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Deism

tosca1 said:
You have a conflict within you. Speaking as a Christian - that could be God is trying to draw you to Him.
Stop fighting it. Take the next step. Believe that He exists.
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He?

LOL!

:ind:
 
tosca1 said:
Baloney!

You guys just try to create some legroom because of your difficult cramped position as atheists!


Ironically, it's atheists like Dawkins who peddles rational thinking and open-mindedness - and yet to be an atheist forces one to be close-minded!
So now.....because they're looking like the idiots who babbles about rationality, they know they've got to do something. Thus, they try to re-invent atheism! :lol:


Either you're agnostic, or you're an atheist!
Once you consider the possibility of the existence of God, you're no longer an atheist! That makes you agnostic!
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No. They have a firm position which states, basically speaking, "If it lacks evidence, it's not worth believing."
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
Deism either requires the invention of a supreme being, which makes it little different than any other kind of theism with a creation myth, or it requires such a vagueness and intentional lack of definition that might as well be a no-god scenario anyway.

So, I'll revise my earlier statememt: Deism is for atheists and theists alike who either lack the balls to defend their convictions, or the skills to do so.
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lol...good one.

I'll put it this way. If a "supreme being" exists, it most certainly is vague and beyond our understanding. All I know for sure is we do not know if one exists or not.
 
tosca1 said:
Who doesn't get into doubts? When life gets hard, how many Christians entertain doubts about their faith? But how many really actually stop believing that there is a God? A lot of former Christians re-invent their God.

You are agnostic. You just don't want to admit it even to yourself.
I understand you better now - all the negative and rhetorics of ridicule you spout about God.....is for your own benefit. You're fighting it. You're having a battle within you.

For someone who claim to be an atheist - you go to great lengths to convince us (more likely to convince yourself), that there is no God. Thou protest too much......and you can't just let it go. :lol:


You have a conflict within you. Speaking as a Christian - that could be God is trying to draw you to Him.
Stop fighting it. Take the next step. Believe that He exists.
Click to expand...

Nope. it's not that simple.

I know two things for sure. One is that the gods we have invented do not exist. And, two, some sort of supreme being which we do not understand or cannot detect does or does not exist.
 
calamity said:
No. They have a firm position which states, basically speaking, "If it lacks evidence, it's not worth believing."
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That's what makes them dough-heads! :lol:



If it lacks evidence, you could say it's questionable.....

.......but you can't conclude it's not worth believing.........


......because you'll need evidence for that conclusion, too.
 
countryboy said:
The idea that deism was "very popular" among the founding fathers is nothing but historical revisionist nonsense. A very small number of founders were deists. The overwhelming​ majority were Christians. Get over it.
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You are correct about this. Even Jefferson, who was close to Deism in his beliefs, was not wholeheartedly one. A true Deist believes that God, whoever or whatever that is, has little or no involvement in the present world or human existence. Jefferson probably wasn't a Christian in the sense that he believed that Christ died for his sins. But he was a powerful advocate for Christian principles and felt in his bones that something we call God is there:

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God?

That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."
--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."
--The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.​
 
tosca1 said:
That makes them dough-heads! :lol:



If it lacks evidence, you could say it's questionable.....

.......but you can't conclude it's not worth believing.........


......because you'll need evidence for that conclusion, too.
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They do not "conclude." They simply are not-believing.
 
calamity said:
Nope. it's not that simple.

I know two things for sure. One is that the gods we have invented do not exist. And, two, some sort of supreme being which we do not understand or cannot detect does or does not exist.
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:roll:
 
tosca1 said:
When you say it's not worth believing - you've made a conclusion!
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No. You, by believing, made the conclusion. They just don't believe something for which there is no evidence. present them some evidence, they will believe.
 
tosca1 said:
:roll:
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It's reasonable to think that something we do not understand is out there doing things we cannot detect. It's probably not reasonable to put too much faith in that idea though.
 
calamity said:
lol...good one.

I'll put it this way. If a "supreme being" exists, it most certainly is vague and beyond our understanding. All I know for sure is we do not know if one exists or not.
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Why should one exist? Why would one need to exist?
 
Fritz said:
Deism is in a strange place right now for it was VERY popular among intellectuals in the Age of Enlightenment, especially among the Founding Fathers of the US. Today though, it is extremely obscure, and I just know about it be reading some of Voltaire's work and the Internet.

Deism has its own website here: Welcome To The Deism Site!

What is your opinion on Deism? I think its a pretty good philosophical belief and I'd follow it...
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It made sense with the rise of modernity, not so much now that we're in the postmodern era. When you start adding quantum theory to our body of knowledge, the belief in the clockwork-like nature of the world that Deism was based on has largely disappeared. There doesn't seem to be much room for Deism in postmodern thought or given our current understanding of the universe.
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
I suppose leprechauns could to. Or Russell's teapot. Or Cthulhu.
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Nah. But, something we do not understand nor can detect most certainly may.
 
calamity said:
Nah. But, something we do not understand nor can detect most certainly may.
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You say nah, but you can't prove those things don't exist. How is it different?

Then again, if you want to say something can exist that possesses the property of being unable to be detected in any way, then you have just made the definition so vague as to make it useless. For all intents and purposes, that would be declaring the hypothesis void, but spiking the football anyway like you actually did the legwork.
 
Gonzo Rodeo said:
You say nah, but you can't prove those things don't exist. How is it different?

Then again, if you want to say something can exist that possesses the property of being unable to be detected in any way, then you have just made the definition so vague as to make it useless. For all intents and purposes, that would be declaring the hypothesis void, but spiking the football anyway like you actually did the legwork.
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Well, of course, it's vague, and thinking about it is pretty much a useless exercise...my guess is it will only be known when we die. And, that buys us nothing today.

I'm just saying, we do not know.
 
calamity said:
Well, of course, it's vague, and thinking about it is pretty much a useless exercise...my guess is it will only be known when we die. And, that buys us nothing today.

I'm just saying, we do not know.
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By that same token, we do not know if leprechauns exist. Or Russell's teapot. Or Cthulhu.

Why do you think knowledge suddenly is revealed upon death? Do you have any evidence of this, or any reason AT ALL why this would be the case?
 
Old and outdated, replaced by better systems. So maybe it only has 40 glaring contradictions instead of 10K. Still phony nonsense.
 
calamity said:
No. You, by believing, made the conclusion. They just don't believe something for which there is no evidence. present them some evidence, they will believe.
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:doh


Well, I wasn't the one who said it's not worth believing! :lol:
Besides from faith, I also have my evidences why I believe!


You're talking about those who don't have any evidences whatsoever, and yet they'd made a conclusion!


When you say it's not worth believing - you've made your conclusion!
 
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