Perchance

Hi luvluv,

Though I agree scientists haven't yet really determined how life came to exist (or came to earth, if it originated somewhere else), I don't think one can make the prediction, "We don't know right now, therefore we will never know." That seems to me one "failure" (if ideas have failures) of Deism. Of course, most people who professed it during the Enlightenment and later didn't have the scientific knowledge that we possess now, so to them it might have been perfectly reasonable to think we would never know where natural laws or the earth "came from" or "why" they existed. And perhaps a supernatural cause was better than a shrug of the shoulders and an, "I don't know."

Science has advanced so rapidly, though, that I find it a little surprising for anyone to insist that we are "never going to know X." We might not find the answer in our lifetimes, or our children's lifetimes; we might never find the answer at all. However, just as it's really hard to disprove the Deist God, it's really hard to insist that science is never going to solve some questions.

I put more trust in science than the Deist God, though. I think it has a better track record.

-Perchance.

jankin

Science Magazine had an article a month or so back laying out a theory of n-branes (yes, multidimensional membranes is what you should think) that gets rid of the big bang problem, and simultaneously does away with the theoretical need for a first cause

Likewise is the item in which from test tube and off-the-shelf ingredients, scientists have created life. Admittedly it was only a small virus, but it was LIFE!

The last bastions of any creator god's apparent power are gone. Or we (living humans in aggregate, along with the rest of the unvierse) are in fact GOD.

Kantian

Hello LuvLuv!

The act of positing the existence of a god(s) or God is generally drawn from the evidence of the universe, which is the act of inferring a particular cause from an effect.

The problem is a matter of proportion- when we infer cause from an effect, or an event in which we have experience of, we cannot assign to the cause any qualities beyond what is sufficient to generate the event.

Our knowledge being limited to the effect, it is illegitimate to add qualities beyond what is essential in order to produce the effect.

Exactly what kind of conclusions does this strictly empirical principle lead the rational person to, Luvluv?

~Transcendentalist~

ksagnostic

Deism, I think, was the response of people to seeing a world of complexity and structure, and assuming that such a world must be an intelligent artifact. These were not people who had the insight of evolution by natural selection, genetics, and cosmology, particularly quantum physics. It made no sense to most of them to assume that the creation of the world was a natural process. The world was complex enough to reflect an intelligent creator, in their eyes. The only assumption really made by deism as I understand it is that the world is an intelligent artifact. Deism doesn't necessarily entail an assumption that that intelligence was "supernatural" at all.

Bible Humper

There's a huge difference between this and the God in the gaps argument. The study of abiogenesis is a work in progress, the biologists have not claimed to have proven how life came about. The deists and theists use their God in the gaps arguments claiming that they do already know how life came about despite having been wrong about everything else that they used this argument with.

Geocentrism, creationism, disease being demons, rainfall, round earth, Noah's ark, age of the universe, insanity being demons, starlight, archaeology refuting biblical tales such as Exodus, sorcerers, cockatrices, prophecies, and a shitload more no doubt.

Everywhere the light of reason shines, The Great Magic Sky-Juju recoils.

Well, if anything should be considered a possible solution just because it hasn't been proven not to be the right answer, Yahweh can wait in line behind the Magic Pink Pixies for serious investigation.

My assertion is not that the universe popped out of nothing, all I can say at this point is that the origin of the universe isn't fully understood. Magic is just a cop-out, it isn't an explanation.

Haha, deism and theism will always have a gap sufficent to hang their hats, don't you fret. The theologian has never before been too embarrassed to retreat deeper into the gaps whenever science smashed his perch, I don't see why this would change. If the conditions that allowed the universe to be caused were discovered tomorrow, the deist/theist would say "well what caused the condition?" When that is solved he will say "Well what caused the conditions that caused the conditions that caused the universe to be?"

The possibility of a gap in our knowledge that we can't fill isn't a point for deism/theism, it is only a point for ignorance though of course the three are inter-related.

Then it is left unknown.

Heh, all phenomena discovered to date has proven to be naturalistic. Not a single phenomenon has proven to be supernatural despite millions of claims.

I don't have a creation myth, I have nothing to say regarding the origin of the universe until the physicists say it for me. The Great Magic Sky-Juju is not a serious possibility.

Although it is tough to comprehend how the laws of physics could exist instead of "nothing", magic deities don't explain anything.

Aerik Von

I only know one "noble" deist...and I date her. Then again she is also a scientist so I can forgive her silly thoughts

wade-w

Deism is the natural position of the person who accepts the teleological argument for the existence of God, but rejects the idea that an all powerful creator would require us to grovel before him to gain his favor. This was a very common view in the 18th and early nineteenth century. See Voltaire's "Essay on Toleration" or Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason". Given the state of human knowledge at the time, I think that this was probably a reasonable attitude.

With the advent of a rational theory of evolution and modern cosmology, the teleological argument becomes much less convincing, however.

For myself, I answer the question by applying Occam's razor. It is not necessary to assume that there is a god to explain the universe, so I don't.

"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has..."
-- Martin Luther

Aerik Von

Grand qoute ye posted here.

wade-w

Thank you Aerik.