Is Deism a "cop out"?

[Arkilogue]

As to what's the point in it, there isn't one. It's a belief. Something people view as true for varying reasons. I don't think it can have a point really.

You're right. But say one is a practicing Catholic, and decides that the God they've been taught just doesn't add up with the knowledge we have today. But still wants there to be a God. They'd be forced into Deistic belief. However, they now lose the ability to feel and connect with God. So they've lost one of the main benefits to religious belief; faith that there is something out there controlling everything that means well.

IMO, it may be more depressing to think that we were created by something and immediately abandoned, implying that our diverse, complex lives are not relevant to our creator.

Exactly what specific BS is "traditional" when it comes to believing in God?  

Some of the oldest "traditions" call God, The Hidden One....which is exactly what "amen" means.

I was thinking along the lines of Abrahamic religions, and the holy books that control them. So many former Christians deconverted once they realized the problems with the Bible. With Deism, you get to subtract nearly all of those contradictions until you have...just God. God without the problems you get from believing the Bible or Quoran are holy code meant to be followed and respected.

I always accidentally "Christianize" things when I talk about religion. I forget how diverse religion can be, and how different religion has been throughout history.

I see forms that rise and fall over time and civilizations, each having some features of what passed before them. Amen for instance is originally from Egypt.

My own journey has been a collection of forms, a destruction of forms and growth of a new form out of the ashes that is my own personal relationship with God based on a growing understanding. A lot of it is a theological/mental belief system (what I consider deism) but it's also an immersive relationship of change and growth (what I would consider theism and real religion). And it's not just a nebulous "feel good" spirituality...just as much as it cut's through outer bullshit for me, it cuts through inner bullshit and kicks my ass daily. Whether wrong or right, it functions well and I continue to work on it.

Reason? Authenticity and love. If there is a God that all returns to, I want to bring something I created out of love, not something some some one else created that I hide behind out of fear. Kind of like the parable of the talents.

[Simon Moon]

Deism is a few degrees more rational than theism, but still pretty baseless.

As soon as theists start adding more and more descriptions to their gods, they become more unlikely, according to Bayesian analysis.

The deistic god has only one necessary description; created the universe.

A god that is only responsible for creating the universe, is slightly more likely to argue for than one that: wrote some texts, created a couple of people from dirt and a rib, parted a sea, impregnated a virgin, etc, etc,. This god becomes more unlikely with every additional descriptor.

[Drich]

I know little about Deism, but it appears to me like it's just a copout, a way to say that God exists and did create our universe without having to accept all the B.S. that traditionally comes with believing in God. It also sounds pointless; obviously if we were able to prove God created the universe and fucked off, it would be a huge deal. But at this point in time, all you're doing is replacing our non-explanation for the universe with God. And that's when it ends. You could say that anything created the universe / caused the Big Bang. What's the point in saying a God did it other than wishful thinking? And, from a religious standpoint, what's the point in believing a God that has no impact on your life? 

Are there any Deists or former Deists here?

It is not a cop out it is a honest answer to a question. It says yes I believe in God but don't know if any specific religion is right. and mostly likly I don't know how to vet any of the choice I am looking at.

[The Grand Nudger]

Plenty of folks are honestly less-than-rational (I'd be willing to wager that we all are, most of the time).  I'm not sure that's what the OP was asking about though, Drich.

[mlmooney89]

I think you are pretty spot on with the cop out thing. I mean it really kinda is, cover all bases without contracts? lol

[Catholic_Lady]

I know little about Deism, but it appears to me like it's just a copout, a way to say that God exists and did create our universe without having to accept all the B.S. that traditionally comes with believing in God. It also sounds pointless; obviously if we were able to prove God created the universe and fucked off, it would be a huge deal. But at this point in time, all you're doing is replacing our non-explanation for the universe with God. And that's when it ends. You could say that anything created the universe / caused the Big Bang. What's the point in saying a God did it other than wishful thinking? And, from a religious standpoint, what's the point in believing a God that has no impact on your life? 

Are there any Deists or former Deists here?

I disagree that it's a cop out. 

Personally I think the belief that there is a supernatural supreme being who is responsible for putting our world into motion but doesn't necessarily care about what we do, is more plausible than not believing in any of that at all. 

I think to most of them, it also isn't about wishful thinking or there being a "point" to it. It just makes more sense to them that there is something out there that, unlike anything else in our natural world, supersedes the laws of nature and time and was able to put everything into motion. I think Einstein's views in regards to there being a god/s were kind of aimed in this direction as well.

[Whateverist]

I disagree that it's a cop out.

I'm with you here. I don't think it is a cop out at all. If that makes sense to a person, what business is it of mine? They don't owe me a rationalization.

Personally I think the belief that there is a supernatural supreme being who is responsible for putting our world into motion but doesn't necessarily care about what we do, is more plausible than not believing in any of that at all.

And that is your privilege to believe as you will. I just don't share that intuition.

I think to most of them, it also isn't about wishful thinking or there being a "point" to it. It just makes more sense to them that there is something out there that, unlike anything else in our natural world, supersedes the laws of nature and time and was able to put everything into motion. I think Einstein's views in regards to there being a god/s were kind of aimed in this direction as well.

And yet when do we ever see the natural order being set aside by some being for whom the natural order is optional? You read stores about it but we don't experience it first hand.

As for putting everything into motion .. so long as you have to assume something was already there to hit the start button, I find it simpler to think the world is natural all the way down. It seems to me that how things came to be as they are must always be understood in terms of prior states, not a blank slate.

[vorlon13]

Is 'deism' another way of saying 'it's turtles all the way down?'

[GrandizerII]

Is 'deism' another way of saying 'it's turtles all the way down?'

Yep, pretty much.

But once you realise that even the deist God suffers the same logical problems as any other type of creator God (e.g., acting within timelessness, creating something out of nothing) then even deism is not a plausible explanation for the existence of the universe.

People who have a hard time accepting the existence of reality independent of God as a brute fact are relying more on their own intuition (with several fallacies in thinking) rather than logic that is properly used.

Also, Einstein was more of a pantheist (in a poetic sense) rather than a believer in a concrete personal being that created the universe.

[Faith No More]

Deism may be a cop-out now, but I'd be willing to bet that historically a lot of people used it to avoid the torture chamber.