Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1097389)

I'll scrub all my previous posts in this thread...I'm a deist, no pretending about it.

Originally Posted by SIRIUSB (Post 1097390)

Though I applaud your stance can you tell us what differs you from Atheism?

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1097392)

Deists believe, to put this simply, in a God who created the universe according to the scientific principles we observe for ourselves, and that this same God gave us the gift of reason, with which we understand the universe.

This God however is limited ONLY to creating the universe, and setting up those initial principles which allowed the universe to come into being as it is today.

To answer the question, atheism is similar to deism in that it rejects superstition and replaces it with scientific and logic principles, but the major difference is that in the case of the deist, there exists a God who gave us those principles.

Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 1097394)

Deism is the only form of theism I can respect, however...

Originally Posted by The Batlord (Post 1097589)

It's not that I don't respect the deists themselves, as they're usually far more intelligent and reasonable than most, but deists strikes me as atheists too scared to not believe in god. They get rid of everything religious, except for the actual god belief.

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1097624)

Major problem for even atheists is that for a lot of people, God and the traditional ideas of heaven, hell, answered prayer, belief in sin and all the usual traditional ideas that come in the 'God package'. Even atheists cannot understand the idea of a God without all those other things attached.

But the belief in a God CAN exist without believing in prayer, the afterlife or anything else. Indeed, God doesn't need these ideas to exist.

Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 1097678)

I understand perfectly the type of deism that you subscribe to. My question is this: if you hold god to be an immutable and unchangeable constant in the equation of life, why not eliminate him/her/it from the equation altogether? Perhaps a god did create everything, but there is no evidence one way or the other. So why not stick to Occam's Razor and shave off the unnecessary bits? Why can't the laws of physics and the existence of the universe itself be the "end all be all", and why do they need a creator who is doomed to sit idly by for the rest of eternity?

Originally Posted by Thomas Paine

"In the first place, admitting matter to have properties, as we see it has, the question still remains, how came matter by those properties? To this they will answer, that matter possessed those properties eternally. This is not solution, but assertion; and to deny it is as impossible of proof as to assert it.

"It is then necessary to go further; and therefore I say - if there exist a circumstance that is not a property of matter, and without which the universe, or to speak in a limited degree, the solar system composed of planets and a sun, could not exist a moment, all the arguments of atheism, drawn from properties of matter, and applied to account for the universe, will be overthrown, and the existence of a superior cause, or that which man calls God, becomes discoverable, as is before said, by natural philosophy.

"I go now to show that such a circumstance exists, and what it is.

"The universe is composed of matter, and, as a system, is sustained by motion. Motion is not a property of matter, and without this motion, the solar system could not exist. Were motion a property of matter, that undiscovered and undiscoverable thing called perpetual motion would establish itself.

"It is because motion is not a property of matter, that perpetual motion is an impossibility in the hand of every being but that of the Creator of motion. When the pretenders to atheism can produce perpetual motion, and not till then, they may expect to be credited.

"The natural state of matter, as to place, is a state of rest. Motion, or change of place, is the effect of an external cause acting upon matter. As to that faculty of matter that is called gravitation, it is the influence which two or more bodies have reciprocally on each other to unite and be at rest. Everything which has hitherto been discovered, with respect to the motion of the planets in the system, relates only to the laws by which motion acts, and not to the cause of motion.

"Gravitation, so far from being the cause of motion to the planets that compose the solar system, would be the destruction of the solar system, were revolutionary motion to cease; for as the action of spinning upholds a top, the revolutionary motion upholds the planets in their orbits, and prevents them from gravitating and forming one mass with the sun. In one sense of the word, philosophy knows, and atheism says, that matter is in perpetual motion.

"But the motion here meant refers to the state of matter, and that only on the surface of the Earth. It is either decomposition, which is continually destroying the form of bodies of matter, or recomposition, which renews that matter in the same or another form, as the decomposition of animal or vegetable substances enters into the composition of other bodies.

"But the motion that upholds the solar system, is of an entirely different kind, and is not a property of matter. It operates also to an entirely different effect. It operates to perpetual preservation, and to prevent any change in the state of the system.

"Giving then to matter all the properties which philosophy knows it has, or all that atheism ascribes to it, and can prove, and even supposing matter to be eternal, it will not account for the system of the universe, or of the solar system, because it will not account for motion, and it is motion that preserves it.

