A question for deists

[monkboon]

I have been an atheist for over 20 years, but I've only been public about it for the last 5. My outing, as it were, actually made not only the local newspaper, but was syndicated at least as far away as Amsterdam, when a story about an organization I belong to (see my signature) carried my name and photograph along with it.

Artie, a FOAF, upon hearing of this organization and my membership in it told me straight up that he thought I was "smarter than that." Presumably he meant "smarter than to be an atheist," or possibly "smarter than to belong to an atheist group brazen enough to call itself a church," he didn't clarify.

Artie then went on to explain that he was a deist. Frankly, at the time I was unaware that there were any deists still around, so I asked him what that meant to him. He went on to explain that he believed that the universe and the rules that governed it were created by God, but that once that was done, He no longer interfered with it. I asked him if his God was an intelligent being. He said that it would be inappropriate for him to say, not simply because he didn't know, but because it wasn't knowable. I'm paraphrasing, it was 5 years ago after all, but that's the gist of it.

So that left me thinking that to him, God is a name he assigns to what the rest of us call physics, making him an atheist in everything but name. So my question is, was Artie a fair representative for deists or not?

 

[TeaBag420]

Imagine the labor Zeno's mother must have gone through.

When M. Descartes replied, who replied?

It sounds like you want to believe your friend is an atheist, but he believes he is not. Why must God be intelligent? Please to be defining "intelligent".

 

[Piscivore]

Please to be defining "intelligent".

The opposite of lifegazer and 1inC?

Seriously, if Artie says he believes in God, a god, or many gods, why should you doubt that? Like he said, he thinks his God created physics. I, as an atheist, do not believe that, and don't count anyone who does as an atheist, "secretly" or not. He's a lot closer to me than a fundie freak like 1inTroll, but that doesn't invalidate his belief. As long as he's not trying to cram it down anyone's throat, or trying to force anyone onto their knees, I say good on him.

 

[Operaider]

Having been an ex catholic I can kind of understand his thinking, and wouldn't consider him an atheist.

When I began to "lose my faith" it didn't happen all at once. Slowly I began to realize that bits and pieces of my religion simply didn't make any sense, but I still held on to the rest of my beliefs. Eventually I got to where your friend is. I didn't believe that any of the religions had it right. I didn't think that the stories about Jesus, Moses, or any of the others were anything but stories. But I still felt as though everything that exists was just to amazing to be done by chance. I believed in evolution, but felt that God might have played a hand in shaping it. I even considered that perhaps god was just some highly evolved alien creature that created us as a type of lab experiment. Eventually I realized that I was only fooling myself because I was afraid to face the fact that there is no God. But up until that point I still believed in a God of some sort, and was still a I suppose a diest

 

[Hutch]

Guess I'm still where Operaider has departed from. Like him, I was raised Catholic until the contradictions (I never, even as a young kid, really bought into the "One God but 3 aspects" thing) became to overwhelming.

Yet I do think there is a unifying 'purpose' behind the universe and the laws it operates under--while we humans call it "God", I think that rather typecasts something that we cannot understand in human form and behavior. What it is and if it is even understandable to man is still an unknown.

What I am very confident in is that there is no 'God' above that is watching every little thing I do and acting with the behavior of a spoiled 4 year old when I don't do what He wants. But "something", yes, I still think so, but what I am simply not intelligent enough to speculate on.

FWIW

 

[monkboon]

It sounds like you want to believe your friend is an atheist, but he believes he is not.

What I want to believe is irrelevant. He pretty much talks like an atheist about everything except this one thing. I merely wanted to know if that was typical of deists, or if he was just clinging to the idea of God for some reason.

Why must God be intelligent?

I never said the God must be intelligent. I asked him because I wanted to know what he thought God was. His answer that it was unknowable put an end to any further questions I could ask to get him to clarify.

Please to be defining "intelligent".

In the context of the question I asked him, what I meant by intelligence was an awareness, a capacity to draw conclusions, and a will to set into motion this universe. I assumed he understood what I meant by that, but I could be wrong. My intent was to get him to tell me whether he believed God created the universe on purpose, or was that merely a random event set into motion by an unthinking thing he merely calls God. But we never got that far into the discussion.

 

[monkboon]

Seriously, if Artie says he believes in God, a god, or many gods, why should you doubt that?

I don't doubt that he believes what he says he believes. I'm just trying to clarify whether his belief is typical of present day deists.

I'm familiar enough with Thomas Paine's justification of deism, and am fairly convinced that had he known then a mere fraction of the science that we've learned since then, he would have been an atheist. I'll freely admit that this could just be wishful thinking on my part, but until this particular conversation with Artie, I was not aware that I had ever been in contact with any deists. I had pretty much assumed that, like my idealized Thomas Paine, they had all come to the same conclusion that I had, that there are no gods.

 

[Yaotl]

Hmm, looking deism up, it seems I now have something to claim I am with the in-laws. Yay!

 

[Anathema]

I know quite a few deists and ex-deists. I too stepped through deism on my way out the the door, and I believe it is a common half-step for those who are aware of it. It's not quite atheist, but it is largely atheistic; particularly if you define theos as the triune godhead of Christianity. They most certainly reject that construction outright, often as assertively as hard atheists.

What I find mostly, is deists are hanging on to a mere word - God. It makes it easier to say the Pledge of Allegiance, participate in Thanksgiving Day table blessings, and generally be non-threatening to bleevers when the topic comes up. They don't pray; they don't believe in the validity of Judeo-Christain scripture; they reject miracles, signs and wonders; and they believe Truth can be discovered through maximum application of Reason. "God" is simply are marker for "source of observed order", nothing more.

I also find many mainstream Christians (liberal denominations) maintain a definition of God that is very deistic. They don't get hung up on the divinity of Christ, they see him more as a parable of beneficial self-sacrifice, but not much else. They can dig evolution as a means through with their nebulous God could have created us, and they hope there is a happy afterlife where everyone goes except Hitler. Most of these people admit to praying because it feels emotionally better than "doing nothing" in a crisis, although they don't exepect real results. They just like feeling there a loftier perch somewhere; a place where the troubles of life can be viewed as trivial, and they hope to reach it some day.

I can appreciate that view, even though I can no longer embrace it.

 

[Xeriar]

I was a deist for a time as well. The issue being that existance itself is a bit of an enigma and it's easier to imagine something bringing it about, but, of course, there's no proven need for it.

I've since become a nontheist. It's one of those things that might be answerable, someday, after all.