deist

One can believe in God from a freethought perspective - this is Deism. Many famed scientists including Steven Pinker of MIT and E.O. Wilson of Harvard are supporting the Deus Project in its endeavor to build deism into a viable religious alternative to the faith inspired monstrosities that now endanger the planet. The Project is a grassroots style nonprofit org and it's easy to get involved: http://www.deism.org

Philosoft

This might have discoursive merit, but I think in GRD rather than here....

trillian

Sounds like it came from AC Clarke in 3001 where he talks about how ancient religions are all taboo subjects. In 3001, people refer to their religious reverence at the wonder fo the world as "Deus".

Miss Piggy

In my opinion, deism is not that attractive. I think that the existence of god(s) is just speculation, there is no convincing proof. Besides, I like living in a godless universe

Anyway, deism seems much more harmless than traditional religions. Maybe the world would be a better place, if there were more deists instead of mainstream-theists.

Straight Hate

I do not necessarily suggest there should be one, but I see no standard in deism. Some deists appear to believe in a supernatural figure that 'inspired' the big bang (ending all involvement in the universe at this point) while others make such claims as to seeing this figure's existence in the world around them. Clearly these are very different views, the latter sounding more like very liberal strain of Christianity.

I find this a little unsettling for reasons I'm not sure why...

deist

For me, deism is very postmodernist. Truth is relative. This is what makes it such an opposite to every other religion on the planet - it strips religion down to its core idea - belief in a supernatural power, and leaves everything else open to debate. This uncertainty is empowering to me as a deist - no one knows for certain the Truth, and in that atmosphere, all people are respected. It provides a much better funnel for people's religious tendencies than faith-based religions which play with a dark & dangerous area of the human mind. Besides I think the natural state of the human animal is a continual drive to learn, and maintaining curiousity about the world and what lies beyond.

Miss Piggy

I find it a little unsettling, too. Such an extreme relativism often leads to intellectual laziness.

deist

Since when were the religious masses interested in intellectual rigor? The Deus Project is crafting something that will be appealing to people in general and satisfy their religious drive while being safe. Atheism has no chance of being that "religion of the future" because the majority of people want to believe in something.
The idea of giving people an opportunity to believe in something yet still respecting reality and the rights of others is important to the future of humanity.

philechat

I do not think deism can be the religion of the future, either, similar to atheism. Both philosophies do not give adequate "guideline to life" to the populace, given the vagueness of the deist god and its lack of practical "doctrine" for human life.

But it seems that Buddhism, despite being rather atheistic, is able to fare rather well in East Asia. The East Asians practice religious syncretism that implicitly admits religious differences between individuals. In general as soon as we avoid the more authoritarian Abrahamic religions we get plenty of interfaith tolerance (note that most East Asians tolerate atheists fairly well and do not consider atheists evil or inadequate in any sense)

Miss Piggy

IMHO, you sound a bit patronizing. I'm not sure that people necessarily need religion to be happy. Here in Europe there are lots of people who don't care that much about religion (except for religious weddings and funerals and holidays etc.).

Hmm. You sound as if you were saying that there perhaps is not any god (or what do you mean by "respecting reality"?), but "the masses" should be given some kind of a toy god they can play with.

I don't think we need any world religion; deism is an option for some but not for everybody. What we need is more religious tolerance.