Neo Deist
Th.D. & D.Div. h.c.
I grew up as a Baptist and spent the first 30 years of my life in that denomination. I still retain some of the beliefs that I was taught and I do have a soft spot for Christianity. You can't be a part of something for that long and not have any attachments. However, there were some things that I just did not agree with, and after transitioning into a deist, I was finally able to let go of some religious baggage.
These are some of the more common talking points that deists will come across:
1. Original Sin: this is the concept that since Adam and Eve sinned, all humans are born as sinners and must repent since we all came from them. Sin is passed down through the genes or bloodline. Hogwash!
This theory is about the most unfair thing that a deity can impose upon his creation. I am to pay for some crap that a supposed ancestor did some 6,000 years ago? Hell no!
This was clearly an invention of the Church and is just another guild trip control mechanism. Geneticists have already said that there is no way we all came from an original pair of humans. There is too much diversity within the human race, and it definitely did not happen a mere 6,000 years ago.
2. Noah's Ark: this is a fantasy story that probably grew around the campfire back when storytelling was the major form of entertainment for nomadic people. There are so many scientific principles that prove this wrong it is not even funny.
If the water was so deep that Mt. Everest was covered, the water at that altitude would have frozen. Since we are not encased in a block of ice, we can safely assume that did not happen.
Marsupials all originate in Australia so...did the Union of Marsupial Mammals get together after the Ark landed and voted on their destination?
What did the predators eat after the Ark landed? If there were only two of each animal (I am aware of the contradiction in 7 clean animals), then their killing of one from the pair would cause that species to go extinct. That obviously did not happen.
Pro-Arkers will say that the flood was the reason for so many landscape changes, not millions or billions of years of earth development...like continental plates drifting apart, tectonic plates pushing mountains up, etc. The sad thing for them is that scientists today are recording the very events that they deny.
3. Tower of Babel: so humans were building this big tower to reach the heavens and God did not like it, so He confused everyone by making them speak different languages. Uhm, yeah. Sounds more like a campfire explanation as to why people spoke different languages.
God must really be pissed since we now have skyscrapers that are far taller than the ToB could have ever been.
4. The Exodus: it never happened. Archeologists have been looking for evidence of it for centuries. They have found nothing. A million + people wandering around an area for 40 years would have left some trace...pottery, weapons, shelters, bones/tombs...something.
This is further complicated by the fact that the path was actually across the Sea of Reeds (a swamp) and not the Red Sea. You can blame the KJV for that bad translation into English.
Ironic that there is not a single Egyptian hieroglyph that mentions anything at all about a mass uprising of slaves that left. Pro-exodus believers will say the Egyptians were embarrassed so they erased all traces of it. Bah! Funny that the Egyptian economy did not suffer in any shape or form, and life carried on as usual back then without a hiccup.
What is interesting, and I am not saying this is the case, but the Hyksos people lived in Egypt and were actually driven out by Pharaoh Ahmose I. They migrated to the east, wound up in Canaan and later founded what was to become...wait for it...Jerusalem. How easy it would have been for them to change their story from one of defeat to one of winning their freedom from slavery, all to save face.
No the pyramids were not built by "Hebrew slaves."
5. Lucifer is not a name for Satan: It is Latin and comes from the Greek heosphorus. It means "day star or dawn star." It refers to the planet Venus, which can be seen at...dawn. Jerome, a 4th century CE monk who was translating for his Latin Vulgate (the early Catholic Bible), capitalized the L for an unknown reason. The KJV kept the capitalized translation.
The only appearance of the term in the KJV is in the verse of Isaiah 14:12. You will not find the term anywhere else in the English Bible. It has erroneously been linked to Luke 10:18. It actually refers to a fallen Babylonian King (most likely Nebuchadnezzar II) who conquered the Hebrews, ruled over them and even destroyed their temples. The Hebrews hated him and the Persians. The verse is mocking his fall from grace when he died.
Modern translations have recognized the error and have removed the term completely.
An interesting note...Jesus is referred to as the "dawn star" in both 2 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 22:16, so he too is "Lucifer!"
6. Satan: we don't need a supernatural boogeyman to explain why bad things happen. God, the creator and all powerful supreme being, could simply snap His fingers and uncreate Satan if he truly were this diabolical arch enemy. Good vs. Evil has been the theme of every story ever told, regardless of culture or era.
For starters, the term satan is Hebrew in origin (you know, the OT) and it is ALWAYS presented in Hebrew as ha-satan, which means "the adversary," or in some references "the accuser." It is a title, not a name. Orthodox Judaism, which the entire OT is centered upon, does not have a concept of Satan as the devil and enemy of God...and it is written in their language, not some bastardized translation.
If you look at the Book of Job, it was God that brought up Job to ha-Satan for testing. It was God that set the rules for the tests. It is God that ha-Satan is subject to and can't do jack crap without His divine authority.
7. Demons: simply put, a demon was nothing more than a sickness, disease or affliction that early people did not understand. They did not have the level of medical science that we have now. They did not know what epilepsy was. When someone fell to the ground shaking and foaming at the mouth with their eyes rolled back in their head, they thought it was demonic possession.
