RE: Life as a Deist
February 28, 2013 at 8:28 pm
(This post was last modified: February 28, 2013 at 8:46 pm by FallentoReason.)
(February 28, 2013 at 10:54 am)Chas Wrote: [quote='FallentoReason' pid='407451' dateline='1362062664']
I feel like I'm going to start a series of threads where I openly talk about the thoughts I have on Deism. Since there's no doctrine for Deism telling me what to do, I think it would be good for me to figure it all out through discussion.
I was wondering today about the foundations of Deism and whether there's reason to think Deism is more than a hypothetical philosophy. Why does our universe exist, but exist with a certain structure? Could it have been possible for matter to appear from nowhere but remain a meaningless blob floating about for eternity? Not only did the universe appear, but it appeared with specific "laws" that we have now identified and they served to shape what we have to the extent that a collective consciousness (us) could be sustained and then able to wonder about its existence.
I'm not saying that life is in anyway proof of a Creator/God. We are here now, which simply means we can bring up questions like "why didn't the universe start off as a blob of matter and stay a blob of matter for all eternity"? The universe quite clearly has some pretty amazing properties and within it are embedded some elegant truths such as those found in mathematics & physics. Why did such complex things get created along with the matter itself at the dawn of spacetime?
I think the major problem with deism is that it doesn't actually answer any of your questions.
If you ascribe the creation of it all to a creator, from whence the creator?
Simplify and leave out the creator.
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By definition, "GOD" is the first uncaused cause. I think that's the standard understanding of the concept since monotheism.
(February 28, 2013 at 11:09 am)Baalzebutt Wrote: Fallen, I am going to direct you to a book that I am currently reading that addresses these very issues. It is by Laurence Krauss and it is called A Universe From Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing.
A Universe From Nothing
Check it out. I think it will be very enlightening for you.
Thanks! I'll get it from my favourite website: the book depository!
(February 28, 2013 at 12:12 pm)Norfolk And Chance Wrote: [quote='FallentoReason' pid='407451' dateline='1362062664']
I feel like I'm going to start a series of threads where I openly talk about the thoughts I have on Deism. Since there's no doctrine for Deism telling me what to do, I think it would be good for me to figure it all out through discussion.
I was wondering today about the foundations of Deism and whether there's reason to think Deism is more than a hypothetical philosophy. Why does our universe exist, but exist with a certain structure? Could it have been possible for matter to appear from nowhere but remain a meaningless blob floating about for eternity? Not only did the universe appear, but it appeared with specific "laws" that we have now identified and they served to shape what we have to the extent that a collective consciousness (us) could be sustained and then able to wonder about its existence.
I'm not saying that life is in anyway proof of a Creator/God. We are here now, which simply means we can bring up questions like "why didn't the universe start off as a blob of matter and stay a blob of matter for all eternity"? The universe quite clearly has some pretty amazing properties and within it are embedded some elegant truths such as those found in mathematics & physics. Why did such complex things get created along with the matter itself at the dawn of spacetime?
So you fell to reason...
...and then lost your reason again, because you shit your pants and decided to believe that there is something after all. For no good reason other that there are unanswered/unanswerable questions.
Quote:It isn't so much about the unanswered questions but rather the observations of nature. Like Thomas Paine, my "doctrine" comes from nature itself which is the one thing man cannot alter for his greedy purposes (unlike the Bible, Qu'ran etc). Instead of looking to an ancient book for answers on how to do things, we have to recognise that since we inhabit this universe, we already have everything we need at our disposal: the different branches of science to answer practical problems and then we have philosophy to solve ethical problems. I think these intricate truths must have come from somewhere.
[quote]
You might as well go back to church.
That place is against reason. I might die.
Derp... I just took a half hour to respond to you guys but I can't see it... maybe it's just my phone..?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