"When, therefore, we discover a circumstance of such immense importance, that without it the universe could not exist, and for which neither matter, nor any nor all the properties can account, we are by necessity forced into the rational conformable belief of the existence of a cause superior to matter, and that cause man calls GOD.

"As to that which is called nature, it is no other than the laws by which motion and action of every kind, with respect to unintelligible matter, are regulated. And when we speak of looking through nature up to nature's God, we speak philosophically the same rational language as when we speak of looking through human laws up to the power that ordained them.

"God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon."

Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 1098062)

I'm sorry but Paine is simply using mathematics as a guise to fancy up his real argument: God must exist because there has to have been a "first mover", and this is something I have already addressed by quoting Carl Sagan. Perhaps God was the "first mover", but then where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed?

If "God" must be an immutable "first mover", why not save a step and conclude that physics does not need a "first mover"?

Originally Posted by The Batlord (Post 1098211)

Exactly. The whole argument is just special pleading to believe in magic.

Originally Posted by SIRIUSB (Post 1098234)

The definition of Magick (magic as parlor tricks) is the Art and Science of causing Change to occur with the conformity of Will.

Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 1098062)

I'm sorry but Paine is simply using mathematics as a guise to fancy up his real argument: God must exist because there has to have been a "first mover", and this is something I have already addressed by quoting Carl Sagan. Perhaps God was the "first mover", but then where did god come from? If we decide that this is an unanswerable question, why not save a step and conclude that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or if we say that god always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe always existed?

If "God" must be an immutable "first mover", why not save a step and conclude that physics does not need a "first mover"?

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1098250)

Physics merely explains the properties which matter holds and how things in this world interact with each other. It cannot explain anything outside of these things.

Every process we know requires initiation by some outside force. Even the most basic of processes require this.

As to the origins of God, this is a trick question. The deist God is a relatively simple (but effective) Creator. This question to my mind is only applicable when you get the prayer-answering, sin-punishing, humanity-judging God of the Bible and Qur'an. Why do I think this? Because much of this is completely and utterly against what we know to be possible in the real world (through scientific principles). IF you take away all these impossible elements, nothing about the idea of a Creator God goes against any sensible scientific and rational mindset.

Indeed, Stephen Jay Gould actually proposed this same theory, that of a miracle-free religion, and Thomas Jefferson was of a similar opinion (see the Jefferson Bible for example).

Originally Posted by The Batlord (Post 1098487)

Alright, so if god is subject to the same laws as the rest of the universe, and the universe needed something to get it started, what about god? If the universe needed a god to get started, what did god need? Sounds to me like you're right back where you started.

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1098495)

Simple answer is: we don't know. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang and so we cannot impose any properties on God that we cannot actively PROVE with science.

Originally Posted by SIRIUSB (Post 1098502)

The same could be said about the god myth, difference is that science is pretty sure there at was at least a Big Bang.

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1098495)

Simple answer is: we don't know. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang and so we cannot impose any properties on God that we cannot actively PROVE with science.

Originally Posted by GeddyBass2112 (Post 1098495)

Simple answer is: we don't know. We don't know what happened before the Big Bang and so we cannot impose any properties on God that we cannot actively PROVE with science.

Originally Posted by blastingas10 (Post 1133482)

"I think I would say that the universe has a purpose, it's not somehow just there by chance ... some people, I think, take the view that the universe is just there and it runs along–it's a bit like it just sort of computes, and we happen somehow by accident to find ourselves in this thing. But I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it."

Originally Posted by Rubato (Post 1133531)

I don't get this, what's wrong with carving out your own purpose in life? I don't see how it's "unfruitful". It just seems like he's trying to seek some sort of cosmic approval.

Originally Posted by TomClancy11 (Post 1133667)

But I do firmly believe that we are the first UFO's.

Originally Posted by blastingas10 (Post 1133824)

I don't understand why people are so reluctant to believe in ghosts. There's a big difference between ghosts and Santa. I, along with many people I personally know have had supernatural encounters that cannot be denied or explained. But I know how real arrogant, scientific thinkers will respond to such a claim: "You're lying. Your mind has tricked you into believing these things."

Originally Posted by blastingas10 (Post 1133824)

I don't understand why people are so reluctant to believe in ghosts. There's a big difference between ghosts and Santa. I, along with many people I personally know have had supernatural encounters that cannot be denied or explained. But I know how real arrogant, scientific thinkers will respond to such a claim: "You're lying. Your mind has tricked you into believing these things."