Any Modern Deists Here?

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Jeggernaut

I became a modern deist in early 2006. While I sat in my world history class taking in a lecture, the professor began to talk about a form of belief known as deism, and mentioned that many of the significant founding fathers of the United States were deists. The brief description he gave of the belief system was a farshot from the modern deism movement present today, brought to life by the widespread use of the internet. Anyways, my interest was peaked enough to actually look into it for myself. What I found was a very reasonable outlook on the existence and role of god. I liked it so much that I accepted the belief system as my own, with a few minor personal tweaks, of course.

Anyways, I've always noticed that I seem to be the only modern deist present anywhere I go except for on one of the few active deism message boards across the internet. So, are there any present here?

    Good info can be found at http://moderndeism.com
                          ~Jeggernaut

Contenteo

Yeah, I was a deist until I started astral travels. And even now, I feel that deism still best describes my religion, that is if I have to choose an -ism. I am a true teleological reasoner.

I mean c'mon, look at all the relations to all the religions of astral/OBEs.

Logically, they can't all be true representations of what is, but by exploring their core, I find that the astral actually accurately describes most all of them.
I mean excrement. It even describes Joe Smith and the book of Mormon. I mean the poor soul was lookin' into F2 at night beleivin' what he saw. And he kept writing it down. That's why he was alone when he was writin' the damn thing.

Every man does what they believes is the right choice within his constraints of information. We have to find the patterns in the base information they are using to make decisions.

A close second would be Taoism. I mean he describes how one should live once they understand what the Way is. But call me taught Western, but I do believe just because one understands the Way and where their will inevitably be doesn't mean one shouldn't...well can't make the most of the physical realm and achieve great heights. One should enjoy the dualism of evolutions and stagnant periods. Not simply succumb to stagnation because of inevitability.

Anyway, awe is what i feel. And reason is my guide.

-Contenteo

Stillwater


I could say my belief about the concept of God or divinity is close to deism, insofar as I reject scripture as a basis of proof, and believe that proof or metaphysical claims must be either empirical or rationalist; I also respect the contribution deism has made in or culture, in helping to divorce a large part of the population from compulsory organized religion in the 18th and 19th centuries.

That said, I think people often jump to metaphysical conclusions prematurely- I have seen pretty much any strong arugment about the weakness of philosophical materialism in explaining our world taken to immediately mean there must be a God, and this God must have a certain set of properties. For instance, notice that when many people argue something along the lines of, "The physical universe contains an unlikely amount of order, or some forms or properties which materialism alone has not been able to account for", they immediately go on to conclude, "therefore, there must be a God". This is an invalid form of reasoning, since you cannot go from an inability of one theory to explain a circumstance, and then immediately go on to conclude that whatever you want must therefore be the cause (since that is what God is to many people, whatever they want it to be).

I myself do identify with those that, as stated, reject the full explanation of the world we live in by material means, on the basis of certain rational properties of conscsiousness, and on some anecdotal information related to OBE-type phenomena, and this for me implies that a more proper theory of existence must include some property, philosophical substance, or metaphysical construct that has not been brought into science as yet. But notice that even though I feel "there is more to the world than immediately at hand", this does not threfore imply a certain metaphysical reality per se, except one that is necessitated by the observed conditions.

David Hume ( a famous 18th centurey atheist, whom I cannot fully agree with by virtue of his atheism, lol, but a very astute philosopher)  gave a classical argument to a similar effect:

The argument can be summed up to the effect that: If you take it from a cosmological perspective that the world needs a creator, at the very best, you can postulate a very imperfect and flawed creator. The reason is that the creator must only be as skilled and perfect as the craft he is capable of making. Since our world appears to be quite flawed and imperfect, it would not at all require the perfect creator with every excellence many suggest, but rather one merely possessing the minimum power to create something of the fineness of our physical world. Even though this being or force would be much beyond our understanding, it would still be far from necessarily being perfect, just rather powerful compared to us.

