Deism for non-believers

[FallentoReason]

Once you've invoked an immaterial force how do you go about assigning a measure of plausibility?

Unlike the Most Tangible God, it is plausible because it doesn't contradict anything in the physical world.

I think you may be mistaking the plausibility of a concept as a thought exercise with the plausibility of any given "thing"s" existence.

Can you elaborate? I know what you mean, but I think it's a pretty grey area where we can't really draw a fine line between a concept and something that exists as described by the concept. The Bohr model of an atom was just a concept.

On your scale, birds with 80 foot wing spans would fall where?

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey here. Is the bird divine?? If so, then it would be on the material side of the scale and therefore non-existent because no such bird exists.

Are you entirely sure that nothing in human evolution may have been involved in fostering a desire to kick things........no incentives to assert yourself, engage in a little duty free violence, physical activity, etc?

Sports are an invention that do indeed have something in common with evolution. We need exercise to be healthy. But my example is supposed to be of an arbitrary nature. How about this: I stand up and sit back down again. Is there a scientific explanation for my motives?

(and while we're at it, are you entirely certain that you possess any of this "reason" business in the first place, or that such a thing is required to kick a ball? heheheh)

I don't claim to be able to perceive the world perfectly and therefore have 'perfect reasoning' but the fact that I know a few useful things that help me stay alive suggests I can make good choices and therefore am able to 'reason'.

You need 'reason' to be able to kick a ball. If not, then take a soccer player for example. What are the chances that they arbitrarily move in a way that results in a dozen consecutive arbitrary 'bumps' against the ball (i.e. dribbling)? That is highly improbable. It only makes sense that it happens so often because they can reason and therefore move in such a way intentionally.

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The question you are asking here is, essentially, whether or not there exists an actual being ala "god" at least recognizable as such enough to use the term but different enough to be considered an actual being whereas the others are fantasy.

Yeah I guess that's one way of putting it.

One might ask, why call this "plausible god" (still wondering how we would determine plausibility) a god at all?

Because if we defined it and it doesn't contradict reality, then by our own definition it's a god.

(to me, mental masturbation is creating a "question" -which exists only in ones own mind- so that you might find an "answer" -which exists only in ones own mind-. If you want to talk gods and yet simultaneously toss out everything we do know about gods you are merely attempting to create a set of attributes that are "plausible" and then relabeling that set of attributes a "God". You're mulling over a list of attributes, not a god.)

I think we're in the area of philosophy more than anything. I see the OP as philosophical engineering (a term I coined). I have described a device (the scale) and how it functions. Therefore we can exert some compression forces in the form of rational arguments and see if the device ever buckles.

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What you have to realise is that the truth about something exists whether we like it or not

Right, which is why we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts.

Until you can have your "opinion" independently tested and independently verified through peer review, it should rightfully remain such. Otherwise we can all make shit up as we please.

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It's like a tree falling in the forest but no one there to hear it. Did it make a noise? Yes. The truth is no different.

We have proven trees exist, and gravity exists, and that vibrations cause noise.

Discussing attributes of a character you have no evidence for would be like speculating about the powers of Spider Man.

No one has proven the existence of any god, much less a generic one.

You've taken my sentences and stripped them of their context and slapped on a new meaning altogether...

I was saying that the truth about something exists whether you want it to or not. I know nothing about biology but that doesn't mean that facts that fall under biology aren't true.