REVELATIONS OF REASON

With Christendom’s fragile relics revealed
To be fakes, so then the enlightened
Presumed god and his holy church would yield.
The superstitious, being no longer frightened,
Could look up into the heavens and see
An absence of angels. They were free
From damnation and this blessed relief
Should have them all embracing disbelief.
Abrahamic sophistries would fall,
Excised by the keen, adamantine blade
Of science; the progress that has been made
Must surely let atheism enthral,
Now that this has become the full season
To reap the grand harvest of reason.

Yet, just as Torah, Bible and Koran
Become manifested as errant tomes,
Not the Words of God, rather works of Man,
Mere shadows in illuminated homes.
Yet, although revelation is dismissed,
It is still conceivable to insist
That reason does not need to undermine,
But be a staunch pillar of the divine.
In truth, science continues to advance
And comprehension of creation grows
Because there exist discernable laws,
Not merely random, promiscuous chance.
Freethinking scientists and laity
Can contemplate a sense of deity.

The shape and the length and the depth of God,
The divine conceit and its extension:
Man might speculate but not know quod
Erat inveniendum*. Mention
The sacred and reason in the same verse
And zealots will fulminate, and curse
The apostate for his vile defiance
Of the jealous god or godless science.
Pious prelate and the secularist
Set aside their fundamental schism
To denounce as error modern deism
For reasoning the divine must exist.
What is God? Language is inadequate,
But thoughtful poetry may speculate.

This Logos being beyond definition,
Ineffable always and in all things,
And yet, occurring in Man’s cognition,
The merest hint imagination brings.
No cold and distant deity is this
And far too persistent for Man to miss.
The ineffable may be made absurd,
Transliterated as the holy word.
While sceptics’ intransigent insistence
On a rigid militant denial,
Must foreswear purpose glimpsed in nature’s guile
And that anything at all makes sense.
God can’t be confined by Man’s summation,
Being within and without creation.

What then of evil and the cruel stain
Upon mortal flesh left by the tart juice
Oozing from the forbidden fruit? Again,
Here’s evidence of clerical abuse,
With so much pomp and privilege to win
Through invocation of original sin.
Heaven’s gate slammed shut bringing Man to his knees
Before the Pontiff whose hand held the keys:
How else was Wrong to be culled from Right
Without the guarantee of Hell? Unless,
There’s no original sin to confess
And God isn’t irked by Adam and Eve’s slight.
Not guilt, but free reason divines intent
And human conscience guides moral judgement.

Commandments claimed of God for humanity
Are made by Man, through Man, for Man. It’s in
This promulgation their profanity
Allows such considerations of sin
To be tempered with due experience,
Fashioning a proper and commonsense
Of justice: not some divine demagogue
Handing down a mountaintop Decalogue.
In a reasonable world everyone should know
Whatever their differences they pale
To insignificance when male and female
Are utterly equal before the law.
However people might choose to relate,
In life and death, Nature doesn’t discriminate.

Sitting beneath a star-strewn midnight sky
On a hill above a spangled city,
The distant drone of traffic driving by,
Owl screech and a sense of complicity
With all creation, as if its intent
Is entirely this sacrosanct moment.
No matter the cosmos is so immense,
Nor a fraction of it makes any sense.
For the living, those to be born, the dead,
This grand contrivance emerged and was wrought
Over eons from a singular mote,
So a human eye might witness the sacred.
Break bread beneath those stars, raise a glass of wine
And share in communion with the divine.

Or, no wine, nor bread, nor appurtenances
Of revelation: let the spirit soar
Without scriptures, creeds and such romances,
Written by rote with God as dictator.
Earth is consecrated through its being,
Heavens are made holy by the seeing
Of them through wondrous eyes. Jubilation
At being blessed with life, conscious creation,
Aware enough to rejoice, celebrate
With song and dance and poetry and paint,
Or sit in silence listening for the faint
Whisperings of transcendence. Contemplate
Or cry; whatever personally holds sway
In observing nature’s mystery play.

Consciousness is no fortunate mistake,
Some side effect: rather Man’s sentience
Affirms that the universe is awake
And its being self-aware no vague pretence.
Intelligent Design? Do not expect
God in the person of an architect,
It seems the cosmos has proclivity
To show immanent creativity.
Absence of perfection is not a loss
Of coherence, for it is in the flaw
Seeds are planted and there begin to grow.
Thesis – order! Antithesis – chaos!
This dynamic antimony suggests
An active principle that never rests.

