I can't figure out how one would tell the difference between an absent god, an indifferent god, and a non-existent god.
Deism is the belief in a non-interventionist god -- just another way, really, of saying "absent" or "not present". If god does not intervene or interact, then what is its relevance to the one who believes in such a being? It's like "marrying" a spouse who you can't see, who no one has ever seen, who never speaks to you or interacts with you in any way. It is just a non-starter.
If the universe runs according to natural laws, does it matter if those laws are sustained by an ineffable being, or just ARE? They will work exactly the same either way.
Deism is the opposite of Fideism in that Deism tries to figure out the existence and nature of god from reason and personal experience rather than from some imagined revelation. How is this different from what any atheist does, other than that atheists conclude from the deafening silence that god cannot be inferred to exist?
In my view, all deism does is allow a person to cling to some tenuous hold on the notion of a supreme being because it avoids some sort of perceived discomfort in letting go of the notion. Since I'm already past that, and it wasn't so bad at all -- in fact, it was a net positive -- I have no use for deism as a concept.
Deism is the belief in a non-interventionist god -- just another way, really, of saying "absent" or "not present". If god does not intervene or interact, then what is its relevance to the one who believes in such a being? It's like "marrying" a spouse who you can't see, who no one has ever seen, who never speaks to you or interacts with you in any way. It is just a non-starter.
If the universe runs according to natural laws, does it matter if those laws are sustained by an ineffable being, or just ARE? They will work exactly the same either way.
Deism is the opposite of Fideism in that Deism tries to figure out the existence and nature of god from reason and personal experience rather than from some imagined revelation. How is this different from what any atheist does, other than that atheists conclude from the deafening silence that god cannot be inferred to exist?
In my view, all deism does is allow a person to cling to some tenuous hold on the notion of a supreme being because it avoids some sort of perceived discomfort in letting go of the notion. Since I'm already past that, and it wasn't so bad at all -- in fact, it was a net positive -- I have no use for deism as a concept.
