Agnostic.com

12 3

What do you think about Deism?

I am convinced there is plenty of indisputable evidence to totally discredit theism. It is slightly more debatable when it comes to those like Thomas Pain who advocated the concept of Deism.

Deism contends there was a super-natural entity who created the earth and human life, but that was the end of that alleged Gods involvement. A God who having no connection with mankind. No personal involvement, commandments, miracles, promises, or further interest in the subsequent welfare of humanity. Some Deists contemplate some kind of after-life, but no idea of what that might entail. Certainly, no Heaven or Hell like the Theists.

As an agnostic, my initial impression is Deism is no more rational that Theism. But, unlike Theism, there is no way to prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, it might not be the case. How do you unequivocally disprove something like that may not have happened? The Big Bang? That is hard to believe too. How can anyone know for sure?

raymondahult 5 Nov 4
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

12 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

I think it's bullshit.

6

I can not disprove the existence of a deist style god, nor of a greater intelligence/consciousness behind, or hidden within, the natural universe we see. ( I am agnostic. ) But I can disprove the claims for a theist god, and that is good enough. Because a deist god, or supernatural intellect, which is invisible and does not communicate, does not affect in any way, my materialist and naturalistic world view.

If you have time however, I would like to tell you a story about something much more interesting, muffins.

Suppose for a minute, and for the sake of argument only, that there is a god, and an afterlife, including heaven and a hell; and that the god chooses whether people go to heaven or hell, in fact the whole theist deal. Not only that, but the criterion on which the god makes the choice is based on the type of muffins they eat. ( Note: “eat” not prefer, this is not about free will or anything like that.) People who eat lemon muffins go to heaven and people who eat chocolate muffins go to hell, with limbo for those who don't eat muffins at all, naturally.

Would that make a difference to your life ? Would you give up your chocolate muffins for an eternity of joy, and all the lemon buns after death you could ever eat ? Perhaps you would. But there is one vital thing that I forgot to mention about this god, which is that; this particular god, does not tell you about his thoughts on muffins, or how they affect your after life, at all. In fact it keeps the whole thing a big secret just to itself. So that you have no way of knowing which muffins you have to eat.

Then in that case, of course, you could not make the appropriate changes to your life, or save your soul anyway. In fact muffins, the gods preferences and even that god, would not impact on your life at all.

The point is this. That a gods, souls, the afterlife etc. have no effect on anything, unless that god/spirit, or someone who knows, tells you about it, and you therefore have some knowledge of god's cake prejudices. Making this the big difference between religion, which pretends to offer knowledge of god the afterlife etc., and none belief which does not. Which is why the difference between atheists, humanists, agnostics and even deists, is so small and unimportant by comparison, because none claim any knowledge of gods preferences. And it is the pretense of fake knowledge, and of god given authority, which makes the big difference. Compared with that the differences between atheist and agnostic, even deist, are trivial to the point of vanishing.

I’m eating all the muffins, fuck it…..😇

LOVE your muffins!!!!!!!!!!

That takes the biscuit.

5

If, as you say, the contention that a supernatural entity created the earth and human life is slightly more debatable than theism, then the debate should have taken place in a southern christian primary school during the 50's.

What is it about planetary formation and abiogenesis that you attribute to a god in your debate?

6

The deism contention is a claim that is devoid of any supporting falsifiable evidence. There is also no such thing as proof in science. See also @Flyingsaucesir's comment that the Big Bang is the best model that we currently have about the nature of the universe.

If deism is going to be supported, the "dei" in question could be the Committee of Little White Mice, or the Wagyl (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagyl), or anything else equally absurd.

1

as good as any thinking if you're in the market.

5

There is strong evidence that the big bang actually occurred.

I agree the big bang probably happened. Still, hard to imagine a bang that has created billions of stars and planets and is still exploding.

@raymondahult "Expanding" is the term of art for what the universe is doing. And not just billions of stars; it's billions of GALAXIES, each with billions of stars. Yeah, its mind boggling.

2

It's better than Evangelical Christianity, or any other fundamentalist credo, by a long shot!

7

My opinion is obvious...

5

And given the parameters, what action(s) should be taken, and why?
The answer is patently Nothing, or in the vernacular, who gives a flying fuck?
Would it make any difference other than keeping you ruminating instead of taking out the garbage like you promised?
Have you noticed i find this pointless type of thinking extremely Annoying yet?

Hard to understand why you want to waste your time belonging to this agnostic forum.

@raymondahult Well, to be fair, the discussions here are not limited to one class of topics. There is quite a bit of variety.

@raymondahult @flyingsaucesir
Yeah, like crazy shit about Putin and Trump being the good guys.

@ChestRockfield Yeah, we do see some if that. On the bright side, demolishing them helps keep the beak and claws sharp 😂

2

Deism is when you have no science to explain things and you decide there was a god that created everything and then he went away. You cannot communicate with him and he does not want to communicate with you. That is Deism. Not so much a religion but a godly explanation.

4

How can anyone know for sure?

Ask one question, is there any supporting evidence?
If the answer is no, then your logical default position should be to assume that there is no reason to assume there is any truth in the contention that some or any kind of deity exists.

9

They can’t. On any of those. Including theism.

Why not just accept the fact that we can’t, at this point in time, know certain things, and then take, tentatively, into our worldview only those things for which we do have adequate evidence?

skado Level 9 Nov 4, 2023

Hard to argue with your reasonable point of view. Still can't stop wondering.

@raymondahult
No harm in wondering. Especially if it leads to doing the work necessary to legitimately answer questions. Meanwhile, suffering over it is counterproductive. Convincing ourselves we know, when we don't... is worse. The good news is... there is enough reliable knowledge available today to find peace.

@raymondahult The way I deal with the issue of whether god exists or not is to think about the problem in terms of probabilities. What is the probability that a god with the properties of Yaweh exists? The scientist in me won't let me say "zero," because it's impossible, in a universe so vast, with so much still unknown, to prove that such a being does not exist. This is basically in line with the very reasonable position of most agnostics. But we don't have to stop there. We can consider other factors too, like the human propensity to invent gods (more than a thousand, right?), and make up stories. And a lot of stuff in the stories is outside nature, and is never actually observed. This reduces the probably, in my mind, that any of the stories are true. And after looking high and low, and failing to find any independently-verifiable evidence of gods, the probability of their existence is further reduced. And if an all-knowing, all-powerful, loving God exists, why does he/she/it allow so much stupidity and unnecessary suffering? Then there is the mountain of scientific evidence indicating that all life on Earth evolved from a single, common ancestor, without any need of divine intervention. And that the first living cells could have spontaneously self-assembled through entirely natural processes. And that the Earth and all the other planets in our solar system were likewise formed through natural processes. And that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is rather ordinary, and one of billions. And we can see stars and galaxies in various stages of development, all acting according to natural laws of physics and chemistry. And we even see evidence of a beginning, the Big Bang, and no supernatural cause is needed to explain it. Taking all this into account, the probability of any god existing seems vanishingly small. For me, the probability is so small that I defy Pascal's wager. I won't take that bet. I'm still an agnostic, but I live my life like an atheist.

@Flyingsaucesir Nothing stopping you from being both. I'm an agnostic atheist.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:736248
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.