Religions are all too human, thoughtful
Fabrications constructed in good faith
To shelter all who cannot help but mull
An idea as insubstantial as a wraith.
Word is treacherous, betrays its meaning,
So, those who are intent upon gleaning
Absolute definition, find the trial
Inconclusive, and settle for denial.
Reason lights a way between blind belief
And blinkered rebuttal, yet such a light
Casts much deeper shadows when it is bright,
And it is in darkness doubt finds its brief.
Science or sacred? Seek to heal this schism,
Embrace reason, the reason for Deism.

* Which was to be found

Deist Epistle 1

It is no small task to become free from superstition. In infancy children are exposed to prevailing religious ideas. Often before they can comprehend such an the event, baptism is performed and they are inducted, however nominally, into a church.

It is not long before Christmas begins to inculcate some basic notions. Perhaps twinkling lights, glitter and presents are what fascinate the most, but angels, stables wise men and mangers also start to appear. Then there’s the central figure.

The baby Jesus is something a young child can relate to as being very like themselves, only extra-special in some ill-defined way. At nursery simple carols are learned and sung and then on into school and religious education.

Even children raised in secular households are not immune from such religious influence. Modern society, having arisen from Christendom, is infused with its ideas and values so they appear to be a natural part of even an atheist’s personal ideology.

Atheists tend to be those who have made a conscious effort to liberate themselves from outmoded religious concepts. The bible has proven to be not the infallible word of God, but the all too fallible tale telling of man.

Science split not only the atom, but also heaven wide open, revealing great mysteries though ones susceptible to human interrogation and comprehension. However influential culturally Christendom might remain, its cosmic monarch has been toppled as surely as Byzantium.

God is dead! Nietzsche wrote the obituary almost a century and a half ago, and yet religion refuses to emulate Judas by slinking away and quietly perishing. Certainly, with notable exceptions, pews continue to be polished more regularly by aging volunteers with dusters, rather than the bums of believers.

The recent census demonstrated a decreasing number who laid claim, however tenuously, to religious observance of any sort. Regularly society is declared secular through the organs of the media; while celebrity atheists, some scientists, others stand up comedians, make mock of the few remaining deluded fools.

However, it is on the ship of fools many take passage against this rising tide of scepticism. Perhaps humanity should not consider itself so clever that it alone can now walk on water. Tides have a way of turning unexpectedly, catching out those who considered themselves safe on the moral high ground.

Reason is the faculty that has promoted humanity to its present lofty position. The world is no longer taken on faith; its ways and enigmas are challenges for reasoned investigation.

Science makes manifest the natural laws by which it is possible for there to be sentient life capable of such a task. Everyday experience confirms generally what science defines precisely.

Such thinking has been applied to religion for as long as science has been rising to its dominant position. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of Deism, the application of reason to religious and sceptical thinking.

If the universe operates according rational laws, then what is the source of such reason? God as the creator, the prime mover, emerged, transcending previous theistic revealed religion and confounding those promoting Man through their declared absence of God.

God is a concept of unfathomable depths, ultimately beyond human comprehension. As a word it is little more than a convenience, a sign allowing conversation to take place.

Perhaps “God” as a word is dead, due to the accumulated burden of all its previous associations. If the word has had its meaning crushed from it, then another will take its place. Deus is favoured by many Deists.

The word is not ultimately important; it is not in itself holy. Language has limitations that do not allow for direct and precise definition, which is why physicists use mathematics.

But, Deism is at least true in the sense that a poem is true, or a painting, or a piece of music. Nietzsche was aware that with the interment of Christendom’s God science, of itself, was not suitable to fill the vacant throne.

In “The Birth of Tragedy” he looked back to ancient Greece for indications of what might hold the key to human flourishing. In the Stoics he could have found the early development of thinking that has re-emerged in modern times as Deism.

Like all religions and philosophies, Deism is man made and as such will have its moment and then pass away. However, when it does so there will arise a new manner of thinking in which the timeless precepts of Deism will be inculcated, just as those of value from previous religions have echoes in the Deist heart.