Tag-Archive for » deism «

14
Feb
How I Broke Free from Various Belief Systems and Found Myself Agnostic
Joemar

When we are born, we are automatically trapped within a culture with a certain belief system. This shapes how we understand all things around us. In most cases, it also dictates how we should behave. It pervades our whole personality so much that when it is challenged and we realize that something is wrong about it, it can  shatter our orderly understanding of the world and leave us utterly confused.

Once we stand on a new belief system, we will be faced with suspicion, indifference and worse are stigma and discrimination from people that we don’t share the same beliefs with anymore. This is the price each one of us has to pay if we change the way we see things…if we change our worldview. I would understand why many people would just stick to what they were raised with and never dare to challenge it, much less to adopt a better and more realistic one.

When I was a child, I saw things from a blend of animistic Catholic Christian worldview. As early as high school I realized that there is more to reality than what this view can offer.  I began to question my beliefs, I doubted the existence of God, I tried to understand how science can explain how things came about. Hence I became known to be an “atheist”. (I didn’t know then the difference between atheism and agnosticism.) Due to a poor grasp of the science behind evolution and cosmology,  I reverted to the Christian belief system but I struggled to understand what true Christianity really is.

Having no solid catechetical background of Catholic doctrine, I easily fell prey to many “Bible only” Christian groups. I jumped from one of these groups to another in trying to get as close to Biblical Christianity as possible. In the end, I bemoaned the lack of external standards to which “Bible only” Christians can test whether they are interpreting the Bible correctly or not. I sought to study how the Bible came to be and through this I rediscovered my Catholic faith, though not the same Catholicism I used to embrace before. It felt liberating how the biblical message is protected from being messed up by private interpretation through the infallible authority of the Church.

However, this new vantage point enabled me to tackle questions at higher levels. I began to scrutinize the historicity of Jesus Christ, the proofs of his resurrection, and other miraculous claims of Christianity. I realized that the very bedrock of Christianity is actually shaky. It is built on shallow evidence of testimonies of witnesses. This kinds of evidence can suffice to establish murder or any crime in a court but would not be enough if you want to prove a very incredible claim such as the resurrection from the dead. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  The same is true with other religions. Extraordinary claims are proven by testimonies of witnesses, which are accepted by most, despite the enormity of the claims and the conflicts of these claims with reason and science.

Confused once again, I managed to slowly understand things without the baggage of revealed religions. All that was left was my belief in a personal God, which I sought to justify using the often repeated philosophical arguments for God’s existence. Along with my growing interest and knowledge in science, the weight of these arguments began to lighten. The argument from design is not very appealing now as it used to be. Without the need for an intelligent designer, the argument from causation can lead to any picture of the ultimate cause, only one of which is a personal intelligent God. The ultimate cause could then be just energy or some simple but universal physical law.

However, since these are purely philosophical arguments and are beyond what science can prove or disprove at the moment, the only honest answer is that we are not sure…that we actually don’t know, which is what agnosticism is, essentially. As Richard Dawkins pointed out though, agnosticism is actually a spectrum. In one end of the spectrum are those who are 99.9% sure that God exists while on the other extreme end are those who believe with 99.9% probability that God does not exist. For the moment, I am probably lying somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, 50-50. I think it is still possible that we can discover in the future a form of a God governing the universe, maybe (just maybe) the kind of God that Albert Einstein and Baruch Spinoza thought about.

Category: Philosophy  Tags: , , , ,  Comments
05
Jan
Dr. Jose Rizal: The foremost Filipino deist
Joemar
Source: sinaglaya.wordpress.com

Source: sinaglaya.wordpress.com

There are so many things that ordinary Filipinos do not know about their national hero. Even if his two novels (Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo) are being studied in high school and his life and works in college as part of the curriculum, many things have been left out of importance. Many details in the novels have been omitted and some aspects of Rizal’s life have been neglected if not concealed for some reasons.

For instance, it is little known that Rizal was actually a deist. He had a firm belief in God but he rejected revealed religion. When we say revealed religion, it refers to a religion that bases its teachings on a supposed revelation from God contained in “holy books” and/or traditions handed down from generations to generations. One can read Rizal’s exposition on this subject in his correspondence with a Jesuit priest, Fr. Pablo Pastells, who was actually his spiritual director during his youthful years in Ateneo. The exchange occurred when Rizal was in an exile in Dapitan and when Fr. Pastells was already the Superior of the Philippine Mission of the Society of Jesus.

In his third letter to Pastells, our national hero explained:

“Through reasoning and by necessity, rather than through faith, do I firmly believe in the existence of a creative Being. Who is he? I do not know. What human sounds, what accents are we to use in pronouncing the name of this Being whose works overwhelm the imagination? Can anyone give him an adequate name, when a small creature on this earth with power so fleeting carries two or three names, three or four surnames, and many more titles and designations? We call him Dios but this only comes from the Latin Deus and ultimately from the Greek Zeus. What kind of being is he? I would attribute to him, to an infinite degree, all the beautiful and holy qualities my mind can think of, but the fear of my ignorance constrains me. Someone has said that everyone conjures up his own God in his own image and likeness. And if my memory serves me right, it was Anacreon who said that if a bull could form an image of God, it would imagine with horns and mooing in a superlative degree. Even so I venture to think of him as infinitely wise, mighty, good (my idea of the infinite is imperfect and confused), when I behold the wonders of his works, the order that reigns over the universe, the magnificence and expanse of creation, and the goodness that shines in all.”

