Post 19. March 01, 2018
What’s the Point?
Why Bother?
What's the point of a Neo-Deist worldview? If there is no fatherly god in heaven looking out for you, forgiving your sins, helping your football team to win, or assigning a guardian angel to keep stray bullets from hitting you, then why not just be a no-nonsense Atheist, or even a waffling Agnostic? Why assume, from only circumstantial evidence, that there is a passive Mind watching As The World Turns? Here's some thoughts on related topics.
What's the point of a moral life, if there's no final reward or punishment? Well, social creatures seem to have an innate moral sense that guides them instinctively to act ethically toward their fellows. It's only verbal & rational humans that need to have their rules spelled out for them. Small groups got by for millennia without any god-given rules of conduct. But as people began to live together in farming villages and crowded cities, they found that their instincts didn't always serve to avoid conflicts with strangers. That's why secular governments were formed, and nit-picky laws were engraved in stone. Until children gain experience in social dos & don'ts though, simple rules of thumb like the Golden Rule should suffice. For religious purposes, Neo-Deism would probably be morally permissive; perhaps following the Wiccan proverb: "An ye harm none, do what thou wilt". Learning what constitutes social "harm" requires some experience and wisdom though, so a few secular rules & regulations will always be necessary.
What's the point of being a good person? Perhaps Virtue is its own reward. Virtue is a mind educated in how to seek the good, and to avoid evil. So a Virtuous character is your inner moral compass, needing no outside influence, except an occasional star-fix of true north. In Neo-Deism the concept of G*D is your exemplar of absolute objective Truth, that you can't find anywhere in our relative subjective world. Religious traditions usually begin on the true path, but they often go astray. They sometimes make-up arbitrary rules, and label them as divine commandments. On the other hand, Reason & Science allow you to make adjustments to your course to correct for errors of Emotion & Dogma.
What's the point of religious regulations? Clerical rules typically go beyond practical guidelines for human to human interactions. They also set restrictions on private thoughts to preclude evil actions. Some were well-intentioned, but misguided. For example, dietary no-nos, intended to avoid dangerous foods, sometimes went too far and black-listed innocuous foods, such as Philistine pork and sacred cows, as moral evils. But those were human errors, not divine revelations. So religious dietary laws need to be reviewed & updated from time to time, just as secular rules & regulations are. In fact, Neo-Deism would not make any secular/religious distinction. As far as I know, the G*D of Neo-Deism hasn't designated anything in the created world as Taboo or Sacred.
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