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Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
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Author | Topic: Percy is a Deist - Now what's the difference between a deist and an atheist? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Hey Moose,
I have one question: Isn't it a mighty fine line between deist and atheist? I think so. As another resident Deist, let me reply. The rational conclusion based on evidence is agnosticism, the uncertainty of existence of god/s. Atheists are on one side of the line of agnosticism, deists are on the other. This may be a fine line, but the distinction is real, like the difference between negative numbers and positive numbers, with the zero position being your fine line. The atheist believes there is no evidence of god/s and that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence (all A is B, B therefore A logical fallacy). The deist believes that god/s is/are essentially unknowable, that all evidence points to the way the natural world functions as created, and all we can understand is how it works. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
A deist believes that god is a good clock maker. A christian believes that god is a bad clock maker. So what does the atheist believe? If the atheist believes that if any clockmaker exists that it must be a bad clockmaker, citing evidence of bad designs, doesn't that make them closer to the christian than to the deist? Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Thanks Nighttrain,
I wasn't aware that you had lakes in the middle of australia
Deists believe in an unknowable god, but don`t know how they thought that. You may not know. atheist: there is no evidence of god/s deist: all people all over the world have religions atheist: that is not evidence of god/s, deist: it is evidence of common spirituality atheist: the religions are different, some vastly different deist: people all over the world have similar religious experiences, those are interpreted within the context of their culture atheist: those are hallucinations and on it goes Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Thank you Buz for your understanding.
... the clock maker who had no space in which he could have existed somehow miraculously tosses out some substances from which a substance ... Isn't that what genesis says? Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Curiously
Expanding a bit, a deist would be a "She/he/it started everything", but beyond that is "non-knowing" (agnostic) or "didn't do anything further" (atheistic). A deist is 0.1% theistic, 99.9% agnostic and/or atheistic. contradicts or is contradicted by
Noting again that one deistic bit:
quote:This statement puts deism in opposition to theism. Unless that 0.1% is more important than the other 99.9% - in which case it isn't 0.1% ... Or the rivalry has nothing to do with opposition, but with the appeal to people of reason. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Strangely
The only rational belief is disbelief until there is evidence. contradicts or is contradicted by
As an individual you may believe anything you want to with or without evidence, but it ain't rational. Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : twoway street by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
I didn't see those at all as contradictions, rather, they were two ways of saying the same thing. If 0.1% theism is the biggest rival of theism, then why wouldn't 0% theism be bigger? If atheism is not a bigger rival then that small difference is critical.
I gave those arbitrary values for "starting the universe" versus "everything that happened since said start". The problem here, is that the universe was created at the start to cause "everything that happened since said start" and thus it is also included in the package.
From the theist perspective, I would think that "starting the universe" is a relatively very small part of the collected "works of God". Yet we only know one very small portion of one part of the curriculum vitae, and you assume theists know the rest? Enjoy. Edited by RAZD, : rest by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Also, they say "historically". At the beginnings of the United States, wasn't deism a big thing? And atheism probably a small thing? Yes, it was a major factor in framing the Declaration of Independence and the religious freedom in the constitution.
The essence of it all is, I'm calling deism to be essentially the same thing as agnosticism and/or atheism. To what degree that is true is the topic title question. You can call it whatever you like, it is, after all, your opinion. Enjoy by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Atheists believe no such thing. We believe there is plentiful evidence that there is no god. Ah. You believe there is no "B" that is not "A" ... one wonders "why so friggin confident?" Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
By and large, do deists in the Western world identify the Biblical god as their god? Some may, some may not, however those that do would only use a heavily modified version (no miracles, no revealed truths). It is more a philosophy of belief than a religion, there is no central "church" and no "dogma" to follow. Each is pretty much on their own. For me, personally, it seems that the truth lies somewhere between Buddhism and Pantheism. It seems to me that the enlightenment of Buddha is similar to the prophets of other religions, and that this is also seen in Mahatma Gandhi and Henry David Thoreau. This state of heightened spiritual awareness exists in all religions, is common to all cultures. The way I see it is that religions have formed afterward, by the followers of enlightened people, and those followers have interpreted things according to their cultures and their understanding of reality. Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Mohamed, all had followers that created the religions based on their interpretations of these people. Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns reach the same state of spiritual awareness in tests that compare them, and I would not be surprised to find sufi dervishes also compare the same. In native america we had spirit walks, and in australia there is the walk-about. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
On this basis how many things should we be agnostic about? I've been around this issue several times with Modulus and others. Simply put, if you know all {A} and all {B} and you can show that {A} == {B} then you can reasonably conclude that there is no {B} that is not{A}. The degree of confidence you can have in a conclusion that {B} = {A} is the degree you have confidence in your knowledge of {A} and {B}.
