Daoism: As American as Apple Pie

Daoism is as American as apple pie. The Founding Fathers’ embrace of deism, reason over dogma, nature over priests, rejected Abrahamic myths repurposed for power and control, echoing the Dao’s timeless call to simplicity and natural flow.

“If government can tax us, we are undone forever in Soul, Body and Estate. They can give Us, what Religion and Government they please; and do what they will, with our Property, Persons and Consciences.” ~ John Adams

Deism’s Daoist Heart

Thomas Jefferson, architect of American liberty, was no orthodox Christian. He crafted his own “Jefferson Bible,” stripping miracles and divinity to reveal a rational ethic rooted in nature’s laws. “Question with boldness even the existence of a god,” he urged, mirroring Dao Chapter 25’s mystery of the Way: formless, eternal, beyond human grasp. Jefferson’s deism prized inquiry over blind faith, much like the Daoist’s effortless alignment with heaven and earth.

Thomas Paine took it further in The Age of Reason. “I believe in one God, and no more,” he declared, seeing the Creator in nature’s grand design, not church rituals or clerical chains. This parallels Dao Chapter 1’s ineffable Way: “The name that can be named is not the eternal name.” Paine scorned Abrahamic texts as contrived myths, tools for control—kings and priests wielding “revelation” to bind the masses. Daoism nods in agreement: true harmony flows without force.

“The US is not a Christian nation” ~ John Adams

Rejecting Coercion, Abrahamic Style

The Founders saw Abrahamic religions as engines of empire. Franklin mocked “priestcraft,” that blend of myth and dominion where divine commands justified taxes and wars. Deism liberated them: a distant architect sets the cosmos spinning, then steps back—pure wu-wei, non-action. No Ten Commandments etched in stone to police behavior; instead, virtue arises naturally, as in Dao Chapter 57: “The more prohibitions, the poorer the people become.”

James Madison warned of entanglement: “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind.” His deist leanings favored a Creator harmonious with reason, not jealous gods demanding fealty. This rejection of coercive faith mirrors Laozi’s rulers who “love the people” least when multiplying laws and altars.

The Treaty of Tripoli, passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate in 1797 under Adams’ administration, states: “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Natural Law, American and Daoist

America’s founding documents pulse with this shared spirit. The Declaration’s “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” invokes no burning bushes or parting seas—just universal principles observable by all. Paine again: deism restores religion to “pure and simple” adoration of creation, free from “artificial systems.” Dao Chapter 28 captures it: knowing the male (structure) yet cleaving to the female (flow) leads to greatness without striving.

The Founders built a republic wary of myth-fueled tyranny, prioritizing individual harmony over collective dogma. Deism’s natural theology—God as the Dao, immanent yet unbound—infuses the Constitution’s silences on faith, protecting the free exercise of paths like Daoism itself.

In this light, Daoism thrives on American soil, kin to the deist wisdom that birthed the nation: question boldly, flow naturally, reject the chains of control.