Am I a Deist? Cosmological Argument seems reasonable to me.

[Pat Mustard]

Also if you are going to ad hominem me might as well not say anything.

Pointing out the flaws in your reasoning is not an ad hom. If Jor had called you a stinky head and said because of your lack of showers that we shouldn't listen to you, then she'd have ad hommed you. But as it is she simply pointed out that your "it's good enough for me!" arguments simply don't cut the mustard when trying to justify what you are saying.

If you are interested I advise you to read the last 2-3 pages and you will notice (hopefully) i'm not proposing what you think I am.

I'd be very much surprised if you even understand the basics of what you are proposing. From what I gather your line of reasoning goes thusly:

1) I think quantum mechanics breaks down close to the big bang, mainly because I don't understand quantum mechanics (don't sweat on the second part of the sentence, most people don't understand qm including me)
2) ?????
3) Therefore god must exist to create the universe.

The bit in the middle is the "it's good enough for me!" that I referred to above. In order to prove your conjecture you must show step one is true, and that we will never truly know what happens in the period where step one takes place, flesh out step two, and then show how steps one and two follow on to step three with no other conclusion being applicable. However I can't see how you could prove god using the criteria you have given yourself as a starting point.

[robvalue]

(These are general thoughts and not aimed in particular at the opening poster.)

I don't see any reason to believe in a cause for this reality, based on evidence or logic. Everything I've ever seen is either logically flawed, or based on wild assumptions that apply to all of reality and can't possibly be verified. I see no reason to move away from the default position, that we have no idea if there is or isn't a cause.

So I conclude that deism probably comes from an emotional need, or intuition, for there to be "an answer". This is reinforced by using the word "god", and generally trying to personify the cause. Afterwards, attempts are made to connect the dots. But they can't be connected without resorting to wild speculation.

I don't see deism as being particularly harmful, though. Certainly absolutely nothing like religion is capable of. I think it's just some faulty assumptions of little consequence. At worst it could infect other modes of thinking.

I'll pop this video here as well, as it covers a lot of these points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inw1fNItjdU

[brewer]

Why do I have the taste of Randy in my mouth?

[Mr Greene]

So the problem is that you don't understand quantum mechanics.
Has it occurred to you to try and learn some quantum mechanics so you could comprehend the quantum fluctuations cause you referred to earlier?
Sometimes there really is no other option than to take a deep breath and advance into the unknown.

Well I've tried, I know only a bit of it... the "i ll just look all the stuff on wikipedia I can understand" bit of it.

I assumed I was too illiterate on serious physics to step on advanced subjects like that.

Are you saying that you know the answers to the questions we are dealing with?

I'm not a Physicist, I'm a Zoologist, but I'm able to follow the science published in works like A Brief History of Time etc.
You won't get everything from Wiki, sometimes you need to buy a book and spend time with it.

[_Velvet_]

Well thanks for everyone for the first 7 pages as they had some interesting insights, I also got my question answered and I see was a mistake to continue the thread further.

As I could have predicted with the thread getting more than 7 pages a bunch of misinformed gentlemens started "contributing" to thread without actually knowing what we were talking about.

My issue was with the concept of cause, if it was needed, why, how it could be not needed and how this concept would exist without time, I never thought nor have any need for my cause to be a god, especially not a personal one.

Seeing this people talking to me as if I was defending a faith position instead of critically thinking about the concept of cause its disgusting me very much and I will refrain to do any further.

Thank you robvalue, your brief chat was a very enlightening experience.

[robvalue]

You're welcome

I didn't mean anything I said to be an attack, apologies if it came off that way. Just discussing ideas.

I would say that if you're not insistent on the cause being a god, you're not even a deist. I'd say you're an atheist, with a leaning towards a caused reality. Deism, as a subset of theism, generally presupposes at the very least some sort of intelligence as the cause. But it's semantics, really. The word "God", as I've discussed, is so vague as to be meaningless. This is the basis of my position, ignosticism. The concept is so ill-defined that I can't even give a meaningful answer to any questions about it without much further clarification.

As I reject the question, it's again a matter of semantics and definitions as to whether I'm an atheist or not. To keep things simple, I say I am, as I clearly have no positive beliefs about the reality of any sort of "God" that's ever been presented to me.

[Arkilogue]

Well when I say magic its really not related to god of the gaps as your video seemed to imply.

Well, your god is actually a god of the gaps. As you've said yourself you feel that there is a gap in science which can only be explained by the presence of a god, viz the creation of the universe. In the past it used be thunder and lightning, today it is the creation of the universe, what gap will be left tomorrow?

Edit: Also if you think the universe itself needs a cause, what exempts its creator from itself needing a cause? That's one question that I've never see a theist or deist who argues this line even attempt to answer.

Look at it like this: Say the individuated forces of the universe are like the colors of the rainbow. Believers used to think each individual color was a God, now we know they come from a unified source and unfold by natural frequency variation when passed through a prism. So now believers call the unified light before being spread apart "God".

What was "caused" into being? Matter? Not according to the law of conservation of energy. Was space caused into being between extremely tiny bits of that original matter? Yes. The creation of the void space required for matter to move is what creates time.

The original matter/God does not need a beginning, "a beginning" (of a universe) is the creation of space with the matter so it can move.

You guys bang your head over the creation of something when the creation of a relative "nothing" (patterned void space) is what you should be looking/accounting for.

[Whateverist]

The original matter/God does not need a beginning, "a beginning" (of a universe) is the creation of space with the matter so it can move.

If you say so then we at least know your opinion on the matter. Can't imagine you were a first hand witness. A mere analogy to the way people's thinking about color has changed is hardly support for thinking what you've written here is true or will become a popular opinion.

Hard to imagine my thinking was ever as metaphorical and sloppy as yours, but it probably was. With any luck, you'll grow out of it.

[Angrboda]

Look at it like this: Say the individuated forces of the universe are like the colors of the rainbow. Believers used to think each individual color was a God, now we know they come from a unified source and unfold by natural frequency variation when passed through a prism. So now believers call the unified light before being spread apart "God".

What was "caused" into being? Matter? Not according to the law of conservation of energy.  Was space caused into being between extremely tiny bits of that original matter? Yes. The creation of the void space required for matter to move is what creates time.

The original matter/God does not need a beginning, "a beginning" (of a universe) is the creation of space with the matter so it can move.

You guys bang your head over the creation of something when the creation of a relative "nothing" (patterned void space) is what you should be looking/accounting for.

[Arkilogue]

The original matter/God does not need a beginning, "a beginning" (of a universe) is the creation of space with the matter so it can move.

If you say so then we at least know your opinion on the matter.  Can't imagine you were a first hand witness.  A mere analogy to the way people's thinking about color has changed is hardly support for thinking what you've written here is true or will become a popular opinion.  

Hard to imagine my thinking was ever as metaphorical and sloppy as yours, but it probably was.  With any luck, you'll grow out of it.

It's simple enough to back engineer the second law of thermodynamics.