In the previous section I noted that the arguments of Deism similar to those used by such famous Deists as Thomas Paine were actually found in the gospels and the book of Romans. It is interesting to note that deist arguments from Romans are used by authorities when an excuse is needed to damn the unconverted to hell. It turns out that people are said to have the reason and understanding required to respond to conversion. This is the only time deist arguments are used, for, once converted, one must abandon reason and personal freedom in slavish servitude to dogma on the grounds that 'reason is corrupt' and only divine revelation can bring true knowledge. Apparently reason is good enough to get one damned but never good enough to get one saved. In the following interesting passage, again from Romans, a deist argument is used to describe faith, as is typical in this book. The passage echoes Thomas Paine's rejection of divine revelation and human authority. You do not need an authority to discover the truth and then bring it back for you (in the form of divine revelation) for the truth is found in your own heart.

"But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, "Who will ascend into heaven?" (that is, to bring Christ down) or "Who will descend into the abyss?" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart." (Romans 10:6)

     It is quite typical to hear the demand made that one must 'give Christ complete control as your personal Lord and Master.' This call to submission to 'divine authority' is deemed vital for you have no personal understanding and are 'unable to run your own life' and thus must hand everything over 'in submission to Christ.' In practice this means handing everything over in submission to certain church authorities, which is handy if you happen to be those church authorities. However the deist tradition in the gospels paints an entirely different picture. In the first passage Joshua rejects requests to run people's affairs or settle their disputes, and in the second passage a clearly deist argument is used to demand that people 'decide for themselves what is right' instead of depending on him as 'the authority.'

"But he said to him, "Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?"

"He also said to the multitudes, 'When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, 'A shower is coming'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not decide for yourselves what is right?'" (Luke 12:14, 54)

     Why do you not decide for yourselves what is right? Now it seems clear that you don't have much of a choice in this matter. There are conflicts in scripture and many different authorities. You are always presented with a range of options, and, in the end you are going to have to decide for yourself what is right. For all practical purposes, everyone is practicing Deist, whether they consider themselves one or not.

     It is to exactly this type of thinking that the Deists subscribed. Religious traditonalism, then, is seen as form of robbery, and the clearest example of this is found in the entire mythology of 'the natural corruption of reason' and the consequent need for 'revelation' and submission to 'divine authority' (always meaning, in practice, submission to church authority, thus, in the view of any good deist, the form of the doctrine is clearly explained by its function).

     To those who already have (justice, compassion, respect for truth) more will be given, but to those who come to religion with none of these things, they will lose the little they might have had (their pockets picked by religious dogmas). As, Thomas Paine, a famous deist wrote, in an angry attack against the practice of Christian apologetics, (his description of the Bible is extreme, but then he was extremely angry): "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize humankind. And, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel ... It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribehis professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this? ... He despises the choicest gift of God to man, the GIFT OF REASON; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason ... We ought to feel shame at calling such paltry stories the word of God ... when I see throughout the greatest part of this book scarcely anything but a history of the grossest vices, and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonour my Creator by calling it by his name ... The forgery of letters has been such a common practice in the world, that the probability is at least equal, whether they are genuine or forged ... That she could fabricate writings is certain, because she could write; and the composition of the writings in question, is of that kind that anybody might do it; and that she did fabricate them is not more inconsistent with probability, than that she should tell us, as she has done, that she could and did work miracles ... they decided by vote which of the books out of the collection they had made, should be the WORD OF GOD. Had they voted otherwise, all the people since calling themselves Christians had believed otherwise; for the belief of the one comes from the vote of the other ... THE WORD OF GOD IS THE CREATION WE BEHOLD: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaks universally to humanity ... It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaks an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every person can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of a man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to humanity all that is necessary for man to know of God ... As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works or writings that man has made ... There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story ... Having made an insurrection and a battle in heaven, in which none of the combatants could be either killed or wounded -- put Satan into the pit -- let him out again -- given him a triumph over the whole creation -- damned all mankind by the eating of an apple, there Christian mythologists bringthe two ends of their fable together. They represent this virtuous and amiable man, Jesus Christ, to be at once both God and man, and also the Son of God, celestially begotten, on purpose to be sacrificed, because they say that Eve in her longing had eaten an apple ... After his fall, Satanbecomes, by their account, omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He occupies the whole immensity of space ... Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent him as defeating by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation, all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by coming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the shape of a man ... the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries of itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice, and not that of moral justice ... If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself (justice). It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge ... This single reflection will show that the doctrine of redemption is founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again with the system of second redemptions, obtained through the means of money given to the church for pardons, the probability is that the same persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth, there is no such thing as redemption; that it is fabulous; and that humanity stands in the same relative condition with their Maker as they ever did." (Thomas Paine, The age of reason)