A Deist at the Dawn and Sunset of My Life

By Raymond Fontaine, Ph.D. - March 10, 2007

Email no.206: I Submit This Tale to the World Union of Deists

I got my first idea of God from my dad at home. He always referred to God as "le bon Dieu" (meaning the good God). Responding to my many questions, he said that God made the sun and the moon and everything good on earth, such as the flowers in our garden and the food on our table.

He said nothing about God as revealed in the Bible because my dad could not read. Nor did he speak about God as preached by the priest in church because my father worked even on Sundays. We were poor and his pay was low. 

He got his notion of God from nature. As in our home, whatever was there was made by someone principally by my dad. So also in nature, the flowers and the trees, the animals and the birds were made by God. My dad's notion of God became mine. Without realizing it then, I was a fledgling Deist.

The Catholic Church would soon put an end to my simplistic view of God and mess up my mind first through its nuns during eight years and later through its priests during thirteen years.

At six years old, I went to a Catholic school managed by nuns. I don't recall their speaking about nature's God. Their spiel was about God in heaven and his son, Jesus, living on earth. To show that Jesus was divine they reported a long list of miracles, such as his walking on water and raising the dead back to life. After dying on the cross to expiate our sins, he lived again and soon ascended into heaven. But he still lives on earth in the hosts consecrated by priests during Mass. On and on the nuns spoke about the deeds of Jesus on earth but not about God's creation of the universe.  

At thirteen I entered a seminary where, during 14 years, I lived with priests who taught me a lot about the Church and the Pope. Believing these priests and admiring them, I decided to become a priest like them. I was ordained a priest at twenty eight years old.

Then I spent several years preaching to others what I had learned, without doubting the truth of my teaching. 

Before long, I observed the hardships that people suffered because of the Church's stubborn stand on birth control, divorce, and celibacy for its priests. I carefully researched these harsh doctrines. I reached the conclusion that the Church taught errors. Convinced of that, I could not continue to preach its errors. So I left the Church and ditched its doctrines.

I was left with my belief in God as imparted by my father in my childhood. The wonders in nature and its designs are real and they required a Designer of Supreme Intelligence.  

Yesterday, out of the blue and in a flash, I realized that I began my life as a Deist and would end it as a Deist. Oh! to be able to relive the many years in between my two brief periods of Deism. I would connect them and form an unbroken belief in Nature's God from start to finish.

Email no. 207 Reply From the World Union of Deists

Thank you Ray for sharing this important realization. The profound simplicity of your Dad is beautiful. It mirrors and is a part of the profound simplicity of Deism. The fact that your Dad's belief in God was due to his observations of Nature and had nothing to do with any "revealed" religion demonstrates a unique quality of Deism which virtually guarantees the success of Deism. As long as Deists take action to get the word out about Deism there is nothing that can stop it!

I understand your feelings of frustration, anger and sadness when you reflect on the years of your life that were not spent promoting Nature's God through Deism, but which were instead spent promoting the lies and superstitions of "revealed" religion. I was never a clergy member, but I did my best to promote Christianity when I was caught up in that fear producing cult. Often I'd reflect on being so stubborn and narrow-minded that I literally threw down the eye-opening book on God and Deism, The Age of Reason. At the time I was in my early twenties and a staunch Christian. I wasted another six years trying to make Christianity and the Bible align with my God-given reason. Of course, that is impossible if you're honest with yourself, so I then became a Deist. It took another few years until I became an active Deist. How terrible to waste all that time and life! But instead of focusing on something in the past that we can't do anything about, we all need to do as you are doing and do our utmost to see to it that Deism reaches its rightful place in the world.

If you and I had been exposed to Deism in our youth, I know we would have been active Deists since our very early years. By working very hard now to spread Deism as far and as wide as possible, we are giving that early opportunity to young people of today and to generations yet unborn. What an honor and a privilege this is! I'm very proud to call you a Deist Brother in this struggle for Deism and our God-given reason to triumph over the dark superstitions and fears of the "revealed" religions of the world! Just as light always chases out darkness, I know Deism will prevail!

Progress!

Robert L. Johnson
www.deism.com 

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