I am "atheistic" about fairies living at the botttom of my garden. This "atheism" towards fairies is based on the absence of evidence. Logically speaking should I be agnostic about fairies? Would you say that you are agnostic about fairies? That depends on what you define as "fairies" - are they visions by people who interpret them as fairies because that fits their culture (and there is certainly evidence of people believing in fairies)? Then yes, fairies probably exist in some form: visions are common. Some people dismiss them as hallucinations, and other don't.
Are you really agnostic about everything for which there is absolutely no evidence? Really? But if you are talking about people seeing fairies, there is evidence that people see fairies - they just may not really understand what they see due to limitations in their understanding of reality. The issue is one of open-minded skepticism, applying both to the question at hand. Does the Loch Ness monster exist? It is possible that someone saw something they didn't understand, and somebody else embellished the story, but that the original sighting was real. Some people feel they have eliminated the possibility of a large plesiosaur like animal, but that doesn't mean they have dealt with the original vision.
Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe the only rational conclusion regarding the existence of little green men that live in the toilet but who are magically undetectable to all human forms of detection is indeed to say "I don't know". This is called the Ad lapidem fallacy, coupled with a straw man. Nobody is claiming that little green men live in toilets as part of any spiritual belief. Instead every culture has spiritual beliefs, ones interpreted within their culture but displaying similarities that transcend cultures. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
Thanks Rahvin,
There are more fine lines than that, becasue atheism isn't a very specific position ... Neither is deism, it's only as you move away from the line that the distinction becomes more clear - either theistic or antitheistic. It is more of a spectrum than a quantum phenomena.
I (and many others around here) am what you'd probably call an "agnostic atheist." I see no reason to believe in a deity, and so I don't. I have a friend that describes himself as an apatheist - he just doesn't care whether there is or is not god/s.
Technically speaking we have no evidence one way or the other - we don't know that they don't exist. Technically speaking we have evidence of religious beliefs in all cultures. We don't have evidence of faith in invisible pink unicorns or tiny green toilet goblins in any cultures (although one might wonder when watching TV ads)
If I look for a pen on my desk and find no evidence suggesting there is a pen, the absence of evidence is itself evidence of the absence of the pen. And yet this does not mean that your pen has disappeared from the haunts of men, carted off by invisible pink unicorns or tidy-bowl goblins. This just means that the pen is not in the area of {A} that you have confirmed is {B}.
If you look thoroughly for something and find no evidence of it, the absence of evidence is supporting evidence that the thing does not exist - it's simply not proof that the thing doesn't exist. Splitting hairs? Sure - but the rationale behind different flavors of atheism is all about hair-thin distinctions, an absence of faith versus faith in absence. The confidence you can have is proportional to the confidence you have that you know all {A} and all {B}.
I find perpetual neutrality about every imagined entity to be untenable ... Which, curiously, explains why you, and many people, make the choice you do, not that the choice is one based purely on reason.
Why believe in any deities at all, though? What prompts your belief that even an "unknowable" supernatural entity exists? Because I am open-minded about spirituality, I've had spiritual experiences, and I remain skeptical of all claims of positive knowledge in this area. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
'Loch Ness Monster' doesn't refer to the original sighting that may have inspired the stories. 'Loch Ness Monster' refers to the subject of the stories. This is equivocating on the issue. Without the original sighting there is no Nessie story, it does not matter how much the "religion" of Nessie has evolved from the first sighting, for the first sighting to be valid. Some may dismiss the evidence as hallucinations, or drugs, tell themselves it is just a common brain pattern, but that doesn't really answer the question. And this also answers your Message 36 Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
The problem here, is that the universe was created at the start to cause "everything that happened since said start" and thus it is also included in the package. You seem to be saying God had things preprogrammed towards exactly the results we now have. He did not at all "roll the dice". God could start the universe again and have things replay the exact same way. That would be one interpretation. Another would be that it has the same desired result, a species developing increasing intelligence and awareness, although the species could change, the location could change. Either way, I could also counter your assumed numbers by saying that in 0.1% of the time, the deist god/s did 100% of the work (job done, no need to interfere) while the theist god in 99.9% of the time has only accomplished 50% of the work (job half done, gotta keep adding things, redesigning things, scratch and start over). Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1427 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
So there are lots of different deists believing in lots of different deities. How should we then estimate the probability of a particular one of these deities actually existing? Taking one at random, the RAZD deity, for example, the estimated probability would be very low. Far to low to justify an active belief in the thing (whatever it is). Missing the point. If god is unknowable then how do I know which god? How does anyone? The real question is not the probability of a single defined god but of the existence of any god. Now, do we get a "creationist" probability calculation based on made up numbers to cover unknowns?
Ah, the world of subjective "truths". As opposed to dogmatic beliefs in absolute truths, yes. If we can't know, all we have are tentative approximations. Enjoy. by our ability to understand Rebel American Zen Deist ... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share. • • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •
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