Why are deists so annoying?

[DeistPaladin]

Deism, since it lacks any unifying dogma (aside from a shared fuzzy notion of some sort of First Cause and even this point is custom defined for each individual) its proponents will vary as wildly as atheists. As many atheists will attest, aside from your lack of belief in any god or gods, you can be as diverse as the number of radii that can be drawn from the center of a circle.

Hypothetically, what if the only atheists I knew were Ayn Rand and her supporters? To put it kindly, I'd come away with a mistaken idea of atheism or make a broad brush judgment about them. I've also had some experiences with atheists who seem to have emotional issues with the "G" word and felt inspired to immediately start flaming me with all manner of ad hominems without any provocation I could see. I know they are by far the exception rather than the rule but what if such people were my only experience with atheists?

There certainly are deists who are assholes out there. In my early days of activism in the free thought movement, I had a bad run in with another deist which resulted in a video flame war on You Tube over the issue of abortion. Just because I meet someone who says (s)he's a deist doesn't mean I'll like this person or that we'll get along or agree on anything else.

I would only ask that you keep in mind that we are a minority in the freethought movement and as such, you might have simply had a limited statistical sample. See "New Coke" for an example of how surveying a limited sample can cause you to come to the wrong conclusion.

My wife is an atheist who earnestly believes in ghosts. I'm a deist who rejects the idea and lacks a belief in any afterlife. So there you go. We're all individuals and, as freethinkers, we don't follow any scripts on what conclusions we draw.

Your mileage may vary but my take on deism can be described in one of the following ways:

• It's just like atheism ...except for that part where we believe in God.
  
• Atheism with poetic flourishes.
  
• Atheism except that we add a little punch to our rejection of religion by doing it in the name of God.
  

Humor aside, there's a lot of truth to the tongue-in-cheek definitions above. Were I to ever successfully shift to atheism, nothing in my life would change. My evaluation of morality, my sense of meaning in my life, the way I behave and act, my political views and the way I save 10% of my income and sleep in on Sundays wouldn't change. All that separates me from the atheist version of me would be some philosophical distinctions, and some rather abstract ones at that.

I don't know what deists Richard Dawkins spoke with before writing "The God Delusion" but his definition of deism (as "watered down theism") was way off. The only thing I have in common with the Christian or Muslim is that we have a belief in "God", and even this point contains a chasm of difference in the way we define the shared term.

This is why I could serve as the director of the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers for a few years without any issues either in my purpose in running the organization or with its members.

For a time, about a two week period in my life, I had something of what could be called a crisis of non-faith. No, really, I'm serious. I actually wondered what was wrong with me, why I couldn't be a "normal" atheist like all of my friends and family. Why couldn't I, as many would say, "take the final step" or figure out why God was so firmly a part of my philosophical outlook. I came to accept it as just my instinctive nature.

Somewhere around here I posted a thread that goes into my take on deism in greater detail. I'll try to dig it up and post a link.

That thread also does contain my "proof" of deism: Homosexuality proves God! ...well, maybe not but it is at least a proof that Christian apologists aren't likely to hijack any time soon. Although, you know, instead of the banana... oh sorry, I was about to go too far again. My wife tells me I do that. It must be especially jarring when juxtaposed with my otherwise gentlemanly demeanor.

Not that the two are related, but I discovered I'm a deist about the same time I discovered I'm bisexual. I mention it only to underscore that I didn't "convert". I discovered that's what I am and have been all along. Maybe it's just the way my brain is wired. God gene anyone? Or perhaps my instincts are on to something. Who knows?

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Deist god looks a lot like biblegod in one aspect in my opinion. It's a creator who stopped intervening at some point.

We're agnostic with regard to the specifics about God (or at least that's my take on deism, FWIW).

I'm inclined against a personal god like the ones religions create simply on the grounds of scale. I often use the "petri dish" analogy, where one bacteria cell says so another (in The Far Side style) "Let me tell you about my personal relationship with The Great Lab Coat In The Sky". The existence of the scientist/creator doesn't at all mean that this scientist takes a personal interest or is capable of doing so.

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Deists and Buddhists are both like a spiritual Switzerland. Always in the middle, not making waves, pretty much on the sidelines.

I've never been accused of being neutral and not wanting to make waves with regards to religion. I think I resent that.

I think the America/Britain analogy might be better, if we must use nations in this metaphor. Both are democracies just as both atheists and deists are free thinkers. Britain has a monarch but it only serves a ceremonial role while deists have God but It's only there for the poetic flourishes.

Did I really just use America in my analogy for atheists?

Oh the irony.