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

[Unseen]

Nerdy Keith wrote:

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

“Ok fair enough, outside space and time is generally understood to be a higher plane of existence or rather outside the natural universe.” That’s a lot of New Age gobbledygook. Maybe God lives in an eternal hot tub inside a crystal pyramid at the end of a rainbow with centaurs and unicorns grazing outside.

If you don’t like magician, I prefer sorcerer to wizard.

“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.”

So, despite this (what else to call it?) place God lives/exists in, which is beyond time and space, things nevertheless happen there. How is that even possible?

“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.”

So, basically you don’t know, it just happens somehow. You know it happens and the best you can do is speculate(?).

“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.”

If he always was (nothing pre-existed him) then eternity would seem to be plenty of time for God to have learned everything there is to know long before creating our universe, and yet you depict him as learning from his creations. That means, among other things, that this God isn’t omniscient. That his intelligence is mortal intelligence.

“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.”

Why do you feel a need for a “belief system”?

“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.”

“Deism is said to be an unfalsifiable hypothesis.” Sort of like the hypothesis that there’s an invisible and ineffable rhinoceros in my living room. You’ll find that unfalsifiability is anathema to most of the atheists here. If something can’t be falsified, it’s ipso facto meaningless.

“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.”

But Deism is just a conjecture. It’s something that might be the case, however unlikely. It goes way way way beyond any facts. And why? Just to hang on to a crumb of a God who is unfalsifiable simply because you never really provided a description other than that he’s undescribable?