(May 27, 2015 at 9:33 am)comet Wrote:

(May 26, 2015 at 2:48 am)Twisted Wrote: was Einstein a deist or an Atheist? what's the point of believing in a deist God?

Einstein knew what he didn't know.  By definition is would be an atheist. ...

Yes.  That is why I characterized him as a weak atheist in post 8.

Really, I think people make too much of what famous people believed.  If he had believed in the ancient Greek pantheon (Zeus et al.), would that get anyone to start worshiping them?  What difference would it make?

I would say deists would be more like atheists if they abandon the notion that others ought to have some obligation to deist's own set of core beliefs even if the deists themselves continue to feel obligated by those set of core beliefs.

One becomes a full on theists only when one feels others ought to share in some of the obligation one feels one has to one's own core beliefs.

(May 27, 2015 at 11:42 am)Pyrrho Wrote:

(May 27, 2015 at 12:26 am)DeistPaladin Wrote: ... my deist hair ain't what it used to be:
...

I think that means you are no longer allowed to be a deist.  It is all about the hair, so you are just another atheist now.

I'll just pull the same trick they did back in the day and get a wig.  

(May 27, 2015 at 12:45 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote:

(May 27, 2015 at 11:42 am)Pyrrho Wrote: I think that means you are no longer allowed to be a deist.  It is all about the hair, so you are just another atheist now.

I'll just pull the same trick they did back in the day and get a wig.  

Just remember, whenever you take off the cool wig, you revert to being just another atheist.

Philosophers like Epicurus didn't believe the gods intervened in the world, and I wouldn't doubt if the idea of an intelligent first cause who arranged the initial conditions and then concluded its involvement goes back further (Anaxagoras, maybe?).

I see deism as closer to atheism than theism for the simple reason that theists make all sorts of assertions about what the first cause is like, "his" purpose and wishes for mankind, his frequent interventions in the world, and all sorts of other superstitions, whereas what divides atheists and deists seems to primarily be the issue of whether the unexplained cause or initial conditions is intimately related to our concepts of order, reason, intelligence, morality, etc. I don't see it as a position that confers any direct benefits on a person's life except perhaps to offer the illusion of a tidy system that "explains" the objective appearance of subjective phenomenon and one that suggests the possibility of an ultimate purpose that includes living organisms.

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Sweet. Looks like my memory didn't fail.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deists

Do deists believe objective morality is 'founded' on God?

I'd be interested to know that, I would guess mainly not.

I agree, it makes no difference to me what the great minds of the past and present happen to have as their theistic beliefs. It has no bearing on any demonstrated progress that they make in reality. It doesn't make their other beliefs right or wrong. It really annoys me when people try and credit religion for a scientific discovery because the guy who found it out just happened to be Christian or whatever. That's just stupid. They wouldn't credit atheism in the same way if an atheist makes a discovery.

(May 27, 2015 at 2:29 pm)Nestor Wrote: Philosophers like Epicurus didn't believe the gods intervened in the world, and I wouldn't doubt if the idea of an intelligent first cause who arranged the initial conditions and then concluded its involvement goes back further (Anaxagoras, maybe?).

I see deism as closer to atheism than theism for the simple reason that theists make all sorts of assertions about what the first cause is like, "his" purpose and wishes for mankind, his frequent interventions in the world, and all sorts of other superstitions, whereas what divides atheists and deists seems to primarily be the issue of whether the unexplained cause or initial conditions is intimately related to our concepts of order, reason, intelligence, morality, etc. I don't see it as a position that confers any direct benefits on a person's life except perhaps to offer the illusion of a tidy system that "explains" the objective appearance of subjective phenomenon and one that suggests the possibility of an ultimate purpose that includes living organisms.

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Sweet. Looks like my memory didn't fail. 
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deists

Epicurus is not on the list at Wikipedia, so I am unsure what you intend with that.

Regardless, there are serious problems with trying to determine the religious views of people in the past.  Epicurus lived in a time and place where one could be executed for expressing atheism, so the fact that he did not express atheism and specifically said he believed in the gods means nothing whatsoever about his beliefs.  I am a strong atheist, and I would have said what Epicurus said, had I lived next door to him.  I would not be martyred for nothing.

Another problem is the fact that people's beliefs change over time.  For example, David Hume was raised a christian, and believed in it as a child.  But that does not tell us what he believed later in life.  Nor can we be sure that his views were constant in adulthood.  And, of course, Hume also lived in a time and place where candid atheism was illegal, and so the fact that he never wrote that he was an atheist means nothing.  We know that he was accused of atheism in his lifetime (and for good reason), but he steadfastly denied it in public, as doing otherwise would have been extremely foolish, regardless of what the truth may have been.

Even today, there can be strong motives to hide atheism.  Aside from the religious countries in which atheism could get one killed, in the U.S., one might wish to hide it due to the bigotry of family and acquaintances.  Or if one simply wished to have a political career and have a reasonable chance of becoming president.

Deism is generally less offensive to religionists, as it does not entail denying the existence of a god, and even affirms the existence of a god.  So there are reasons why an atheist may have claimed to be a deist in the past.  (Or even today, though especially in the past.)

(May 27, 2015 at 3:25 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Epicurus is not on the list at Wikipedia, so I am unsure what you intend with that.

Anaxagoras is. I saw Aristotle and Cicero on another list too but it also included Hume who I think would more correctly labeled an agnostic.

(May 27, 2015 at 3:25 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Regardless, there are serious problems with trying to determine the religious views of people in the past.  Epicurus lived in a time and place where one could be executed for expressing atheism, so the fact that he did not express atheism and specifically said he believed in the gods means nothing whatsoever about his beliefs.

I'm not in the business of making statements based on information that doesn't exist (though you can find many here who are!) so I'm only speaking in reference to what the writings do say, not what they don't say or what they might have said if circumstances were otherwise. People can make of them what they will. His writings are consistently deistic; asking whether or not those were his true feelings is an exercise of futility.

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(May 27, 2015 at 2:54 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Do deists believe objective morality is 'founded' on God?

It doesn't necessarily follow but *if* you think that God is something like a metaphysical entity, such as divine reason, that exists objectively but has no share in physical attributes, it would seem to coincide with, or at a minimal allow, belief in objective goods. Sort of like Paley's utilitarianism. Though not a deist, he grounded objective morality in God's nature and thought reason, following Bentham's ethical theory, could discover what those objective goods are.

Reporting what they stated about religion, without mentioning the milieu in which they lived, is misleading.  If you wish to avoid such speculations, it is better to say, "he stated..." or "he wrote that..." before whatever one wants to say.  One may know what people wrote, but that does not necessarily tell us what they believed.