-Ron DeGoth
I fear God and next to God I mostly fear them that fear him not.
-Saadi, Persian Poet
The fear of God is not merely something that you keep in the back of your head- it is relevant to everyday conduct. One who fears God greatly will go to great step to avoid angering that God. For many revealed religions, fear of God is a critical part of the ideology; The potential wrath of God is a tool used to keep the faithful in check. Who would piss of a deity that they truly believed was omnipotent and vengeful? Historically, hierarchical organized religions stress the fear of God as a means of maintaining power. From shamans in the neolithic era to Modern Christian Churches, those who can claim to know how the wrathful deity will behave have power the believer. While it is an important tool for religious control and power, fear isn't inherently a fundamental part of humanity's relation to the divine.
Consider the Panopticon. It is no ordinary prison. From the top of the Panopticon, it is possible to observe any prisoner inside. In it, prisoners would have to act as if they were being watched, because at any moment, the warden's gave could fall upon you. Without actually watching anything, the Panopticon efficiently subjugates all of it's prisoners. The deities of many organized religions create a Panopticon for the believer; the threat of the omniscient deity turning their gaze upon the believer imprisons them.
What reprieve can one achieve from the Divine Panopticon? I contend that the fear of God creates Atheists. The simplest way to free oneself from the Panopticon is to refuse to believe that the warden exists. In the same way, those people whose lives are burdened by the fear of God simply reject the idea of a God. Rather than being a matter of philosophical inquiry, it becomes a matter of personal emotion.
There are Deists out there would would use the idea of a belief rested on personal emotion as a means of ridicule, but I would not take that path. The truth, at least how I see it, is that no matter how much we claim our beliefs are based in reason and facts, at the end of the line all of us fit our beliefs into our emotional and personal state. It is a matter of who can come to terms with their inner selves and who cannot; i vastly prefer the former.
However, truth be told most of us, at least those of the freethinker community, prefer belief systems deriving from logic and reason and facts. The fundamental problem that drives people to outright reject God as a way to escape fear is that they have only one conception of a God- the one the dominates their community, those common wrath and terror-filled Deities of the Abrahamic faiths being the most prevalent. This dichotomy, a God of fear or no god at all, is perpetuated by those who stand to benefit, the clergy and the atheists. It is the job of the true freethinker, someone who is dedicated to eliminating such tyrannies of ideology, to spread the recognition that a divine being isn't inherently something to be feared . This conception is real; it is the conception that I and many other deists hold.
I do not advocate for this in hopes that it might change someone's belief. I advocate it in the name of those whose fear of God has been replaced by the fear that their beliefs are not legitimate. The reason Saadi fears someone who does not fear God is because they have the power to define their own life. That is a right all must have, and a society that represses the Deist belief that a God can not be an object of fear, a society that refuses the complete liberation of it's members, cannot be held to be a free society.
I fear God and next to God I mostly fear them that fear him not.
-Saadi, Persian Poet
The fear of God is not merely something that you keep in the back of your head- it is relevant to everyday conduct. One who fears God greatly will go to great step to avoid angering that God. For many revealed religions, fear of God is a critical part of the ideology; The potential wrath of God is a tool used to keep the faithful in check. Who would piss of a deity that they truly believed was omnipotent and vengeful? Historically, hierarchical organized religions stress the fear of God as a means of maintaining power. From shamans in the neolithic era to Modern Christian Churches, those who can claim to know how the wrathful deity will behave have power the believer. While it is an important tool for religious control and power, fear isn't inherently a fundamental part of humanity's relation to the divine.
Consider the Panopticon. It is no ordinary prison. From the top of the Panopticon, it is possible to observe any prisoner inside. In it, prisoners would have to act as if they were being watched, because at any moment, the warden's gave could fall upon you. Without actually watching anything, the Panopticon efficiently subjugates all of it's prisoners. The deities of many organized religions create a Panopticon for the believer; the threat of the omniscient deity turning their gaze upon the believer imprisons them.
What reprieve can one achieve from the Divine Panopticon? I contend that the fear of God creates Atheists. The simplest way to free oneself from the Panopticon is to refuse to believe that the warden exists. In the same way, those people whose lives are burdened by the fear of God simply reject the idea of a God. Rather than being a matter of philosophical inquiry, it becomes a matter of personal emotion.
There are Deists out there would would use the idea of a belief rested on personal emotion as a means of ridicule, but I would not take that path. The truth, at least how I see it, is that no matter how much we claim our beliefs are based in reason and facts, at the end of the line all of us fit our beliefs into our emotional and personal state. It is a matter of who can come to terms with their inner selves and who cannot; i vastly prefer the former.
However, truth be told most of us, at least those of the freethinker community, prefer belief systems deriving from logic and reason and facts. The fundamental problem that drives people to outright reject God as a way to escape fear is that they have only one conception of a God- the one the dominates their community, those common wrath and terror-filled Deities of the Abrahamic faiths being the most prevalent. This dichotomy, a God of fear or no god at all, is perpetuated by those who stand to benefit, the clergy and the atheists. It is the job of the true freethinker, someone who is dedicated to eliminating such tyrannies of ideology, to spread the recognition that a divine being isn't inherently something to be feared . This conception is real; it is the conception that I and many other deists hold.
I do not advocate for this in hopes that it might change someone's belief. I advocate it in the name of those whose fear of God has been replaced by the fear that their beliefs are not legitimate. The reason Saadi fears someone who does not fear God is because they have the power to define their own life. That is a right all must have, and a society that represses the Deist belief that a God can not be an object of fear, a society that refuses the complete liberation of it's members, cannot be held to be a free society.
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