Just sounds like a non sequitur.
You are certainly entitled to that view point, and I am sure many share it, but it doesn't sound like a rational one.
Nature's God by Matthew Stewart. It just came out in paperback. Yes, American history can be incredibly interesting. Yes, there are footnotes galore and notes and references. You never knew what a stud Ethan Allen was. Many, many more revelations.
...organized religion based on "divine" texts or religious authorities. Deists believe in God through reason, not by getting whacked by nuns with rulers.
Personally, deism makes at least as much sense as ANY other "ism" to me, and that includes atheism. While I am not a deist, I am an agnostic, deism seems to me like a rational belief to me. Unlike people who believe in "invisible men that need to be worshipped" I think deists look around them and come to the rather logical conclusion that "something" had to have created this. I can get behind that line of thinking as it has nothing to do with the mumbo jumbo that comes with all religions.
I also believe that science and deism can coexist quite nicely, even assuming the "Big Bang Theory" is true, that does not necessarily put deists at odds with scientists as the door is left wide open that "something" created the Big Bang. I don't claim to be smart enough to KNOW anything, or which ism is the right one, just that deism seems rational to me, while religion just seems like foolish fairy tales meant to quiet the questions asked by children, well children and stupid people that is.
Not that you asked or anything but I'm in a similar boat, I'm a monistic atheist - to oversimplify, I believe that there is a specific reason that things are as they are, that the world we live in is in no way accidental, but that reason is not some dude on a cloud in the sky.
For example, for me personally, I can't accept the idea that the sun, moon and earth being the perfect ratio in size and distance to each other that eclipses can occur is just an accident of cosmic parking from the Big Bang. The mathematics and the physics behind it all is just too beautiful and perfect for it to be utterly accidental or coincidental. I believe there is a scientific answer behind why this (and myriad other things) is the case and that we just haven't yet found it as a species.
why isn't one of those possibilities a deity of some sort?
And if you acknowledge that a God or gods, is possible, wouldn't that make you an agnostic, which is what GaG says he is?
And if you acknowledge that a God or gods, is possible, wouldn't that make you an agnostic, which is what GaG says he is?
I realise that ruling out a deity in such a way is arbitrary, but I find it to be no more arbitrary than anyone else's stance on religion, or spiritualism, or whatever you want to call it.
Is it rational to believe in the infinity of space? How can something have no end?
To me, there just seems to be an intelligence at play, whether it is as you said with celestial bodies or the incredible complexity of the human body.
I find it irrational that there is not some kind of higher power i.e. a diety of some kind.
But just because something may be irrational, doesn't mean they do not exist.
Women, for example. LOL
To me, there just seems to be an intelligence at play, whether it is as you said with celestial bodies or the incredible complexity of the human body.
I find it irrational that there is not some kind of higher power i.e. a diety of some kind.
But just because something may be irrational, doesn't mean they do not exist.
Women, for example. LOL
And sure, irrationality is not a case for non-existence, but for that I would refer you to Bertrand Russell's teapot.
you have not ruled out the possibility of a deity, only that one is unlikely to exist due to its irrationality, from your view point.
Is that a fair assessment of your belief?
You stated that "irrationality is not a case for non-existence" (you haven't made any other "case")and you also stated we haven't found the reason as yet as to why some things are the way they are.
So, when I couple those two points, it certainly sounds like you are saying you are unsure about things but at the same time you are sure no deity is involved.
Just sounds like a non sequitur.
You are certainly entitled to that view point, and I am sure many share it, but it doesn't sound like a rational one.
Just sounds like a non sequitur.
You are certainly entitled to that view point, and I am sure many share it, but it doesn't sound like a rational one.
I am not saying you "must assume that a god did it."
I am only saying that to rule OUT that a god MAY have done it, isn't scientific or logical
I am only saying that to rule OUT that a god MAY have done it, isn't scientific or logical.
I consider myself an agnostic theist. Even though my entire life's work has been in math, science and engineering I recognize that similar to religion (but not just like religion), science is also "man made".
Regarding the labels misused, many people believe agnostic and atheist cannot coexist within the same person's thoughts or belief sets. Untrue. The opposite of an agnostic would be a gnostic which is someone who is 100% sure about their belief system. Being an agnostic atheist is perfectly fine. A gnostic theist who can't quit talking about it would be your typical "thumper", which is also perfectly fine but sometimes annoying if you can't get them to quit bothering you. Gnostic atheists can be equally annoying.
