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What do you think about Deism?

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7

No different than theism. There is simply no verifiable evidence, facts or data to support the existence of any supernatural dimensions or any beings that inhabit that non-existent, fantasy realm.

6

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

As far as I'm concerned, deism is just as ridiculous as every other religious belief.
Doesn't make a lick of sense to have a god, let alone a god that is detached and
unconcerned about "his" creations.

Just another absentee parent.
How on earth is that worthy of worship?

@Allamanda Either way, it's wasted energy. There's nothing there.

3

Deism is what we had without science. This is because science was in its infancy and did not explain anything. People all want to explain things and Deism claims an unknowable god being or supreme being set things in motion and disappeared. You can never know anything about this being and it did not intend for you to know. Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists. Franklin often spoke of "divine providence" but there was no being to pray to, grant wishes, or change anything in your life. Seems to me on the question of how we all got here an answer that simply said "we do not know" would have been good enough.

Not sure about: "Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists." but for else I do agree.

@InSaNe_97 I made that statement exactly as you printed it because some Americans think our Founding Fathers were religious in the way that many Americans claim today. It is simply not true and often used to try and bolster ideas against separation of church and state.

I don't know that, will be stupid if I just believe, I'll for sure have it in mind so once I might be able to determine it by Myself. Thank you for patience, I am sure it's not pleasant writing too much for random people.

3

“Deism is the belief in a supreme being, who remains unknowable and untouchable”

The concept is appealing in a certain way, but is tainted by mankind’s unavoidable self-centered presumptions.

“Belief in” presumes that we humans are capable of determining the truth about reality and thus should form beliefs. The idea seems to be that we are the drivers, forging ahead with our science, destined to learn and understand everything that is. Deism meshed well with nineteenth century science—with determinism, materialism, with reductionism. Since then science has brought us face to face with a startling fact:: reality is not the way it seems and our most basic perception of reality is illusion.

The notion that there is a “supreme being” is itself a rather presumptuous idea. Being in what sense? We fancy that we know what it means to exist. We see trees and houses and planets and live as though those objects of our senses were “real things”. We have that built-in mental model of matter moving through space and time, and we try to stamp all of reality with our artificial organizational system. There are no “things”.

To label the supposed being as “supreme” means that we are treating the thing as an object, outside and beyond ourselves, “unknowable and untouchable”. The unstated assumption is that our own existence is known and understood. The unnerving fact is that we don’t actually know who or what we are. We seem to have conscious awareness and free will but are totally baffled as to what that means.

A bafflist, that’s what I am.

That's exactly how I would answer but with bigger text. I'm loving it.

3

A god who hides, is from a practical point of view, exactly the same as one who does not exist; therefore its a none issue.

God hiding is not what Deists believe. The belief follows traditional theist metaphysics, in which God, as creator, is separate from the universe, his Creation. Since the universe sets the boundaries of what we can perceive (we cannot examine anything outside the universe), the Deist God can only be known through what we can examine of its works and since the Deist God does not tinker with its creation, that means examining the mechanics of the natural world. For the time period it was popular during, Deism made a lot of sense: not only was NOT believing in God socially (and legally) dangerous, but advances in science were revealing much about the elegance of how natural processes work. Thus believing in a master creator who defined the rules and set the work in motion without intervening was very attractive in intellectual circles.

@Liam Yes I am familiar with the history of Deism, but I think that the poster was more interested in the popular modern meaning. Please note the phrase, 'from a practical point of view'. A god who can be understood only through the mechanics/practicallities of the universe leaves nothing for us to study except the mechanics of the universe, and if there is no god then the only thing we have to study are the mechanics of the universe, therefore they are equal. The slight nuance that you may be able to read some intent in the mechanics of the universe, such as, 'god was very fond of beetles,' is not really relevant.

@Fernapple, hiding implies intent, though. That was my point. The Absent Watchmaker is an attractive idea, if you're accustomed to belief in a diety but want something more rational. It's common to infer something about the artist from their work, and the universe is a pretty slick piece. If you are already predisposed to the idea of a creator, then learning about them through their work is a natural place to start. It's the only evidence left of them, and the quality of that work testifies to their nature, to a degree. A Deist physicist can look at the equations describing gravity, and the inverse square law, and the ideal gas law, and wonder at the artistry that allows such elegance to exist as part of the fundamental ordering of existence.

@Liam True and thank you for such a thoughtful reply. My point is simply however that as you say. "A Deist physicist can look at the equations describing gravity," But the solutions for him would come out the same for the deist, as the solutions to those equations found by an atheist physicist, so no change. Whereas a theist physicist may well alter the results to fit a theological view, or even dismiss the idea of gravity altogether.

