You can say what you want about it, Amos. I was a smart kid, and I knew perfectly well that my time was being wasted when I got sent to school, and my freedom being interfered with in an unconscionable manner that has left anger in me to this day. I had a simply tremendous desire to learn, as a child. I wanted to learn everything I possibly could about history, nature, science, culture, you name it. I learned to read before I was even in school, and I read everything I could get hold of. School was a dictatorial machine-system mind-controlling travesty forced upon me by the society around me, and I would be have been a far happier and better adjusted child and adult if I had never gone there.

This is not to criticize my better teachers. They were fine people. I suspect their talents might also have been put to better use in a more enlightened system than the one they were put to labor in.

My sympathies are deeply with teachers and students everywhere in the giant social machine that is modern mass education.

As for deism...it sounds like a good approach to me.