For me, I am totally unsure of what I know or more exactly, how much I know (it's very tiny). But like you, my appreciation of the order of the known universe (both it's simplicity and complexity) leads me to think that some logical power vastly superior to any known and living thing must have had a hand in its creation or control. Do I think it's something that resembles the image of man? No, but I have no clue what it is so I can't rule anything out. So I tend much more towards theist than atheist
Believing that there could be a "god like entity" some thing or force beyond our understanding that was responsible for what we know as the universe is a far cry from "believing in God" an all knowing and all powerful entity that created us in his own image and all the other bullshit that goes with it. I completely reject that entire concept too, but I can't bring myself to rule that "something" created what we know as the universe, and something that could create the universe or start "the ball rolling" even would most likely be something that to a mere human would appear "Godlike". So I think that there is a lot of room in between people who INSIST it was random chance with no proof to base this on, only a LOT of speculation, and people who "believe in God" with absolutely NOTHING to go on except a bunch of fairy tales written by other human beings who realized that people found simplistic answers to complicated questions soothing, and that it allowed them to achieve and hold power by claiming to be one of the "chosen ones" who held all the answers.
In between those two opposing and almost equally ridiculous assumptions are a gadzillion other possibilities and NONE of us are likely to ever find the answers. Is that so hard for what appears to be a few rational people to agree on?
In my experience, it is people on the far left of this issue i.e. those like GB, who rule out even the possibility of a god or God like figure, have no problem mocking people on the far right i.e. people who are 100% certain there is a god.
At least the far right version has anecdotal stories, consistent over several religions, that God existed. There are documented accounts of the people of that day, what they saw and what they heard.
Now you can, as you have, dismiss all those accounts as fiction. But at least there are claims that span these different religions in Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, etc.
In other words, the more witnesses, spread out over divergent belief systems, would lead some credence to the existence of a creator of some sort. Add to that the incredible things that man can not create (the stars, the oceans, the mountains, etc) and you have, at the very least, the grounds for a reasonable argument that a deity exists.
Now look at the far left's position..."God doesn't exist because...because...ummmmm....because we say so damn it! There is nothing at all that can back them up. They fall back on "well, the science one day will explain it all." Maybe so, but the science just might point to a creator too.
If this where a "preponderance of the evidence type" legal case, it would be a slam dunk.
as the reputed author of the Pentateuch.
All you got is hearsay. Everything would be thrown out.
As on of your lefties, I no more consider the existence of god any more plausible than Santa Claus, the Tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny or Unicorns and give it as much thought.
As far as the science is concerned you need to catch up with the latest in theoretical physics and workings of the LHC at CERN.
Pretty excited times
You dismiss "God" as a fairy tale like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, and I join you in dismissing the Christian version of "God" or any other religions version for that matter.
Where we seem to diverge on this is you completely ruling out the possibility of a "god like" entity either creating the universe or starting the ball in motion. Any entity capable of doing this would obviously be "god like" to us human beings, but it would not be "God" in the religious sense.
I am not saying that I believe this is what happened, but without any proof to the contrary, I can't rule it out completely. Now a "God" that created man in his own image, wants/needs to be worshipped and actually gives a fuck whether we lie, cheat, murder or who we fuck? Well yeah, That's complete horseshit and giving even a trillion to one chance that it's true has got to be an "overlay" IMO.
BTW, I do disagree with Jack that human "witnesses" don't mean shit to me. People witness magicians doing tricks all the time, does that mean magicians can actually perform magic? Of course not, it only proves the people are gullible.
When you use the word "God" and not "a god" or "god like entity" you start to lose me as I COMPLETELY reject the Christian version of how the universe was created. I know I have joked that I have to at least a trillion to one chance of it being true, but even that slim chance is overestimating the possibility by a factor of a trillion IMO.
I will allow for the distinct possibility that "something" either created the universe or created the scenario that allowed the "Big Bang" to occur, and I will further allow that any being that could do such a thing would be considered "god like" to us, but that's a far cry from "believing in God" a very far cry.
Maybe some people are Deists and they don't even know it.
My homeless friend thinks like that. He says, Ok even if God created everything. What do you want me to do?? Ok he did it now that's it. He says about his kids, Ok I'm their dad. I'm not gonna go, worship me, worship me.
I think the same way. So maybe I'm a deist.
I guess I know what deism means - Not caring if there is a god or not.
But I hate labels. Theist, atheist and now deist, agnostic, so dumb. Well "theism" is needed because they are the ones who want to be noticed and tell people what they believe and convert them
it took a Republican governor (Haley) to take down the confederate flag that a Democrat governor (Hollings) first raised in SC?
