Dan Brown educates America about its Deistic origins

Actor Tom Hanks says he'd love to play the role of
Dan Brown's main character, Robert Langdon, if
Brown's new best seller, The Lost Symbol, is made
into a movie. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)
 

Best selling author Dan Brown was interviewed by Matt Lauer for NBC's Dateline program regarding his new thriller novel, The Lost Symbol, and made it very clear that many of America's key founders were Deists.

Brown revealed that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were Deists. Washington and Jefferson were clearly Deists, but Adams seemed to be more of a Unitarian than a Deist. However, in the eyes of evangelical Christians and the like, there really isn't much difference between a Unitarian and a Deist.

Deism is the belief in God based on a person's application of their reason on the designs in Nature. Deists believe the designs presuppose a Designer, or as is referenced in the Declaration of Independence, Nature's God. Deists also reject the claims made by the various "revealed" religions to having received a special divine revelation from God which is their "holy" scripture, or the word of God.

One common mistake Dan Brown made in the interview is when he said, "Deists believe that a supreme being created the universe but that being is impersonal.  It won't answer your prayers or even hear them." This is a definition of Deist given by Noah Webster who was a very strict Christian. In reality, there is no dogma in Deism so Deists are free to believe whatever makes the most sense to them. Some Deists fit this definition while others do not. For example, some Deists believe God intervenes through Providence. However, Deists do tend to agree with George Washington who said that Providence is "inscrutable".

The main character of The Lost Symbol is Robert Langdon. Langdon was also the main character in Brown's two previous best selling novels which were turned into movies by director Ron Howard, The Di Vinci Code and Angels and Demons. Actor Tom Hanks played the lead role of Robert Langdon in both of these films. He recently said that if The Lost Symbol is turned into a movie he'd love to play the part of Langdon.

Perhaps Dan Brown, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks will turn their considerable talents toward making a movie about American founding father and outspoken Deist Thomas Paine. His life seems to have all the ingredients that make for a fantastic book and film. Born into a working class family in England, losing his wife and baby during childbirth, having his second marriage end in divorce, befriended by Benjamin Franklin, arriving in America close to death due to typhus, writing Common Sense which was instrumental in getting Americans behind the idea of separation from England, writing The Crisis which kept the spirit of the American Revolution alive in spite of major and repeated defeats, going to France during the French Revolution and being imprisoned and coming close to execution, writing The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, etc. It would be an action packed thought provoking film.