Forum of Unitarian Universalists Hong Kong

www.deism.com

Belief in God + God-given Reason = Deism

"In Deism our reason and our belief are happily united." ---Thomas Paine


信仰神 + 神賜的理性 = 自然神論

「在自然神論裡，我們的理性與我們的信仰快樂地聯繫起來。」---Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine
Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine

...having written... "The Age of Reason" ...The content of the work can be briefly summarized in this quotation:

The opinions I have advanced… are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, dishonorable to the wisdom and power of the Almighty; that the only true religion is Deism, by which I then meant, and mean now, the belief of one God, and an imitation of his moral character, or the practice of what are called moral virtues—and that it was upon this only (so far as religion is concerned) that I rested all my hopes of happiness hereafter. So say I now—and so help me God.

With regard to his religious views, in The Age of Reason (begun in France in 1793), Paine stated:

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

He described himself as a "Deist" and commented:

How different is [Christianity] to the pure and simple profession of Deism! The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.