One definition of "holy" is: "belonging to or coming from God."

One definition of "sacred" is: "something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity."

Regarding holy, we often hear of "the holy land", meaning Israel and the Israeli occupied Palestinian West Bank. This belief is due to the ancient superstition in the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament, that the God of the Jews actually dwelled on that land. Since Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, it is popular with Christians to refer to Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank as the holy land. Not only do many Christians refer to the Jewish state and its occupied Palestinian lands as the holy land, but millions of Christians also visit the "holy" land as tourists in hopes of walking in the footsteps of their imagined Jewish savior. In fact, 61% of tourists to Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank are Christians.

The Roman Catholic Church adds to the idea that Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank is the holy land, the just as ridiculous belief in holy relics. One humorous example of a holy relic is the holy prepuce - the circumcised foreskin of Jesus!

Regarding the word sacred, the "holy" books/words of God of all of the different Abrahamic man-made "revealed" religions are considered sacred by the clergy and the faithful. The Hebrew Bible for not only Jews, but for Christians, Muslims and Mormons is considered sacred texts/scriptures. The Christians then added on the New Testament, the Muslims added on the Quran and the Mormons added on the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. These man-made "sacred" scriptures that are all falsely advertised as originating with The Supreme Intelligence/God, are believed to be essential for service and/or worship of God.

In The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition, Thomas Paine applied God-given reason to the Christian claims that Christianity has its origins in The Supreme Intelligence/God and that the Christian Bible is the Word of God. Paine wrote:

"The Calvinist, who damns children of a span long to hell to burn forever for the glory of God (and this is called Christianity), and the Universalist who preaches that all shall be saved, and none shall be damned (and this also is called Christianity), boasts alike of their holy [revealed] religion and their Christian faith.

"Something more therefore is necessary than mere cry and wholesale assertion, and that something is TRUTH; and as inquiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not a friend to truth.

"The God of truth is not the God of fable; when, therefore, any book is introduced into the world as the Word of God, and made a groundwork for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more than other books to see if it bear evidence of being what it is called. Our reverence to God demands that we do this, lest we ascribe to God what is not His, and our duty to ourselves demands it lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false foundation.

"It is not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name. Inquiry therefore is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to judge by, superior to human authority.

"When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of the planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature, which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to matter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning throughout the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the planets against each other. Everything keeps its appointed time and place.

"This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God of order in every part of the visible universe."

"Here, then, is the standard to which everything must be brought that pretends to be the work or Word of God, and by this standard it must be judged, independently of anything and everything that man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the scale compared with the standard that God Himself has set up."

Regarding being of service to The Supreme Intelligence/God, we can't do that by following "sacred" scriptures, writings which fluctuate between helping people so God will give you a reward to committing genocide against our fellow human beings, as all of the man-made "sacred" scriptures do.

The only way we can be of service to The Supreme Intelligence/God is to do all we can to help our fellow human beings, to help life on Earth and our Earth's life sustaining and beautiful and inspiring environment. Thomas Paine pointed this out when he wrote in The Age of Reason:

"We cannot serve God in the manner we serve those who cannot do without such service; and, therefore, the only idea we can have of serving God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation that God has made."

I strongly believe that by doing our very best to reach people with Deism, we are "contributing to the happiness of the living creation that God has made." For people cannot be happy if they are chasing after man-made superstitions which require them to turn their backs on God's gift to them of innate reason. It is only through reason that humanity has ever made true progress. And on a personal level, as our "Why Deism?" section makes clear, Deism's quality of promoting our innate God-given reason brings profound happiness in our personal lives.

(When we have a large influx of new subscribers to THINKonline!, we run this important article to empower new people with the ability to break free from the snare of Christianity. You can find this informative article online here. The editor)

While Judaism was never a proselytizing religion, contenting itself with born adherents (and as Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason, "The Jews made no converts; they butchered all." The editor), Christianity was a significant departure from the culture that spawned it, a faith built from converts. This created a foundational need to convince others, or at least intimidate them into acceptance. Thus, the discipline of apologetics is as old as Christianity itself, and comprises a significant part of the religion.

Apologetics is an interesting word. Semantically it suggests an apology, and skeptics would hasten to point out that apologetics was necessary only because there was so much to apologize for! And no one was more apologetic than Paul.

Paul, though not the originator, was the principal founder of Christianity as a religion. It was he who composed an entire theology incorporating doctrines that Jesus, or the anonymous authors of the Gospels, never mentioned. These came to supersede the simple homiletics of the obscure itinerant rabbi, and transformed what was a Jewish reform sect into a new, and increasingly Gentile, religion. When people think of Christianity, it is primarily Paulism they have in mind.

Paul's epistles predate the written Gospels. Their purpose was to build and sustain a Church, and one of their most prominent aspects was their apologetic content. Paul used every means at his disposal to convince others of the validity of his doctrines. He invoked the authority of the soon-to-be "Old Testament," making abundant references to support his arguments. He claimed that "[w]hatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Romans 15:4), rendering it into a precursor and prologue to his theology. And lest anyone dispute their value, he and his successors need only insist that "[a]ll Scripture is given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3:16). That these Scriptures had been subjected to severe abuse in their interpretation was a problem that could only be paved over with guile.

