God of the gaps... maybe?

[Exian]

My answer to "is there a god" is not just "I don't know", it's "I don't know what you are talking about".

If it's just an intelligent being in another reality that set this reality off, intentionally or otherwise, then I simply don't know. It's probably impossible to tell. No need to guess either way. I don't believe there is, and I don't believe there isn't. Weak atheism.

If it's the above plus [massive loads of spiritual supernatural drivel that doesn't mean anything] then I'm not available for comment. I don't understand what you even mean. But the more ridiculous mega-attributes you try and force down its throat, the more likely it's existing only in your imagination.

I intellectually respect deists more than religious theists, as they have been less duped. (This is probably an unfair comparison as it may well reflect different levels of indoctrination.) But they are still operating under faulty logic. I don't generally mind deists at all, as long as they don't keep going on about spiritual stuff all the time.

For me, the respect (and maybe mutual respect) comes from hanging your toes off the edge of what we know and facing the unknown. Just being there means you took some steps to have an informed belief system. As you've said, this is probably an unfair generalization of all traditional theists, but being a part of a religion means that there is a brochure of your beliefs; a handy generalization.

Another similarity between any given atheist and any given deist is in order to understand what they beileve, you better be prepared to have a lengthy discussion with that individual; there's no one word for it (for example: Protestant, Baptist, etc.). To be clear, I know that each individual theist can't be generalized as far as who they are, just talking about beliefs here.

Another distinction that crops up is that a deist is less likely to hold cognitive dissonance. As long as there is no additional spiritual woo, their understanding of reality is usually squared away, and at the very end there's a god tacked on, for whatever personal reason.