3

i think it's as delusional as anything else that presents deities. since i believe there are no gods, i have no use for any kind of theism, including deism.

g

3

It was a way to try to reconcile science with belief in god.

3

I can't buy the "Watchmaker" argument because there's no way to prove it. For me, it's more acceptable to say that I don't know what set off the big bang yet. We'll find out if we don't destroy ourselves first.

2

Deism means god went on vacation and he/she/it will never come back.
The end result is the same as with atheism.

2

Some are good people who do good deeds better than evangelicals who further hate

bobwjr Level 10 June 23, 2019
2

The beginning of skepticism.

2

If one must believe in a god, or pretend to, to make their science more palatable, that’s the only framework vague enough to not have to answer much for it. Some comments that everyone from Einstein to Neil DeGrasse Tyson have made sort of suggest a belief in Spinoza’s god, or a deist approach. The founding fathers of the US and most educated European men from the enlightenment were deists as far as I know. It’s why Thomas Jefferson had marked out all the supernaturally impossible shit in his bible.

I think it was either the first step in the evolution of thinking Christians becoming unafraid to claim agnostic atheism, or a cheap cop out by some agnostic atheists to keep from offending their fan base or turning them off of a more important message you feel you have for them. For all practical purposes it’s a less alarming way of saying I’m an atheist but I’d rather semantically claim not to be. the existence of a watchmaker god amounts to: god has no meaningful effect or ability to change our day to day existence. In this sense they’re just secular people who don’t mind using the word god as a substitute for “shit I/we don’t know about yet”

Spinoza's god isn't really deism, but the idea that all the physical laws of the universe add up to god (that the universe itself is god, and nothing more). Deism would be that god created the world/universe, and that was all. No more intervention, no caring what you do or why.

@greyeyed123 thanks for the clarification yeah I think they’re really similar and amount to many of the same conclusions, but good to be reminded of the particulars.

Edited that phrase to spinoza’s god or a deist approach.

1

Interesting discussion, I enjoyed reading it. Thank you for posting!

1

It seems like one step away from atheism to me. A reification of an initiating force such as Big Bang or whatever happened to be the First Cause.

1

Hold on, let me think here..... (One Mississippi, two Mississippi). Nope, I got nothing.

1

I don't

1

Labels again. I'm an agnostic pantheistic deist. OR AM I? If a deist believes IN any kind of supreme being, that's not me. I guess I believe IN the possibility of the existence of SOME kind of "prime cause," or if you will, an as yet undefinable, unknowable Something. Do I call this Something "god?" Yes, for want of a better word. That's it. As far as I go.
MAYBE it's a "being?" I can't rule it out, in the sense the Universe itself might be thought of as a being. A collective consciousness? Maybe.
I just don't "get" and can't believe IN, nothing, which is the definition of atheism. After all, we're here, aren't we? Paranormal phenomenon is a real, provable thing, despite what atheists may say. Is there other intelligent life in the Universe? It makes sense to think there is. Can we PROVE it? No. Same thing with "god," as far as I'm concerned.
I like tweaking atheists, yanking their chain, as it were, but other than that I could care less about it. I talk about such matters because it's entertaining, something to do, but I'm unconcerned. It is what it is.
The debate continues, on and on, into infinity...

@Allamanda who's he?🤔

@Allamanda I mean "provable" in the sense it can't be explained away. Ever hear of Edgar Cayce? Over 20,000 recorded case histories of "readings" he did for people while in a deep sleep-like trance. Some amazing, detailed stuff including many things he couldn't possibly have knowledge of. If you haven't read about it, do so before you dismiss it as fradulent or explainable. That's "paranormal," right?
There other things maybe quite as spectacular but how many examples do you need to concede the point?

@Storm1752 Edward Cayce...ohferpetessake

@AnneWimsey EDGAR Cayce, and you have no idea who I'm talking about, do you? Or your knowledge of him and other psychics is so superficial it borders on non-existent. Lots of fakes, but some are quite convincing. But you laugh.
I was asked for "proof." I consider him and other real psychics a form of proof. At the very least it gives you a reason to think twice. But you're not interested. Okay. Fine. Apparently you and other true believers in belief in cynical, baseless close-mindedness a "proof" of intelligence. I consider it boringly willful ignorance.

@Storm1752 My brother lives in Norfolk VA, I have toured the Center, plus knew about him from decades ago. Another "seance" type charlatan, like so many others, just a man instead of a woman so he was given more cred. "No way of knowing" crapola.......

