A question for Anti-Theists

[Dystopia]

And gambling...and pornography......and any other thing our devoutly religious forebears managed to root into our pysches so deeply as wrong. It's easy for us to justify these taxes - in part because we have already accepted that they carry a negative ethical weight. A negative ethical weight that I don't think is so easily demonstrated. We might say things like "let the smokers complain..they're poisoning our air! Well, Mr Smug..so are the tomato eaters....and the perfume sprayers....and the flatulents. If we thought that tomatoes where a moral or ethical evil (and we actually did once...google it) then we would find that we had all sorts of reasons to subsidize our country off the backs of those poor tomato eating schmucks. I'm not sure why you don't think this is relevant, help me to explain?

You cannot possibly be serious. The reason why gambling pays taxes is to prevent people from getting addicted and destroying their lives, smoking pays taxes because it's hazardous, the same goes for alcohol in excess and pollutant fuels (heck I smoke and I agree with paying more taxes). The taxes on pornography exist because a lot of people go for it not for love of profession but for money, I don't ethically support pornography (but I enjoy it), because I believe physical intimacy is something that should not be used to make profit, but I respect that people chose different paths. Pornography is taxed because the sex industry has already caused abuse of several participants, STD's, addiction to drugs, and addiction from porn viewers (it can develop into something serious), this is the reason pornography gets taxed, not because we think the body is sacred and holy, if that was true pornography would be banned altogether. It seems to me you are pushing it to far and almost mixing morals with religion. Most people morally support physical intimacy not being used for profit, it doesn't mean all these people are religious. If you ask me, I wouldn't want my girlfriend or any of my female friends working in the sex industry, I wouldn't trust it, but that's just my call. I really cannot criticize because I love watching pornography (and I cannot lie).

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If I'm not mistaken, a theist believes in a god that is in constant touch with the universe, a being that has omnipresence, omnipotence, all of those characteristics... A deist believes in a creator that abstains from controlling the world. In a sense, a theist believes god created the universe and is constantly shaping it (eg natural phenomenons) while a deist merely believes a god created the events (eg big bang) to make our universe come into existence but abstained from intervening further more. The theist god is shaping the universe as we speak, the deist god is just looking, for some deists god even caused the big bag explosion and ceased to exist, for others god caused the universe and then mixed, fused himself with it and became the universe himself. I hope this helped

I get the difference in definition, but if one is a theist in that sense, what's the practical difference? If a God is pulling the strings on the universe (physics, natural phenomena, weather, etc), but we can't communicate with, entreat, quesiton, see, measure, or hear from it, what's the difference between that and a God that ceased to exist when the big bang happened?

Well there are several differences. Firstly the argument of 'god is unbelievably cruel because of all the misery in the world' will only work for theists, same for other similar arguments. A theist might believe in destiny and that god is designing his/her life), while a deist will more likely trust free will. I also think a deist will have more trouble believing in superstition than a theist. These are examples of differences, but a god that shapes everything and one that simply watches immediately has repercussions because in the first we are conditioned and maybe even determined to live our lives a certain way, in the later we have free will and are dependent on ourselves only.