It also depends if you believe in fairytales.

He's basically saying what I would have said but here's something else to.

For me, a belief in God itself is irrational. I can respect Deism as a fairly reasonable conclusion to make through the rejection of religious belief and then through various other arguments that basically bring you to the ultimate conclusion that if there is a God, he doesn't actually effect us in any way other than having possibly created us or (well I don't know the exact specifications of your particular view).

To me, God just serves no purpose. It's just a further complication of one of the only unsolvable questions. Occam's Razor. I think traditionally, deism has been a product of religion, in that it forces people to consider God a necessary aspect of our model of the universe. The reality is, that isn't probably or necessarily true.

TYPICAL GOD'S CHARACTERISTICS: All knowing, All Powerful, All Present.

Unrelated but:

The first one obliterates our free will because God would have to create us with the knowledge of our fate and the "sins" we would commit. Thus making him responsible for our actions and our fate since he alone would have chosen to create us in our particular form and fate. Not to mention it helps with the implication of thought crime, which given his responsibility for our thoughts doesn't make sense... also highly immoral to say that someone is punishable for having thought the wrong thing.

The second one doesn't mean much... but you can always ask if God can create an immovable rock, and then ask if God can move it... good way to make a bible thumper either go away or have a migraine.

Third one would creep me out.


Of course Deism wouldn't support all of these three characteristics. AND I guess all of that relates to the "what do you consider to be God/god/GOD" question. If you define God as something that I can agree exists, then... I will agree that God exists. But then you're just naming things in a confusing way, so it's kind of pointless. Most poignant definitions of God, I will reject.

Good reason. My emotions have lead me astray many times.

I usually respect and agree with what you have to say, but I'm afraid that in this case, your input is a bunch of pseudological crap. A quick search of Google lead to the following definitions of "intuition".

Dictionary.com: direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.
Answers.com: The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.
Merriam-Webster.com: the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference

Correct me if I'm wrong, as perhaps I'm interpreting "intuition" too narrowly, but it seems to be directly "at war" with reason. Reaching a conclusion and forming some belief through intuition is vastly different than forming some belief through reason.

For example, a large majority of human civilization used to hold the belief, formed through intuition, that the Earth was flat. That just seemed to make sense, didn't it? It felt right. But through the use of reason and the acquisition of evidence, we now know that the Earth is not flat. This is one of infinite cases where beliefs formed on intuition are flat out unjustifiable, unprovable, and false.

That's not to say that reason and intuition are mutually exclusive when forming beliefs. I recognize that an intuition about something X might lead to the discovery and formulation of reasons to hold X true, but a belief formed solely upon intuition cannot be said to be "complementary" to a belief formed upon reason.

I completely agree, but I find it intellectually stimulating to discuss it nonetheless.

Intuition is by my definition... and in a business sense relating to rationality: a subconscious process of the brain that relates past experience to the current scenario, and draws conclusions based on those past experiences. I think there have been studies to show that this is what happens when people experience what they call intuition. (again that's my definition not the dictionary's or a legitimate sources :P)

It's the same reason that they say when you're sort of guessing something, it's normally best to go with your first thought.

I don't think you should apply intuition to God, because you don't have any valid past experience to draw from. You're intuition is likely derived from indoctrination, as with many things. But most beliefs can be in some way supported by science or practical means... where as spiritual matters are an exception.

And if I did what my emotions told me to all the time, I would probably be dead by now.

Was the notion that the Earth was flat really intuitive? I think you could just as easily attribute it to reason. Here's an experiment: take the longest string you can find in the village. Maybe it's a mile long, if you live in a fancy sit-around-all-day and weave kinda village. Now, have three people with equal length sticks. Two are holding the ends of the string and are supporting it with their sticks. The third gets in the middle and sees if the string is higher or lower than his stick. If the string is at stick-level, this proves the world is flat!

Well, obviously it doesn't. While this process is reasonable, it hasn't been refined to the point where it would give us an accurate answer. But then, we never quite know how refined our process needs to be until we realize we've been wrong all along.

Reason and intuition both evolve. Maybe your emotions have burned you in the past, but your reason has probably burned you in the past too. That's why I'm saying it's not reason or intuition, it's both, supporting each other, helping each other become more refined and subtle.

Some discoveries might be purely intellectual or purely intuitive. However, such a discovery is only really problematic if it poses a huge challenge to the other side. Wave/particle duality, for instance, is a giant intellectual leap that poses a huge challenge to many people's intuition. Similarly, the intuitive experience of 'synchronicity' challenges many people's reasonable belief that events in the universe are random and disconnected. But that doesn't mean they should be discarded at face value. It's simply a challenge to continue to dissect these phenomena and to question and refine the other side of the equation. If we have a powerful intuitive experience that doesn't sit well with our rational beliefs, maybe we should see if there are any blind spots or contradictions there. If we make a powerful intellectual realization that is intuitively incomprehensible, maybe we should see if there's anything we're not allowing ourselves to feel, or if there's some subtler aspect to life that we've been looking past.

Our intuition and intellect can both make mistakes. Mistakes are how we grow. Just because intuition and intellect are defined as polar opposites doesn't mean that they're 'at war.' That's like saying the wave and particle are 'at war' because they're opposites. Maybe some things are so far in the domain of reason that they'll never find an intuitive expression, like the square root of -1. But then, maybe some things are so far in the domain of intuition that they can't be rationalized or conceptualized. Who knows? All we can do is keep experiencing the universe.

Also, this isn't necessarily about forming beliefs. The scientific mindset will eagerly recognize that every belief is simply a hypothesis, open to revision. A person truly in tune with their intuition will recognize the same thing. This is just how I feel right now, the general impression I carry at this moment of the universe around me. It might change, after all, it has changed many times in the past. Living in the moment means to be open to novel ideas, which lead to novel techniques, which lead to novel inventions, and to be open to novel feelings, which lead to novel insights, which lead to self-reinvention.

I believe religions will certainly be around in the future. It will end when God comes to destroy the earth. I realise a lot of people will disagree with this, but accept that I am Christian and I will never lose my faith no matter what is thrown at me.

What leads you to a literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation?

Hahaha sorry this made me laugh. I can't take people with faith too seriously because all faith in religion is blind. Also it will only be around if it is allowed to be around.

Meh.

It's okay, I understand it's hard for others to see how people of faith can believe the things they do. We all have an opinion which is sweet. :)

Could just as easily say the same thing about someone who blindly knocks it even thought it obviously works for a lot of people.

I'm not religious in the slightest, doesn't mean I can't see the good that it does in people who want it.