(I can get you a reference to the full argument in text if you wish later, but I cannot access it now without waking people up, haha)

And I argue along similar lines to Hume's argument which I paraphrased:from my philosophical perspective, the current scientific paradigm seems like an inadequate explanation of the fullness of our observed existence, for reasons which I hinted at before (but can go into greater depth on), and therefore I postulate a metaphysical substrate to the universe, or metaphysical properties to the physical universe, which fulfill the differences between the material paradigm and observations. I cannot call this metaphysical God per se, since I cannot postulate some particular being or other, and in this I must break from deists, even though I agree with their rejection of organized religion and their promotion of reason in metaphysics.



"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Contenteo

Wow, thank you for that elegant response. That was awesome.

That was the best argument I ever heard for atheism, good show. I guess pantheism, is more of an accurate term for what i am then, since you totally just beat up my idea of the possibility of an intelligent creator. i'm sold. i mean i wasn't in love with the idea to begin with, but if he exist through logic, then that fact is a very logical way of disproving it. liked that very much.

Couple other thoughts to lay on you, don't forget when we take the material world and look at the smallest thing we can see, ya know quantum physics, it all just appears to be energy. So is the material really material or simply another state of wave energy with different "dimensional" characteristics.

Thanks again,
Contenteo










lol - you can't say $h!t here. didn't mean. "I mean excrement" lol - was baffled by that. good times.

Stillwater

#4

QuoteThat was the best argument I ever heard for atheism, good show.

You need to be slightly careful here, since there are things to be confused with by the sort of argument I presented. David Hume was an atheist, but he is not here arguing for atheism per se, but rather against those who recognize there to be a force more powerful than man at work in the universe, and then immediately postulate a perfect God with every excellence by default, rather than a much more probable less perfect, but still powerful being, or metaphysical substrate.

I would not at all call myself an atheist with respect to a Deity, since an atheist affirms their belief in the nonexistance of a deity. Since I have and could have no ground for disbelieving in the possibility of a Deity (since literally anything is possible), I find it much more proper to say I am agnostic with referenc to a Deity, since I have insufficient information provided to me to make a conclusion on that matter (it is important to note that I would be an agnostic even with significantly more information provided to me, since I could never exclude the possibility of being deceived by myself or other powerful beings who want to employ my belief for their own purposes).

But that is only with respect to a Deity. I feel I have been given significantly more information about metaphysiscal realities in the general sense, and take their existence in some form to be near-certain, be it in the form of alternate planes of existence, additional properties possessed by physical matter which is not yet understood, or in thought itself as primal universal force or substance. But that is a matter which deserves more than a cursory summary, if it were to be explored.

QuoteCouple other thoughts to lay on you, don't forget when we take the material world and look at the smallest thing we can see, ya know quantum physics, it all just appears to be energy. So is the material really material or simply another state of wave energy with different "dimensional" characteristics.

It may well be that the energy that constitutes the physical material world is contiguous with a metaphysical level, but you need to be a spot careful, as the fact that matter is composed of energy is not in itself a metaphysical argument, just an argument about the constitution of matter.
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

personalreality

I'm a Rustyist.  We're so much better than deists.

You might as well just call me your God, because relative to your primitive system, we Rustyists are beyond your comprehension.

I can mail you a brochure if you're interested in joining up.

[note: sarcasm and a good ol fashioned dose of the funnies.  my name is Rusty, meaning i'm the only Rustyist, but we're still pretty bada$s]
be awesome.

Stillwater

I can vouch for the necessity of PR's disclaimor, since I have seen a handful of arguments precipitate from people taking his shock-jokes literally, and then mounting a forum campaign against them.  :wink:
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

personalreality

it's all about shaking your perception of reality enough to consider something outlandish.

shock-jock.  i like it.
be awesome.

CFTraveler

Loved the whole thread.  I just had to say it.

Contenteo

Go Me for the 4 year revive :-D

Booya