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

[Nerdy Keith]

Unseen wrote:

One of my biggest problems with theism transfers to deism as well, and that is that God needn’t exist due to Occam’s Razor. His existence makes explaining things more complicated and raises more questions than simply believing that things are as they are for reasons we may never know.

The idea of a first cause presumes that causality as we know it traces backward to infinity—even before the inception of the univers—but there is no evidence for that and a lot of reason to think that causality as we know it came into being during the formation of the universe and that before then some other physical laws (or perhaps total physical lawlessness) preceded it.

What is your response?

Well thats a fair point. But the way I see it is; the universe (how it all happened); may not be as simple as we currently imagine or understand it to be. Yes deism does open up more questions than answers. My argument is that perhaps those questions need to be asked. I suppose in an interesting way it keeps scientists on their toes; to seek out answers to these new questions we (all of us; deist or otherwise) open ourselves up to. As we understand more and more about the universe; there is always going to be more questions when we discover more about the universe.

I agree that there is no shame in ignorance (not knowing). And while I have no issue with agnosticism (as a regard myself as an agnostic deist). I don’t embrace eternal agnosticism. To me its a lack of knowledge based on what we currently know. So I can’t say I’m that open to us never knowing more about the universe.

Yes you are totally correct about causality; no disagreement there. I’m not going to pretend I know anymore beyond that; I have to be honest with you here. At the moment I have to say that I have yet to fully investigate this area. As I’ve pointed out I’m still in the process of educating myself on all aspects to my beliefs. So I’ll have to get back to you on that when I am more informed on this.