In Paul's apologetics, he cleverly anticipated and headed off any objections or reservations that waverers might have; and once netted, sought to keep them that way. Paul's arguments have been the staple of proselytizers for two millennia now. Although the illogic of these arguments is apparent to the rational, they become more and more effective and compelling, the deeper one succumbs to the Christian line. In combination they make Christianity into a virtually escape-proof mental trap.

First and foremost is the heavy emphasis on faith, as in Romans 1:17 & 4:5. Jesus hardly stressed faith at all, but it was Paul's primary mantra. Now why God would insist that we believe a particular quizzical story in the complete absence of proof and which violates our gift from God of innate reason, and make that the fundamental test of our existence, defies all explanation. The impossibility of proof provides the answer, since faith makes the tricky matter of proof seemingly irrelevant. And to require proof would evidence a lack of faith, thus placing one in imminent peril.

When propagating a religion where proof is not available, one that contains logical absurdities, it is essential that the logical processes of the mind be short-circuited. Paul attempted this with his facile quips, "The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God." (I Cor. 3:19), and "The foolishness of God is wiser than men." (I Cor. 1:25). This summarily rejects all logical quandaries as if they're of no consequence, and saves the trouble of having to explain them away. We are merely to trust that, as I Cor. 2:14 informs us, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." In other words, you're incapable of understanding the "truth" of their doctrines because you're working with a sinful, carnal mind, rather than a spiritual one. Once you give up and give in, then you'll understand. This inverts the process of knowing from "see it to believe it" to "believe it, then you'll see it." But should one expect to gain real knowledge subsequently, Paul crushes that by informing us "his ways [are] past finding out!" (Romans 11:33) So don't even try--just comply.

This might be followed up with the familiar saying of Jesus to Thomas "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." (John 20:29) Doubting Thomas is such a useful negative role model that if he hadn't existed, it would have been smart to invent him. And perhaps they did. The Synoptic Gospels don't report this episode, only John does. Mark 16:14 implies that Thomas had been present with the others, but John (20:19, 24) says he was not.

Romans 8:6-8 further articulates Paul's strong bias against the sense one was born with. It claims that the carnal is inherently anti-God, which is strange since one would assume God made it that way. It also states that those "in the flesh cannot please God" and "to be carnally-minded is death." You can't get any more emphatic than that.

For anyone not gulled by this tactic and who persists in defiance, a proselytizer might invoke II Thess. 2:10-12, in which Paul claims that "God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." This section is often used to suggest that textual problems could look cut and dried to you, but only because God made it look that way as punishment for your willful refusal to believe. Certainly it would be within God's power to so confound your mind. (Skeptics should correlate this dastardly measure with Hebrews 6:18, which states that it is impossible for God to lie.) Anyone in this position is clearly at the brink of doom, and had better relent now!

Another coercive tactic of Christian proselytizers is invoking the "unforgivable sin" of Mark 3:28-29. Jesus was vague about this, but to later exegetes it meant resisting the work of the Holy Spirit in his efforts to save your soul. This, of course, is manifested by the proselytizers trying to convert you, so to oppose them is neatly construed as opposing the Holy Spirit, and becomes, by extension, unforgivable.

Backing up all these tactics, of course, is the Ultimate Stick: the threat of Hell Fire. Countless millions have gone along with Christianity merely as a form of "fire insurance." Better safe than sorry, which may be intellectual cowardice, but what a safe, and what a sorry.

Once sucked into the parallel universe of Christianity, the adherent is too intimidated by the existing framework of threats and rationalizations to attempt escape. Even thinking along alternative lines will induce severe feelings of guilt. And should one run the risk of losing faith by examining its true foundations, he is certain to be chilled by the dictum, in Hebrews 6:4-6, that "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened...if they fall away, to renew them again..." Those who originated a religion based on deception and delusion clearly knew that if the conditioning broke down or wore off, it could not work again. But that's when the true enlightenment occurs.

The conversation techniques of Christianity are crafted with a powerful psychological insinuation. Once roped in, people tend to stay in, since every passageway out has been systematically sealed. It is much easier, therefore, to inoculate people against Christianity in advance, using well-developed educational efforts all grounded in our innate God-given reason, rather than attempt to extract them once they've already succumbed. Deists and other freethinking activists should be making a special effort to reach those still perched on the fence, the lukewarm rather than the firebrands. However, reason-based Deism does have the power to reach people who are so indoctrinated with Christianity that they are members of the clergy, as is evident in our "Why Deism?" section.

Bible Problems is both a great read and a great resource for objective Bible study! Order it on Amazon.com here!

For an interesting selection of Deism friendly books visit the site of Jayson X, the Deputy Director of the World Union of Deists. (Jayson is a public school teacher in the Bible belt and needs to use a pen-name.)