Why not deism?

[Inqwizitor]

That article reminds me the Kantian phenomena/noumena distinction. We can see some things, but we don't know the intrinsic nature of things.

I'm curious how something that necessarily exists is in line with naturalism? Is that like the block theory of the universe?

@BrianSoddingBoru4 — what's the KSA?

Feel free to look up modal realism and read a bit on it (if you haven't). The universe/cosmos exists necessarily if you accept the supports for modal realism are true and therefore modal realism is true. If you accept that, then there is no possible world in which not all possible worlds are actual.

But even if you don't go along with modal realism, I don't see why something about the universe cannot exist necessarily and from which all else in existence stems from.

I've read some Leibniz and Plantinga, and the rest is Wikipedia. :-) So all possible worlds exist. This would seem to go way beyond naturalism unless every possible world is causally independent of every other possible world. In that case, we must account for existential causality in each possible world. If something is a causally necessary existent in a possible world, then all causally necessary existents are actual. But then we are just pushing contingency to all possible worlds — what is causally necessary in one world is not causally necessary in another. Wouldn't there still need to be something metaphysically necessary to actualize all possible worlds?

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Deism, is the inability to accept or understand that natural processes happen naturally.

It would be similar to thinking that mechanical processes need some kind of natural process in order for it to move.

A car moving down the street is being pulled by several invisible, intangible horses. An airplane achieves flight because many invisible, intangible birds pull it into the air.

Deism puts something in front of a natural process because people don't understand the nature of nature.

I think one motive for deism is an objection to the "brute fact" idea. Nature is, just because it is. The rational mind looks for the explanation for things, and is motivated by the desire for reasonable explanations.

[GrandizerII]

Feel free to look up modal realism and read a bit on it (if you haven't). The universe/cosmos exists necessarily if you accept the supports for modal realism are true and therefore modal realism is true. If you accept that, then there is no possible world in which not all possible worlds are actual.

But even if you don't go along with modal realism, I don't see why something about the universe cannot exist necessarily and from which all else in existence stems from.

I've read some Leibniz and Plantinga, and the rest is Wikipedia. :-) So all possible worlds exist. This would seem to go way beyond naturalism unless every possible world is causally independent of every other possible world. In that case, we must account for existential causality in each possible world. If something is a causally necessary existent in a possible world, then all causally necessary existents are actual. But then we are just pushing contingency to all possible worlds — what is causally necessary in one world is not causally necessary in another. Wouldn't there still need to be something metaphysically necessary to actualize all possible worlds?

The whole talk about necessity vs contingency can be tricky especially when positing something like modal realism, but the way I look at it is all possible worlds are actualized by necessity because, per the reasoning behind modal realism, you can't have a possible world that is not actual.

If they are spatiotemporally isolated from one another, it does not mean that all these possible worlds aren't part of the same superset world. There is one ultimate actual world in which all these possible local worlds are subsets of, and if they are contingent, then they are contingent on that ultimate world.

The main reason I hold to this view is because I'm a big PSR guy. Why this specific world rather than some other specific world cries for an explanation that traditional theism/deism fails to answer.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

There are many flavors of panpsychism. But not all flavors of panpsychism involve a cosmic mind.

Read this:
https://aeon.co/ideas/panpsychism-is-cra...bably-true

This one I am very very provisionally leaning to, so not very confidently. But nevertheless the exact type of panpsychism I am weakly adhering to is one where tables and rocks are not necessarily conscious (so slight disagreement with the article there), but one in which the basic elements of existence may have the starting point of consciousness (whatever that is).

And naturalism explains the origin of life pretty well actually, since life is simply a biological process explicable in terms of physical factors and processes. Even if we don't yet know the specifics of how life arose. Keep in mind life is not the same as consciousness. Bacteria are living organisms, but they are not counted as conscious entities.

As to why "something rather than nothing", we can say that something has to exist because absolute nothingness cannot be. Therefore, something necessarily exists. But that something could easily be in line with naturalism.

That article reminds me the Kantian phenomena/noumena distinction. We can see some things, but we don't know the intrinsic nature of things.

I'm curious how something that necessarily exists is in line with naturalism? Is that like the block theory of the universe?

@BrianSoddingBoru4 — what's the KSA?