@AnneWimsey Well I totally disagree. There's no way what came out in his "readings" was made up as he went along.
A lot of it may be nonsense, but there was a source from which it came outside of himself. That source may have been fallible, imperfect, in some particulars "full of it," but he wasn"t a charlatan, and the very fact those readings exist cannot be explained away so easily.
It may point to a "collective unconsciousness" which may not be "god-like" infallible, but nevertheless THERE. I know you don't believe that, but I do.

@Storm1752 I used to read Tarot cards...beloved in what I was doing, too. Quite successful actually. Then I noticed whatever reading I gave, to whomever, they claimed it "fit".

@AnneWimsey And I did I Ching quite successfully (?), but that's hardly the same thing.
If you ever studied Cayce for a few days you'd realize the was the "real thing" and not like, say, Joseph Smith and his angel Moroni, or some lady reading cards or tea leaves, or me reading the I Ching.
And it has ZERO to do with him being a man.

@Storm1752 my point is, believers gonna believe. And I do not think you can discount him being taken more seriously than the average tent-prophesy gypsy...it was/is because he was a Male. Joseph Smith was even more successful than Cayce, why do you use him as an example?

@AnneWimsey Because Joseph Smith was an obvious phoney, from the get-go all the way through to the end, of course, like L. Ron Hubbard. How someone can start a new religion on such flimsy grounds and actually succeed in reeling people in is beyond me.
It reminds me very much of the Flavian emperors making up Christianity, but at least they had a captive audience, total control of the "media," and were clever enough to splice it onto an existing religion AND older mystery religions. But it is still fascinating how they could just abandon their own "gods" for new ones so cynically. Think they believed in ANYTHING other than their own hold on power? I certainly don't.
Anyway, I'm not naively saying him being male had NOTHING to do with it. It probably did. But it also had to do with his amazing readings, and I challenge you to point out anything remotely like them, AFTER YOU READ A FEW. Maybe you have. Okay. MY point was, there is much to ponder in his utterances, as well as from other sources, and I for one am not about to close my mind to the possibilities.
I'm not about to embrace a belief system, because I doubt any human has or ever will "get it right" 100%, but I do believe there may glimpses here and there of something MORE than we will ever know.
That's all I'm saying. I'm NOT saying there IS anything more, and nihilism may be the correct point of view. I'm just not there. Doubt I ever will be.

@Storm1752 phoney or not, hugely successful by any measure. Oh, and BTW, did Cayce ever get The Amazing Randy's million dollars? No? Why not?

@AnneWimsey Never heard of it. What was the deal?

To prove something scientifically, it has to be repeatable and falsifiable. This means that a completely separate group of people would need to be able to follow whatever method is prescribed and achieve the same results. Falsifiable means it has to be able to disproven. A lot of pseudoscience relies on anecdotal evidence and responds to counter evidence by claiming they did something wrong or something similar. I cam make a claim that mixing salt and water produces electricity, but to be considered actual science I would have to provide a method by which others could independently recreate my results, and it would have to be able to be proven false if my claimed method doesn't produce the results I say it will. If I respond to another failing to reproduce my results with claims that they failed to do it right, even with documented evidence that they followed my method, it isn't science. It's pseudoscience.

1

Frankly, if I did think of it at all, I wouldn’t be on this website as a member. There is simply no data to support it. It’s basically a non-issue.

Thinking about it doesn’t equate to buying into it though surely? I might be wrong but I don’t think she was asking about whether it’s true or not. She seems like the kinda person that gets that already. I know, some atheists have no interest in comparative religious studies or scarcely philosophy of any kind. But a lot of folks who were unfortunately brainwashed early and later de converted by thinking through this stuff like I did find it useful to discuss all sorts of religious frameworks, or sometimes just for the intellectual curiosity of anthropology and sociology, imagining why some believe what they did and how it influenced our history. 🤷♂️ different strokes.

1

Nothing to think about.

EvoApe Level 3 June 22, 2019

Agree, (I'm) glad someone has told it <3.

0

All gods and god types exist in the supernatural realm located between the ears of humans.

0

18th century science of Thomas Paine....pre-Darwinian cosmology in the fossil record

0

I think it's a stepping stone between belief and non-belief. I was a believer first, then a deist, then an agnostic, then finally an atheist. It was a series of baby steps and deism was part of it.

0

It is the most honest form of Christianity. Still a lie.

0

I tend to not think about it.

0

I think it is pretty pointless, but pretty harmless.

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