…

“Unable to pass judgement on what surpasses my powers, I settle for studying God in his creatures like myself and in the voice of my conscience, which only can have come from him. I strive to read and find his will in all that surrounds me and in the mysterious sentiment speaking from within me, which I strive to purify above all else.”

Thus, Rizal’s belief in a Deity was based on reasonable reflection of nature as well as from conscience and not on faith or divine revelation. On the same letter, Rizal expressed his disbelief on the teachings of ancient sacred books. He writes:

“The various religions claim to have God’s will condensed and written in books and dogmas; but apart from the many contradictions, conflicting interpretations of words, and many obscure and untenable points I find in them, my conscience, my reason cannot admit that he who like a wise father had provided his creatures with everything necessary for this life, proceeded to bury what was necessary for eternal life in the obscurities of a language unknown to the rest of the world and hide it behind metaphors and deeds that go against the very laws of nature. Is it possible that he who makes the sun rise for all and the air to blow everywhere to give life, he who has endowed everyone with intelligence and reason for life here on earth, has also hidden from us what is most necessary for our eternal life? What shall we say of a father who heaps candies and toys on his children, but gives food only to one of them, educates and rears him alone? And what if it so happens that this chosen one refuses to eat while the others die looking for food?”

But Rizal goes to qualify his denial of revelation. He only denied special revelation that came through ancient books or traditions. He pointed it out in his fourth letter to Fr. Pastells that:

“I believe in revelation, but in the living revelation of nature which surrounds us everywhere, in the voice speaking out through nature – powerful, eternal, incorruptible, clear, distinct, and universal as the Being from which it comes. It is this revelation that I believe in, which speaks to us and penetrates our being from the day we are born to the day we die. Can any other books reveal to us more faithfully God’s work, his goodness, his love, his providence, his eternity, his glory, his wisdom? ‘The heavens tell the glory of the Lord, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Ps 19:1’ Must humanity look for other gospels in order to love God? Do you not believe that men did wrong when they looked for God’d will in scrolls and temples instead of the wonders of nature under the majestic canopy of the skies? Instead of interpreting obscure passages or phrases which provoked hatreds, wars, and dissensions, would it not have been preferable to interpret the facts of nature the better to shape our lives according to its inviolable laws and utilize its resources for our perfection?”

It is then obvious that Rizal was neither Catholic nor Protestant or any other religion you know. He just came to the conclusion that God exists through reasoning and through studying nature and not from any suspicious and contradictory revelation. I advise you get hold of these exchanges with Fr. Pastells. You can also read the honest and equally intelligent replies of Fr. Pastells, which makes their exchange mentally stimulating and really interesting. But in the end, Rizal remained unmoved. He was not convinced by the priest’s arguments as was clearly expressed in his last letter.

Therefore, our national hero, who has studied these matters carefully, came to arrive at a very simple religious philosophy that was attuned to be one of the foundations of the Filipino nation; attuned to his aspirations of independence, academic and religious freedom for our country.

Reference:

Bonoan, Raul J., S.J. 1994. The Rizal-Pastells Correspondence. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. pages 121-216

Note: This is a revised version of the article by the same author that was published at Relijournal.com, the link to the article is http://www.relijournal.com/Religion/Dr.-Jose-Rizal:-The-Foremost-Filipino-Deist.6072.

Category: History, Philosophy  Tags: ,  Comments
20
Dec
You might be a deist without knowing it
Joemar

A large portion of the population of established religions today are nominal members (i.e.  members only by name). Most of them still attend worship/church services but some never go to church at all. Most of these nominal members believe in the essential doctrines of their religion specially those that seem to be right in their judgment. But, when the teachings of their religion go against their common sense and rational thinking, they reject them.

In my observation, many Catholics in the Philippines (I can only speak of my fatherland), especially those who are highly educated, are of this type. They choose which doctrines to believe and which doctrines to reject; a reason why they are referred to by Catholic authorities as “cafeteria-style” Catholics. I presume that nominal members of other religious groups do the same. And also those nominal members of many religions around the world.

Without knowing it, these people are actually placing much value on personal reasoning and judgment over and even against the teachings of their religion. So, without being conscious about it, they are actually rationalists in matters pertaining to religion. Some may question many teachings of their religion and others may just dismiss them as baseless. Generally though, they find the existence of God to be a very reasonable idea by merely observing the beauty and complex designs of nature.

If this is so, they actually subscribe to a set of beliefs that is basically deist. The Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary defines a deist as “one who believes in the existence of a God or Supreme Being but denies revealed religion, basing his belief on the light of nature and reason.” The deist is the person and the religious philosophy is called deism.

I was in a much the same situation before. I didn’t know that such a religious philosophy had a name and history. It was a very popular philosophy back in the 17th and 18th centuries and there were attempts to institutionalize it (like in France and in the US) but the efforts failed partly due to the individualist nature of deism. But it was revitalized with the advent of the internet and now, according to a survey done by the National Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI ), deism or a simple belief in a Deity is the fastest growing religion in the United States with an astounding estimated growth of +717% from 1990 to 2004.

To my fellow deists, I think its about time to go out of our shells and to be seen as what we are and to show the rest of the world that we are not just nominal Christians, or nominal Jews, nominal Muslims or nominal whatever. We have a religious philosophy of our own. We are deists!

Reference cited:

Survey of Religious Identification (NSRI ). 2001. American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS): Top Twenty Religions in the United States. Accessed on September 21, 2006 at adherents.com

Note: This is a revised version of the article by the same author that was published at Relijournal.com, the link to the article is http://www.relijournal.com/Religion/You-Might-Be-a-Deist-Without-Knowing-It.6071.

Category: Philosophy  Tags:  Comments
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