Deism for non-believers

[Brian37]

I don't see creation as contradictory with reality, I see any creation act by a conscious agent as un-evidenced.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I do, i. Hawkins has said that a god is not required, and based upon what we know so far, if there were a god, it could only be described as inept or malicious.

But when you simply accept nature and reality as being the crap shoot it is, you are not bogged down with the infinite regress a god claim causes.

I would hate to think any of the traditional magic wand deities exist, and a generic deist one for that matter.

There are so many problems with this concept as a claim. Scientifically alone that people claim this is a "outer world" being we cant detect, and morally that it starts all this inefficiency and cruelty and has the power to stop it, but doesn't, not that it had to start any of this in the first place.

I don't want to think of myself as a lab rat or toy. And slap any label on a non material being and you still have a naked assertion.

[The Grand Nudger]

Whether or not a conscious agent is required and whether or not a conscious agent was involved are entirely different propositions. If a malicious or inept god created anything that wouldn't have much bearing on whether or not it was a god (or whether or not such a god were plausible). That's the rub, you can give these folks 99% of what they want even if only in the theoretical and they still cant make it work. That probably has something to do with the god proposition being absolutely and completely bankrupt of any redeeming, valuable, explanatory, or practical quality.

As far as creation being contradictory to reality, we don't know what happened that particular moment (or even if there was such a moment to begin with), we just don't know. We know that it didn't involve Balthazar Whoever waving his hand but that doesn't preclude some other explanation that would also easily be categorized as creation. Nevertheless, in the absence of any evidence confirming the creation hypothesis (and specifically in this instance the creation- by- a -god hypothesis), or negating the null hypothesis, it is fairly safe to say that as far as we know, this particular creative act didn't happen regardless of whether or not it is contradictory with reality.

[Norfolk And Chance]

The whole god is needed argument seems to henge on whether god exists or not. If he does exist, he is likely needed. If he does not exist then he is not needed.

I would actually say if he is not needed then he does not exist.

[Brian37]

Whether or not a conscious agent is required and whether or not

IT IS NOT, PERIOD!

You and I were not around 1 billion years ago and we wont be around 1 billion years from now.

If one is going to stupidly postulate a consciousness as a starting point then any god any human makes up can fill that gap. The truth of why you read what I type is not magic or a mystery, it is an EMERGENT property of a non cognitive pattern.

Otherwise Thor did consciously make lightening and the sun is a god because the Ancient Egyptians had imaginations.

[The Grand Nudger]

Again, just because it is not required, does not mean that it did not happen. You are not required to turn on you sink for water to go down your drain, are you? There are other possible avenues for water to make it's way down your sink. However, just because you are not required for this to happen does not mean that when it does you absolutely did not turn on your faucet..now does it?

Is it baseless assertion to propose that godididit, sure is. But even if you accept the goddidit answer in the spirit of good sport those who propose this explanation are incapable of elaborating upon it.

[Brian37]

Again, just because it is not required, does not mean that it did not happen.

Every time I hear this argument it makes me want to puke.

There is a GIGANTIC HUGE ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE between mental masturbation and things like gravity and evolution.

Imagination is nothing, I could imagine Angelina Jolie giving me a hummer. She exists and I exist, so therefor it is possible? Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.

[The Grand Nudger]

It is possible, and more plausible than a whole list of things, but just because it's possible, probable or plausible does not mean that it occurred. Which is what I reminded the op. The opposite side of that coin is that simply because something is improbable or implausible does not mean that it could not occur. Conversely, if any given event has multiple potential ways of coming to pass any one of them being possible does not preclude the others from possibility. Again, 99% of the argument I'm willing to completely concede for the sake of argument just to see if the op is capable of doing anything with it.

In other words, the OP seems to believe that along an infinite line of potential god claims one of them must at least be plausible, a plausible god claim might exist. Okay, even if only for the sake of argument lets concede that a plausible god claim exists. Now, the op has stated that he also feels that it is reaonable or rational to then "believe" in this plausible god claim as an entity. Excellent. We've conceded that a plausible god claim exists, all that remains is for the OP to explain why we should then extend belief in this plausible god claim as though it were something other than a claim (IE: an entity).