Jesus cast out (cured) all sorts of "demons" in the NT. Every single instance can be defined as some sort of medical condition.
These are some of the more common talking points that deists will come across:
1. Original Sin: this is the concept that since Adam and Eve sinned, all humans are born as sinners and must repent since we all came from them. Sin is passed down through the genes or bloodline. Hogwash!
This theory is about the most unfair thing that a deity can impose upon his creation. I am to pay for some crap that a supposed ancestor did some 6,000 years ago? Hell no!
This was clearly an invention of the Church and is just another guild trip control mechanism. Geneticists have already said that there is no way we all came from an original pair of humans. There is too much diversity within the human race, and it definitely did not happen a mere 6,000 years ago.
2. Noah's Ark: this is a fantasy story that probably grew around the campfire back when storytelling was the major form of entertainment for nomadic people. There are so many scientific principles that prove this wrong it is not even funny.
If the water was so deep that Mt. Everest was covered, the water at that altitude would have frozen. Since we are not encased in a block of ice, we can safely assume that did not happen.
Marsupials all originate in Australia so...did the Union of Marsupial Mammals get together after the Ark landed and voted on their destination?
What did the predators eat after the Ark landed? If there were only two of each animal (I am aware of the contradiction in 7 clean animals), then their killing of one from the pair would cause that species to go extinct. That obviously did not happen.
Pro-Arkers will say that the flood was the reason for so many landscape changes, not millions or billions of years of earth development...like continental plates drifting apart, tectonic plates pushing mountains up, etc. The sad thing for them is that scientists today are recording the very events that they deny.
3. Tower of Babel: so humans were building this big tower to reach the heavens and God did not like it, so He confused everyone by making them speak different languages. Uhm, yeah. Sounds more like a campfire explanation as to why people spoke different languages.
God must really be pissed since we now have skyscrapers that are far taller than the ToB could have ever been.
4. The Exodus: it never happened. Archeologists have been looking for evidence of it for centuries. They have found nothing. A million + people wandering around an area for 40 years would have left some trace...pottery, weapons, shelters, bones/tombs...something.
This is further complicated by the fact that the path was actually across the Sea of Reeds (a swamp) and not the Red Sea. You can blame the KJV for that bad translation into English.
Ironic that there is not a single Egyptian hieroglyph that mentions anything at all about a mass uprising of slaves that left. Pro-exodus believers will say the Egyptians were embarrassed so they erased all traces of it. Bah! Funny that the Egyptian economy did not suffer in any shape or form, and life carried on as usual back then without a hiccup.
What is interesting, and I am not saying this is the case, but the Hyksos people lived in Egypt and were actually driven out by Pharaoh Ahmose I. They migrated to the east, wound up in Canaan and later founded what was to become...wait for it...Jerusalem. How easy it would have been for them to change their story from one of defeat to one of winning their freedom from slavery, all to save face.
No the pyramids were not built by "Hebrew slaves."
5. Lucifer is not a name for Satan: It is Latin and comes from the Greek heosphorus. It means "day star or dawn star." It refers to the planet Venus, which can be seen at...dawn. Jerome, a 4th century CE monk who was translating for his Latin Vulgate (the early Catholic Bible), capitalized the L for an unknown reason. The KJV kept the capitalized translation.
The only appearance of the term in the KJV is in the verse of Isaiah 14:12. You will not find the term anywhere else in the English Bible. It has erroneously been linked to Luke 10:18. It actually refers to a fallen Babylonian King (most likely Nebuchadnezzar II) who conquered the Hebrews, ruled over them and even destroyed their temples. The Hebrews hated him and the Persians. The verse is mocking his fall from grace when he died.
Modern translations have recognized the error and have removed the term completely.
An interesting note...Jesus is referred to as the "dawn star" in both 2 Peter 1:19 and Revelation 22:16, so he too is "Lucifer!"
6. Satan: we don't need a supernatural boogeyman to explain why bad things happen. God, the creator and all powerful supreme being, could simply snap His fingers and uncreate Satan if he truly were this diabolical arch enemy. Good vs. Evil has been the theme of every story ever told, regardless of culture or era.
For starters, the term satan is Hebrew in origin (you know, the OT) and it is ALWAYS presented in Hebrew as ha-satan, which means "the adversary," or in some references "the accuser." It is a title, not a name. Orthodox Judaism, which the entire OT is centered upon, does not have a concept of Satan as the devil and enemy of God...and it is written in their language, not some bastardized translation.
If you look at the Book of Job, it was God that brought up Job to ha-Satan for testing. It was God that set the rules for the tests. It is God that ha-Satan is subject to and can't do jack crap without His divine authority.
7. Demons: simply put, a demon was nothing more than a sickness, disease or affliction that early people did not understand. They did not have the level of medical science that we have now. They did not know what epilepsy was. When someone fell to the ground shaking and foaming at the mouth with their eyes rolled back in their head, they thought it was demonic possession.
Jesus cast out (cured) all sorts of "demons" in the NT. Every single instance can be defined as some sort of medical condition.
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