Deism in the Dock

On the contrary, it seems to me that deism requires us to be more accountable. There is no skydaddy waiting to rescue us when we get in trouble, or punish us when we get in trouble, depending on his whim.We're accountable to Us and to our fellow Creatures. We're responsible for Our actions in a one-to-one ratio on a case-by-case basis, not to some (infernal) judge who fails to make his exact wishes known. We're required to be more moral than those who are mere followers, to actually understand the consequences of our actions instead of blindly obeying.Specificity is the crutch.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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That's a double copout. First, there's no pay-as-you-go accountability if you can get off scot-free by repeating the prescribed mumbo-jumbo on your deathbed. Second, there's no accountability at all if somebody else pays the bill.Obedience to a judge/tyrant doesn't require morality at all, only fear.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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No. I'm saying you should follow your own conscience instead of what some guy said about some guy who might have said something about some god. I'm saying that charting your own path requires more courage, responsibility and morality than following somebody else's.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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Congratulations on missing the point completely.I was talking about how deism - i.e. a philosophy with no revealed "Truth" - requires a person to take more responsibility for his own actions, not less as you claimed. It's because of the supposed "desperate measures that He went through" that Christianity is the easy way out for you.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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So the Bible is redundant. That involves looking around you at what courses others are on. That's specific information that you won't get from an outside source like the Bible.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. Instead of relying on faith, deists (as I understand it) rely on their knowledge of the real world around them. Faith is only for what we don't see - no leaping required.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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No, an empirical point of view, where Christians and Muslims and Hindus and deists and atheists and agnostics all get the same answers.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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No. I said "answers", not "truth".But you're losing the plot. We were discussing how deists, atheists, agnostics, etc. - anybody who thinks for themselves - take far more responsibility for their own actions than those who inherit their morality/accountability from an outside source.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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You're not paying attention. I didn't say I "expected" them to be the same.If a Muslim and a Christian and a deist and a Hindu and an atheist and an agnostic can get the same answer when examining a real-world question, we can be confident that that answer accurately reflects the real world.On the other hand, if some bozo says his dusty book gives a different answer, we have no reason to take him (or it) seriously.But I think Straggler was more interested in the differences between deism and atheism. Dusty-book theism is pretty much a non-starter for this topic.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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If you're going to define "truth" as the best answer we can obtain by empirical methods, you're automatically eliminating theism and embracing deism.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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I know you didn't say it, but it's the logical result of what you did say. Answers come from evidence. You equated answers with truth. So truth comes from evidence, according to you.Since empirical evidence is the only kind of evidence we're talking about, you are implicitly saying that empirical evidence equates with truth.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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Your "experiences" are subjective. Different colours of theist have different, often mutually exclusive "experiences". So no, you don't have "more" than empirical evidence. "Reality in general" is the empirical world. No other reality has been established as valid in this discussion.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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The thing is, you can't know that "He has very good reasons". You can't know that "He doesn't want to condemn too hastily". You can't know that "He knows exactly what He is doing".What you think you know is just what C. S. Lewis has told you to think.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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I can know that nobody knows. Nobody's saying that you can't know anything. That's the Robian philosophical error. I'm being very specific in saying that there is one thing you can't know: You can't know what God thinks.You can't know what God thinks because of your own idea of what God is. If He is so far above you, there can be no meaningful revelation.That (as I understand it) is deism.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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Do you understand any English at all? I didn't say anything about God being "far" or "anywhere".I said you can't know what God thinks. You claim to know, but you don't know. You're either making it up or parroting what C. S. Lewis tells you. But you don't know. I'm sure the deists are glad too.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels
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