[Brian37]

[quote]It is possible, and more plausible than a whole list of things,[/quote}

What is plausible?

Ok,

What seems more plausible?

Gods are real?

Or?

People make them up because they reflect their own personal desires?

I would not advise you or any human to bet on human credulity.

[The Grand Nudger]

Neither would I, and I'm not arguing that such a god exists or that creation by a god occurred, merely highlighting that all of this can be conceded and the hopeful are still unable to take the proposition any further. It's a bankrupt ideology. All the claims they they might throw out to smuggle a plausible god in would then have to be weaseled back into the god header to make it relevant. The whole process is dishonest, intentionally or unintentionally.

[Angrboda]

I see you didn't answer my question about Shaktism.

Oh, sorry! I should have clarified that I briefly researched Shaktism and I responded to it by implying it's in the category of 'world religions'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the belief is that the god visited the society 22 000 years ago. Well, we've all seen the flaws with Jesus so I wasn't going to bother trying to disprove an incarnate god that lived 11 x 2 000 years ago. Or was there something that I missed about this belief?

Yes, indeed there is quite a bit more. There are Shaktisms that would postulate a goddess that is indistinguishable from your Deist creator god. Same for other branches of Hinduism, Buddhisms and more. That you don't see these gods as plausible relative to your deist conception is not because they are not equally plausible — indeed, some are indistinguishable from yours — but because you are knowledgeable about your deist ideas, and ignorant of the same ideas in other religious contexts. Which gets me back to my earlier point, that you are constrained by the past, specifically your past, which leaves you capable of imagining certain answers in certain ways, but less able to imagine others, such as those you have no knowledge of, such as Shaktism. If you were born in India as a Shakta, you might be arguing the exact opposite, wondering what I see as flawed with thinking about the goddess, and ignorantly asking if deism is a world religion that postulates the creation of the world in 4,004 B.C. and believes in three gods. Your statement and your conclusions would be just as ignorant, and just as much a function of your ignorance.


But there's an even more significant problem with your thinking. You suggest that the universe had to have a motive for coming into being. Now I don't agree, but even if I did, motive implies an agent. Universes don't have motives, only agents do. So you are trying to reason backward from the effect to the potential cause. Even if a motive and agent is involved, this is likely to prove unproductive. Can we determine the reason an agent might create a universe? We have no experience with such examples to even know where to begin. And all your "models" are largely analogues of creation by human agents. Maybe a god-agent needs six mutually contradictory goals to have a motive to create a universe. How do we know what motives a god uses.

But beyond that, the whole method is flawed. You have an effect, the universe, and you're trying to guess a reason an agent might create it, and from that reason figure out what type of an agent might have those reasons. Reasoning backward in this way, each step is fundamentally unconstrained by the prior step. Does a physical universe imply a physical creator agent? How do we know? A physical universe doesn't require any specific process of creation; some are more probable, but as Rhythm points out (and Brian in his ignorance fails to see) is that assuming that because a physical universe can result from physical causes, that doesn't mean it had to do so; the latter is the fallacy of affirming the consequent. If I'm in the forest and I come upon a spot where there are plants arranged in a perfect circle, I might ask myself the same questions. Surely these plants didn't end up in a circle by accident. What purpose did putting them this way serve, and what does that tell us about the agent that did it? It actually tells us nothing, as this particular plant, actually a fungus, just naturally grows that way as a result of physical and biological constraints. You need to start with the agent, and evidence for that first, and then try to understand its motives, as the reverse will lead you astray.

I assume you're familiar with the Mona Lisa. What does that effect/artifact tell you about the motives of its creator? If you didn't know the artist, would your speculations about the artist's motives help you pick him out in a crowd, perhaps after in-depth interviews? Doubtful. Yet this is your method.