On Philosophy & “Natural Religion”
Both deism and orthodoxy are cloudy. Experience, in terms of inner experience, outweighs both reason and so-called empirical evidence, since the former can conjecture or rationalize anything, and the latter is only pseudo-empirical, as Hume made clear. A radical empiricism is what we most need, as William James and Allan Wallace have advised. That is something deeper than either emotion-driven romanticism or the mere superficial pseudo-empiricism which for 400 years has passed itself off as the definition and totality of “science”. Reason and conventional empiricism are highly useful, and not to be dispensed, but a deeper level of experience is superior to both – as it is superior to dogma, since churches are founded by followers, not by sages. Equality, liberty, solidarity, are values to be preserved, and advanced. Yet so too are the values of spiritual text, and more critically, inner experience. Neither deism, nor orthodoxy, therefore, have it entirely right: both are approximations, both miss the mark. Does that make me a dissident? Certainly. So was Jesus. So was the Buddha. And though I am nothing compared to them, I am happy to be in their company, and am not worried about the approval or disapproval of any, save for them.
JTR,
April 16, 2020
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Of interest, among many, many readings:
The Divinity School Address – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Founding Fathers, Deism and Christianity
To The Deists – William Blake
Choosing Reality – Allan Wallace
Writings of J. Todd Ring 
April 17, 2020 at 7:21 am
Post-Script:
These views put me in accord with Emerson, Thoreau, Blake, the Quakers, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard of Bingen, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Allan Wallace, Joanna Macy, Ken Wilber, and the greatest scientists, philosophers and mystics of the East and West. I can live with that.
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April 17, 2020 at 7:24 am
I forgot to mention, my favourite monk, as well: Thomas Merton, who was the most venerable and venerated Christian contemplative of the 20th century. Definitely good company.
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April 17, 2020 at 10:59 pm
Thomas Merton said of the Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nat Hahn, “He and I are more like brothers than most of my fellow countrymen, for we see things exactly the same way.” He also said he saw “no contradiction between Christianity and Buddhism”, and stated flatly, “God’s house is very big. It has many rooms.” (Hence, our minds also should not be narrow or small.) He was on his way to request Dzogchen teachings from the Dalai Lama when he died – the highest of Buddhist meditation practices. Now there is a broad-minded scholar-monk, and a man after my own heart – a brother, and a kindred spirit, along with Chomsky, Thoreau and Fromm.
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April 17, 2020 at 8:24 am
Blake puts it well, though some may prefer non-theistic (not atheistic) terms:
“Less than All cannot satisfy Man.”
“He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God.”
See: the perennial philosophy.
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April 17, 2020 at 8:29 am
Blake again, ever worth quoting:
“The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nation’s different reception of the Poetic Genius, which is everywhere call’d the Spirit of Prophecy.”
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