The Triumph of Nature's God
Its Prospect for the Future

by Raymond Fontaine, Ph.D. - May 2006

E-mail 33: The Pessimistic View

    Mr. Fontaine, I just finished combing through your website entitled: The Triumph of Nature's God in my Life. Evidently it has happened in your life; but not so in the lives of billions worldwide.

   According to Time Almanac 2006, there are 2.1 billion Christians and 1.8 billion Muslims who believe in God as revealed to ancient prophets. By contrast, Deists, who believe like you, number in mere thousands. 

    In the eighteenth century, a group of thinkers made a valiant attempt to promote Deism. Voltaire and Thomas Paine were among them. But Deism never caught fire and never spread in Europe and America, surely not worldwide.

   In the recent years, a few people have been promoting the theory of Intelligent Design. This theory maintains that the designs and structures in nature presuppose Intelligence. But these thinkers say nothing more about this Intelligence. It seems to me that the triumph of Nature's God worldwide is absolutely hopeless. What do you think?

E-mail no.34 My Optimistic View.

   Thank you for your frank assessment of the future for the worldwide triumph of Nature's God. Thoughts like yours cross my mind now and then but not enough for me to give up and stop my pursuit of the final triumph of Nature's God. It is not hopeless.

   Let me recall a series of events in history. In A.D.126 the Roman emperor Hadrian completed a temple in Rome and dedicated it to all the Roman gods. He named the temple "Pantheon" which means "the place for all the gods". He knew that polytheism had existed for thousands of years and he assumed it would last forever.

   Later, after the end of the Roman empire and of polytheism, the Pantheon served as a Christian church from 609 until 1885. There God, as portrayed in reputed supernatural revelations, was worshipped during 1276 years. All that time, the Catholic Popes and their clergy and faithful believed that the worship of God in that temple would go on forever.

   After 1885, however, the Pantheon became the burial place for Italian heroes, such as King Victor Emmanuel 1 and the Renaissance painter, Raphael.

   The story of the Pantheon demonstrates the endurance of religious beliefs. They linger for ages before change occurs. It took thousands of years for polytheism to dissipate and disappear.

   In similar fashion, the monotheism of Abraham is in the process of dissipating into a numberless variety of beliefs. How long it will take to disappear altogether no one knows. 

    I believe it will not take thousands of years as it did for polytheism. In our modern world, science is revealing more and more structures and designs in nature. The Internet is reaching every corner of our planet and every home. I believe that Abraham's God may be replaced by Nature's God in just a few generations.

    Meanwhile all I intend to do is to keep Deism alive the best I can. For now, my contribution may be just a flicker, which can produce a flame which can start a grass fire which can turn into a raging fire. When this happens, the triumph of Nature's God in my life will have contributed ever so little to the triumph of Nature's God worldwide. To you and many more I may seem like a cockeyed optimist but I like my chances of being right. Best wishes, Ray.    

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