'Kalam Stupid Argument', my pet name for the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Boru

[Acrobat]

Atheism is an amorphous description of a lack of belief in a god or gods. It could mean that someone has no faith in a religious idea about what a god or gods means, or it could be a philosophical conviction of some kind. 

Something I'm curious about is why deism is virtually non-existent nowadays. There are arguments for the existence of "God", that actually, in the end, don't amount to much more than a hypothetical Prime Mover, or "something" — we don't know what — that is the source of reason, volition and material phenomena. 

Is deism pointless or even dishonest, because it's asserting something as knowledge that we cannot know? Did you ever seriously consider it instead of atheism? Or is there any practical difference?

I think if many atheists if they had to take a position on the God question, they would likely be deists of some sort, just like most nones subscribe to conceptions of God like that. 

Instead they prefer to not take a position as all, prefer to lack a belief one way or the other. They see no real point in believing one way or the other, no relevance in their lives, so to believe in such a trivial conception of god, is as unimportant as having a position on your marital status.

[Mister Agenda]

My position on the God question is more like it can't be completely ruled out, and it goes in the category of other things I can't completely rule out, like being a brain in a jar or everyone else being philosophical zombies. If there is a capital-g God, the God of deism seems the least unlikely of an unlikely lot.

[brewer]

I think one motive for deism is an objection to the "brute fact" idea. Nature is, just because it is. The rational mind looks for the explanation for things, and is motivated by the desire for reasonable explanations.

Yes, but those reasonable explanations do not need to include the supernatural, and the position of "we don't have a reasonable explanation YET" should be acceptable. However, there seem to be many people that can't accept "yet" (basically because of insecurity/fear) so we end up with supernatural. 

Eventually supernatural explanations can get excluded with time.

[Simon Moon]

Atheism is an amorphous description of a lack of belief in a god or gods. It could mean that someone has no faith in a religious idea about what a god or gods means, or it could be a philosophical conviction of some kind. 

For me, my atheism is nothing more than not being convinced god exist, any gods.

My reasons for not being convinced, is that theists, deists, pantheists, etc, have continually failed to provide demonstrable evidence and valid and sound logic to support their theistic claims.

Something I'm curious about is why deism is virtually non-existent nowadays. There are arguments for the existence of "God", that actually, in the end, don't amount to much more than a hypothetical Prime Mover, or "something" — we don't know what — that is the source of reason, volition and material phenomena. 

None of the arguments for the existence of god, hold up to scrutiny, they are ALL fallacious and flawed. This goes for: Kalam cosmological argument, teleological arguments, ontological arguments, etc.

None of them succeed in doing what they are meant to. What they are really meant to do, is give the believer a seemingly rational sounding support for their unsupported beliefs.

Is deism pointless or even dishonest, because it's asserting something as knowledge that we cannot know? Did you ever seriously consider it instead of atheism? Or is there any practical difference?

I was a deist for some time after I found my way out of religion.

[downbeatplumb]

Science has not finished. So for the moment "we don't know but people are working on it" is better than installing some sort of holding belief.

Right. And there are theories about RNA I think, that it is some sort of bridge between inorganic and organic matter (I'm no expert). What I mean is, naturalism does not say why there is anything at all. It's denounced as a meaningless question. Deism doesn't require that kind of eliminative reductionism.

Why are we here? Because we're here.

[Nay_Sayer]

Why not pastafarianism?

[mordant]

I can't figure out how one would tell the difference between an absent god, an indifferent god, and a non-existent god.

Deism is the belief in a non-interventionist god -- just another way, really, of saying "absent" or "not present". If god does not intervene or interact, then what is its relevance to the one who believes in such a being? It's like "marrying" a spouse who you can't see, who no one has ever seen, who never speaks to you or interacts with you in any way. It is just a non-starter.

If the universe runs according to natural laws, does it matter if those laws are sustained by an ineffable being, or just ARE? They will work exactly the same either way.

Deism is the opposite of Fideism in that Deism tries to figure out the existence and nature of god from reason and personal experience rather than from some imagined revelation. How is this different from what any atheist does, other than that atheists conclude from the deafening silence that god cannot be inferred to exist?

In my view, all deism does is allow a person to cling to some tenuous hold on the notion of a supreme being because it avoids some sort of perceived discomfort in letting go of the notion. Since I'm already past that, and it wasn't so bad at all -- in fact, it was a net positive -- I have no use for deism as a concept.