Reply To: Okay, Nerdy Keith, I'll bite: Why would someone be a deist?

Unseen wrote:

What does “outside space and time” mean? For you to mean something by saying it, it must first mean something, so explain please. By my understanding of time, where there’s no time there’s no activity because activity is how we mark the passage of time. If there were no time, how did God ever get off the mark to start making the universe?

If God can pull a universe out of nothing, he’s a magician by most definitions. What is your definition of “magician”? If he’s not a magician, he’s a miracle-maker, but you don’t seem to believe in miracles, either.

If God can make a universe and he’s not a magician or miracle-maker, then he’s a grand technician. Where and how did he gain this knowledge and from whom?

You say “…most deists believe that the God of nature works in accordance with nature; without deviation from what we have learned about and see in nature.” Did nature pre-exist the universe or even God? Your phrasing suggest so. It would seem that nature was there and God decided to obey its rules.

“At this point I just can’t accept that life is just the physical. I will have to do more research on the topic; but thats where I am at right now.” Why can’t you accept that the world is matter and what happens in matter (an epiphenomenon of matter, in other words). The mind, for example, is an epiphenomenon of the brain. No brain, no mind. By the same token, if God has a mind he needs a body and a brain. Saying, “No he isn’t subject to physical law and he exists beyond space and time” is just a bunch of words with no meaning at all. It’s a non-explanation.

Ok fair enough, outside space and time is generally understood to be a higher plane of existence or rather outside the natural universe. How God went about starting things off from this location? I simply don’t know. Perhaps it doesn’t require to leave its habitat (so to speak) in order to start thing off. Acknowledging that this is a transcendent higher being.

Well a magician to me is a person who performs optical illusions. But I think you mean wizard. A wizard is a being that bends the very core of reality.

Where did God gain its knowledge? I’m not sure exactly. One idea that comes to mind is that the God of Nature being a first cause of life in the universe (possibly many other universes) may have learned from its creations. That is not to say that it interferes, intervenes, or revels itself; which I still reject. But if this deity would require to learn from experience like we do; it stands to reason it would have to observe the natural behaviour of one of its creations. Maybe it did create another universe; with even more imperfections; learned from its mistakes; then repeated the process to reduces the errors.

Now you may be wondering. But if this God doesn’t leave its habitat. How would it observe anything? If I can communicate with you from Ireland to (America is it? Excuse my ignorance if you are from somewhere else). If NASA can communicate with a space shuttle in orbiting the moon or possibly another planet. I would say its reasonable to believe that the God of Nature is able to come up with some means of surveillancing life in other universes. How exactly it does this? I don’t have a specific answer for you. It would be beyond our comprehension I would imagine.

Did nature pre-exist the universe or even God? Well two things here. I don’t believe anything pre-exists the God of Nature. As far as I’m concerned; it is the originator of everything that ever was. Secondly I may have not quite explained myself clearly with some of my explanations regarding nature. I call the deity I believe in the God of Nature; because that is exactly what it is. The God of Nature. The creator of nature, the one who set up the laws of nature, laws of physics, evolution, the big bang etc. But then again; I would also be open the idea that the God of deism and nature being part in parcel. And that nature as we know it; is merely an expansion on what nature was prior to the Milky Way and the rest of the universe existing.

Well I used to have the viewpoint that the universe is just matter and energy and so forth. I just feel that I have not explored all the possibilities and plausibilities. So that is what I am doing; I’m exploring all the options. I still think organised religion is a load of rubbish; but deism is very different from an organised faith. Its a belief system if applied and understood correctly; it can work with science.

Now this idea that if a God exists; it must have a physical body. I don’t accept that. We don’t know the properties of God (not the deistic God anyway). We know quite a bit about the alleged Gods of Hinduism, Christianity, Islam. Because their holy books are very descriptive to what these Gods are like. And we can deduct them out of existence (so to speak). Deism is said to be an unfalsifiable hypothesis. So nobody can really say; the God of Nature must look like Galdalf from Lord of the Rings or look like Alanis Morissette. We simply do not know. But thats ok. Its the same in science; we don’t know everything. I constantly find my self explaining to theists over on Yahoo that; science is basically a process for seeking out the truth; not quite a system of absolutism. In a way deism as philosophical system functions in a similar way in congestion with science. I suppose one could kind of say the same thing about atheism; but I think most of you would argue that its not really a philosophical view point; just absence of faith.

Anyway thats my two cents