity, caring for our fellow beings, or improving the world around us, we find unison with God, and we feel the transcendent beauty, good, and meaning of it.

Written by Benjamin F. Sullivan, Published with Permission via Panendeism.org

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