My Website - My Memorial

Raymond Fontaine, Ph.D. October 15, 2005

    In this article, I am preempting my own memorial. After death, I do not expect nor do I want paintings or sculptures of me to perpetuate the memory of my person. But I would like my thoughts about Nature's God to endure into the future because I sincerely believe they are true and that, as such, they can enlighten, comfort and inspire my fellow humans.

   Nature's God, as Thomas Jefferson called him in the Declaration of Independence, is God - not as revealed in Holy Writ but as revealed in the designs of nature. Just as a painting requires a painter, so do the complex designs in nature presuppose Supreme Intelligence. By 1967, at fifty years of age, I had reached that definitive conclusion by myself, relying totally on my reason designed to know things as they are - the truth about them.

   Before then, I had depended entirely upon what others said about God. As a child at home, I believed what my parents told me. Then in grade school, during eight years, nuns explained the catechism of the Catholic Church - all about God. After that, I lived in a seminary with priests for fourteen years during which they elaborated revelations of God about supernatural matters.

   All my teachers were good, sincere and loving people. Not one of them would knowingly have deceived me. I had no reason to doubt their word. Then after my ordination to the priesthood, I repeated in the pulpit what I had learned earlier, blissfully ignorant of the disillusionment looming ahead.

   After fourteen years in the seminary, secluded from the outside world, I soon became aware of the charm and physical attraction of my female parishioners. The Church claimed that God wanted celibate priests. To make sure of this, I checked the Bible. In the Old Testament, God insisted that the priesthood be reserved for married men. Later, when Jesus established his Church, he chose a married man, Peter, as its head and eleven other disciples already or soon to be married. Evidently it was not God who wanted a celibate clergy - but the Church's hierarchy.

   And so it was for many other regulations of the Church, such as the ban on condoms. Those laws did not originate in Holy Books but in the minds of bishops and popes. After that careful review of the Church's credentials, I found them wanting. They were fraudulent. No longer believing them, I could not preach the doctrines of the Church. And so I left the Church and the priesthood in 1967.

   But I did not lose my belief in God because it was not based on the say-so of the Pope and his Church. My faith in God was grounded on the marvelous structures and designs in nature at its origin. And so, I left the Church not with a Bible and rosary in my hands but with Nature's God in my mind and heart.

    Regarding God's intervention in the normal course of nature, the Pope and his Church teach that God frequently intervenes in human affairs. The Bible, including the Gospels, is replete with divine miracles. And nowadays, according to the Church, God intervenes and cures invalids when saints in heaven intercede with him following prayers from their devotees on earth.

    But where was God when millions prayed during the recent earthquakes in Pakistan, during the hurricanes in Texas, during the tsunami in the Orient, during the holocaust when millions of Jews were murdered, and during thousands of other disasters down the centuries. Evidently God lets humans exploit their own resources getting help from and giving help to their environment which includes other humans. 

    Believing that Nature's God does not intervene in the course of nature nor in human affairs, I decided to help my fellow humans as much as possible. I looked for work where I could accomplish my mission. I found it in the U.S. government's agency for refugee relief. In Vietnam, I helped to provide shelter and food to a million refugees during seven years. The next five years, I planned projects in Africa to provide deep well water to the poor people living near the Sahara.

    A few years later, my wife suffered a stroke which paralyzed her right arm and leg. She needed constant care which I have provided during the last ten years. I was helping someone, not on a grand scale as in Vietnam and Africa, but in a humble way at home. 

    During my free moments during the day, I found another way to help my fellow-humans. Many were disenchanted with their Church but afraid to break away and worship God on their own. I would tell them my story and share with them my thoughts about Nature's God. My simple relationship with God, grounded on reason provided me with peace of mind. Others too could enjoy this freedom from fear of death and hellfire.

    And so, in the year 2000, I wrote and published my autobiography entitled: My Life With God in and out of the Church. Homebound by my care-giving duties, I was unable to promote my book through lectures and book-signing sessions. Consequently, after my acquaintances had their fill, the sale of my book was petering out. Luckily I have found another outlet - the Internet.  

    The purpose of my original website was to promote sales of my book. It provided my web's visitors with a summary of my life and nine excerpts. That would suffice to whet their appetite for more information available in my book. Contrary to my hopes, however, after many months my website accounted for less than a dozen sales.

    Upon reflection, I realized that the primary problem with my website was its central figure: me, void of influence, authority, or importance. Why should anyone spend money and time to know anything about me - a nobody. 

    The only person mentioned in my book and website who was well-known not only in the U.S. but also throughout the world was God. For years, I had been closely associated with God: at first with God as revealed in the Bible and then with God as revealed in nature. In both, it was the same God but viewed from a different perspective. 

    In the Bible, God is portrayed as deeply involved in human affairs and intervening frequently in the normal course of nature. Contrariwise, nature reveals only physical designs that presuppose an Intelligence at their origin. 

    When I was a priest, I wrote and preached a lot about God. The Bible supplied me with ample stories about God's reputed interventions on earth. When I became a Deist, however relying only on nature's designs, I found it difficult to write about its intelligent designer. 

    Then I remembered that Jesus frequently preached in parables: short fictitious stories that illustrated moral truths. In the Old Testament, the writers used dreams to announce heavenly messages. Both methods of communication worked well. Why not give them a try in articles published on my website.

    I then wrote fictitious stories often featuring dreams wherein God spoke with famous people now deceased - like Einstein and Ronald Reagan. That worked well. 

    This year I decided to write about Nature's God using fictitious e-mails from and to Pope Benedict 16. The advantage of featuring this Pope is fourfold. First, he is well-informed about the Bible's God and also Nature's God. Secondly, what the Pope thinks and teaches is out in the open on various Catholic websites. Thirdly, the Pope is known worldwide. Fourthly, in my fictitious stories involving the Pope, he is ready to discuss religious topics anytime. This literary artifice works well. 

    My brief articles on the web soon attracted visitors in increasing numbers. There is no doubt now that I am on the right track to letting the world know about Nature's God. 

    In the opening paragraph of this article I said that I would like my thoughts about Nature's God to endure into the future. If that happens, they would be my memorial, the only kind that I would want. 

    At this point while writing this article, I remembered another writer of short stories - Aesop. Twenty-five centuries ago, Aesop wrote short stories like that of The Tortoise and the Hare. Each fable demonstrates a moral lesson. In the fable just mentioned, the lesson is: slow but steady wins the race. 

    Like Aesop's fables, my brief articles have only one central message: nature's designs require Intelligence. 

    Aesop's fables survived 25 centuries and are now on the Internet perpetuating their memory and that of their author indefinitely. 

    So too my articles are on the Internet and will remain there indefinitely. I have arranged to perpetuate them there even after my death, leaving funds to a young friend who will manage my website.

    Although Aesop's fables are still well remembered, nothing is known about his person: who he was, what else he did, was he married, did he have children. His life is a total blank. I for one would like to know something more about him. 

    Likewise, if my articles survive beyond my grave, some readers may want to know something about my person and my life. That's why I will leave the first section of my website intact which can easily be bypassed with a simple click. Remembering my person doesn't matter beans. But remembering my messages about Nature's God could mean a lot to many who sincerely want to know the truth about God. 

    In conclusion, just as we know for sure that Aesop's fables required a writer while saying nothing more about  him, so too we know that Nature's designs required a Designer about whom we learn nothing more from nature. But whereas we have no reason to think that Aesop is still living, we can believe, without any reasonable doubt, that Nature's Designer lives on. 

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