After my post on “A Deist’s Prayer,” I got an idea for a symbol for Deism.  One of the problem I was having with Deism symbols was the lack of narrative.  Religious symbols are part of a narrative.  For example, the Christian cross represents the story of the crucifixion of Yeshua.  The Christian crucifix is part of a story and represents something meaningful within the context of the Christian story.

A symbol for Deism must be a part of the religious narrative.  It must carry the message of Deism.  I can’t speak for Deism proper, but I can speak for my school of thought of Amorian Deism.  

Amorian Deism comes from the Enlightenment, and from the Declaration of Independence.  It reflects God’s Truth, which is the universe; God’s Will, which is natural law, as in “the Laws of Nature;” and God’s Love, which is the gift of life.  

Perhaps as a coincidence, or perhaps not, some of the Babylonians Gods paralleled these ideals.  They had a God, Sin, who was a moon God.  He was the chief God of the Babylonians.  Sin had two children, Shamash–the sun God, and Ishtar–the morning star God.  The symbols of these three are often found together on ancient Babylonian tablets.  On the tablet shown below, the three symbols are seen together near the God’s hat.

 

Sin was the chief God.  The symbol of Sin was a moon symbol, usually in a partial crescent.  We get our seven day week from the ancient Sin.  

Shamash was the God of law and order.  The symbol of Shamash was the sun disk. 

Ishtar was the Babylonian Venus, goddess of love and fertility.  Her symbol was the star disk. 

I am adopting these three symbols for my purposes.  They are part of a narrative.  The crescent disk of Sin represents God’s Will.  The sun disk of Shamash represents God’s Law, which is natural law and order, and it is also morality.  The star disk of Ishtar represents God’s Love, which is the gift of life. 

These three symbols are natural symbols, which reflects the naturalism of Deism.  Together they represent God’s natural universe, and God’s human (moral) universe.

The symbols also represent the history of enlightenment.  Many of the ideals of the Babylonians were adopted by the Greeks.  A lot of modern ideas of enlightenment came from the Greeks. So the history of the enlightenment can be drawn from ancient Babylonian to the Western world of today.

Stumble it!