Evolution as evidence for atheism

[Captain Scarlet]

Just out of interest, why are you a deist? Are you convinced by the Cosmological/Teleological arguments?

Finally, I would just say that I'm not an atheist because ...well, I'm just not. For whatever reason, delusion or my instincts are on to something, every fiber of my being is convinced that the universe isn't an accident and there's some kind of mind out there somewhere behind it all (at the same time, I've never felt God should be "feared" or demands worship). I even went through a phase for about two weeks where I wondered what was wrong with me, why I couldn't be a "normal atheist" like all of my friends and colleges in the freethought community. I've come to terms with it since. I have the heart of a believer and the mind of a skeptic. Deism is an accord between the two, allowing me a spirituality that's kept real and grounded in the natural universe. As you've pointed out in another post, the differences are only ones of abstract philosophy. We agree that we live in a natural universe and nothing's coming out of the clouds to save us if we destroy our planet.

Hi DP. I would consider deism closer to atheism than theism. For me I don't accept that atheism lacks spirituality or that an atheist cannot experience the numinous. We look at the world or universe with awe and wonder, but do not ascribe its apparent design to supernaturalism either an intervening and supervsing one, or an initiator that came and went. All the evidence we both have and accept suggests that there is no mind, that apparent design is from mindless bottom up processes in the fascinating quantum world, and that the universe is set for a long slow death. It is both a hostile but fascinating place but a mind would not have initiated us from the unpredictable chaos of the quantum singularity and the principle of ignorance it entails. It is for this reason that for me Deism lacks force as an alternative to the obvious conclusion, that there is no god/s.