RE: Deism: I don't get it
December 4, 2014 at 8:05 pm
(This post was last modified: December 4, 2014 at 8:10 pm by bennyboy.)
Deism is a separation between two ideas: the philosophical problems of psychogony, cosmogony, etc. and the mythology of "God."
The philosophical point of deism is that since mind exists in the universe, mind may be partly (or wholly) involved in the creation of the universe. A Deist may see purpose, design or deliberate function in the goings on of the universe, or may be suspicious about the nature of interaction between observer and observed at the quantum mechanical level (issues of how, when and "why" a waveform function collapses in experimentation, for example). Contrast this with ideas about a God who will watch a teenager masturbating in the shower and start planning his eternity in hellfire, or who will cruelly execute punishment for a parent's sins "to the third and fourth generation."
In other words, a Deity is a massive creative mind, so massive that it couldn't possibly care about humans specifically, or about anything we do; God, on the other hand, is clearly a collection of old wives' tales meant to funnel children toward marriage, baby-making, grandchild production, and the other behaviors that people want to coerce others to engage in.
The philosophical point of deism is that since mind exists in the universe, mind may be partly (or wholly) involved in the creation of the universe. A Deist may see purpose, design or deliberate function in the goings on of the universe, or may be suspicious about the nature of interaction between observer and observed at the quantum mechanical level (issues of how, when and "why" a waveform function collapses in experimentation, for example). Contrast this with ideas about a God who will watch a teenager masturbating in the shower and start planning his eternity in hellfire, or who will cruelly execute punishment for a parent's sins "to the third and fourth generation."
In other words, a Deity is a massive creative mind, so massive that it couldn't possibly care about humans specifically, or about anything we do; God, on the other hand, is clearly a collection of old wives' tales meant to funnel children toward marriage, baby-making, grandchild production, and the other behaviors that people want to coerce others to engage in.
