Spiritual Deism: A Podcast for the Spiritually Independent

In this episode, Jay Forrest exposes how wealth and power have hijacked Christianity—from Constantine’s imperial sponsorship to modern megadonors shaping U.S. politics. Tracing the faith’s transformation from a movement of the poor to a corporate-backed empire, Dr. Forrest shows how elites use religion to divide believers and preserve control. Drawing evidence from history and dark-money networks, he argues that the church of love ...

In this episode, Jay Forrest argues that a loving God provides the Book of Nature and human minds—not fallible scriptures like the Bible. Through a Deist and evolutionary lens, he reveals our purpose as growing in consciousness via reason, contemplation, and mystical presence, not salvation schemes or dogma. Contrasting the Bible’s contradictions with nature’s timeless truth, Dr. Forrest urges spiritual seekers to embrace divine il...

In this episode, Jay Forrest examines the rapid decline of Christianity in America, framed through the story of Nate’s journey from devout believer to atheist. Drawing on current statistics and cultural trends, he argues that the faith’s collapse is driven by growing skepticism toward the Bible’s contradictions, moral failings, and historical errors, along with widespread disillusionment over church hypocrisy and power abuses. Forr...

In this episode, Jay Forrest argues that being honest about Jesus means stripping away the layers of myth, miracle, and later theological invention to recover the historical teacher whose message was rooted in Jewish ethics, compassion, and reform rather than divinity or atonement. Drawing on modern biblical scholarship, and the history of the Ebionites, he contends that the earliest followers saw Jesus as a human prophet who uphel...

In this episode, Jay Forrest argues that reading the Bible should lead not to atheism but to rejecting Christianity’s portrayal of God, highlighting passages that depict a cruel, tribal deity he sees as the god of ancient Israel rather than the true Divine Source. From a Deist perspective, he encourages listeners to set aside this flawed biblical image in favor of the rational “God of the Philosophers,” a just and unified Creator r...

In this episode, Jay Forrest examines the mystery of miracles and whether they are genuine acts of divine intervention or natural events filtered through human perception and belief, questioning—through both philosophical reasoning and the exposed tricks of faith‑healers—why a perfect Creator would ever need to “fix” the universe He designed. Speaking as a philosopher and Deist, he explores psychological, scientific, and spiritual ...

In this episode, Jay Forrest argues for the reality of God understood not as a supreme being but as the Impersonal Rational Ground of Being, challenging atheism’s unevidenced denial by appealing to design, cosmology, natural laws, moral universality, and innate human intuition. Drawing on process philosophy, Aristotle, and thinkers such as Dawkins, Hawking, Flew, Darwin, and Einstein, he frames God’s necessity through rational argu...

In this episode, Jay Forrest presents Deism as a rational, individual path for the “spiritual but not religious,” defining it as belief in a non‑intervening Creator knowable through reason and the laws of nature, in contrast to theism’s personally involved deity. Identifying as a Deist philosopher who blends Eastern wisdom, karma, and process thought, he draws on figures like Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Thomas Paine, and the Buddha t...

In this episode, Jay Forrest explores what it means to be “spiritual but not religious,” contrasting religion’s institutional authority and conformity with spirituality’s personal experience of divine or cosmic unity for those seeking meaning beyond dogma. Identifying as a philosopher and pursuer of wisdom, he moves freely among traditions such as Daoism, Stoicism, Deism, and mysticism, guided by reason, contemplation, and openness...

In this opening episode of In Pursuit of Wisdom, we consider what it truly means to be wise—from the quiet symbolism of the “wise old owl” to the enduring insights of Socrates, Lao Tzu, Confucius, and other sages—framing wisdom as both a mystery and a lifelong pursuit that shapes how we understand ourselves and the world. Drawing on philosophy, spirituality, and psychology, the episode presents wisdom as a cultivated way of seeing ...