Welcome to a foray into my Religion : deism
There are no priests, we don't molest alter boys , We eat pork if we want.
we don't degrade women, we don't use a church, circumcision ,and birth control are optional ,we have no hell with which to pummel and abase the unbelievers. We have no "revealed word" other than creation. you can wipe your ass with the Koran on Fri. ,the Torah on Sat.,the Bible on Sun.
There is no blasphemy in deism apart from asserting those aforenamed books as the "Word of God" I welcome all Christians Jews Muslims herein but unless you crave enlightenment or just wanna argue as is the nature of this site, you might wanna shorten your stay.
The only practical authority on the subject of Deism was an author and Patriot named Thomas Paine.
He wrote Common Sense in 1770's America,but his gemstone was a later work called The Age of Reason. It's a gem if you wanna get in touch with your inner Deist.

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by

the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the

Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind
is my own church.



All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian

or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to

terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
AS we can see Thomas Paine must have saw something about Judaism,Christianity, and Mohammedism he did not like.
And in his time I guess they did not refer to synagogues or mosques
they just said Jewish and Turkish church. In my mind Opium den ,whorehouse
& Tavern works just as well too. Now you don't have to be embittered or angry at these 3 religions or any religion, to decide on being Deist. (Though it does seem to help) I was in a Christian Church for 42 years of my life ,34 of them as a confessed adherent. Note that our pal Thomas says "my own mind is my church." Gee I wasted a lot of fucking time driving myself to church if it is within me.
Now I can not write all goddamn day & night boys and girls so I'll be back later with lesson 2. Question ?comments ? Feel free. Some of you may even be Deist with better proficiency than I. step on up to teachers desk and let it rip.
<<< Fictional Beast for scaring people into church buildings.

__________________
America has no distinct criminal class excepting maybe Congress
MARK TWAIN

James Otis of Massachusetts on Parliament
1768 :A parcel of button-makers ,pin-makers, horse jockeys,gamesters, pensioners,pimps, and whoremasters.

sic semper tyrannis

let me recommend something to you... you're the first person on this forum who I think is going to truly appreciate this....
check out Richard Rorty's Contingency Irony and Solidarity
the chapter irony most importantly.
its basically about rejecting metaphysics entirely, becoming ametaphysical (like atheist to theism). Its some of the most brilliant philosophical work in my life time. He died just recently, but is surely America's greatest philosopher.
the theory he offers is really an anti-theory, a theory to end theory. Its great shit, i've applied it to my life, and ive never looked back. Its such a consistent, through and through, philosophy for people looking to escape traditional approaches to "reality".

I can honestly thank you suburbanite. Richard Rorty is a bit deep, but I don't know how so as of yet, because I am gonna have to see my local bookstore or library to find HIS actual works, plenty of stuff out on the internet by others who either admire his work or distance themselves. Their critiques were hard to comprehend, but my mother taught me, "no shame to grab on to a dictionary son! " Foundationalism, anti-theory, all very foreign stuff in my little universe but with practice ,I'll be navigating through it with the best of them.
As to theism , It is hard to give up God and advance me and my fellows as
the "total it " people. We are but lumps of stardust & water ,with the strange spark of life inside. I can lay hands on more stardust and water. but I can't reproduce the spark in any of it. That is what leads me to conclude that something bigger than men is what sustains them. Yes we can pro-create,have kids, but we can't just reverse engineer a human being and build one that way.
And that is the big He,She ,or It, thing I think of as God.
Anyway ,this was refreshing stuff ,thanks for the heads/up ,I was about to implode until you sort of said Hey Cliffrocks , here is a new way to think outside the box. When I finished my initial investigation of this philosopher, I was like " oh fuck!! & then ,Hey Dr. don't dress that bed in my rubber room yet. I think stuff is getting better.

__________________
America has no distinct criminal class excepting maybe Congress
MARK TWAIN

James Otis of Massachusetts on Parliament
1768 :A parcel of button-makers ,pin-makers, horse jockeys,gamesters, pensioners,pimps, and whoremasters.

sic semper tyrannis

Although I respect deists in comparison to most other religions, deism is essentially an extinct belief. The only reason that deism was somewhat popular in the times of the Founding Fathers was the lack of a theory to go against God. However, now there are the theories (and don't confuse the word "theory" with "hypothesis") of the Big Bang and evolution. Thus there is no reason to believe in a god anymore.

A deist is someone who is logical enough to realize that nearly all religions make little or no sense. However, the deist fails to take the final step in noticing that there is no reason to assert the existence of any god at all. A deist says, "I believe in god, but I see no reason to believe all these ridiculous myths associated with him/her." A question I pose for you is, "Why do you believe that there is a god?"

I'm not saying you have to assert the non-existence of a deity, I'm simply saying you should stop asserting the existence of one.

Well trust me,Billybones , I would stop asserting it the minute I could actually find sufficient evidence for doing so. That evidence is not so much a sense that God does such a great job watching my back for me, but I need assurance that mankind will not completely fall through the cracks into anarchistic and despotic chaos without some divine guidance. And the scariest question of all is NOT
"will I have a painless death, or more a brutal demise?" ,The question I don't like is the one I can't answer to my own satisfaction. What next after death?
Will I still be a conscious shadow being ,or will I fade to nothingness.
Nothingness is quite all right, except that my family left behind will consist mostly of childishly superstitious Christians, many of whom know my current belief system, for I had no motive to lie and pretend I was one of them any more. But just the same they will all be thinking that bullshit about I am in hell,
never contemplating the sheer immense folly and absurdity of their mournings.

__________________
America has no distinct criminal class excepting maybe Congress
MARK TWAIN

James Otis of Massachusetts on Parliament
1768 :A parcel of button-makers ,pin-makers, horse jockeys,gamesters, pensioners,pimps, and whoremasters.

sic semper tyrannis

So you're using the argument that the universe requires some type of spiritual "glue" to hold it together. This is essentially unfounded, but I'll give it to you.

So I'll give you another question: What makes you think that it has to a god? Why can't it be some type of spiritual life force (lifestream?) that is holding it together? Why can't it be multiple gods? You jump to the conclusion that its one god.

Also, you say you require sufficient evidence to stop believing in god. This is a logical fallacy of some sort. If there is no evidence for something, it wouldn't be logical for you to assert that it exists then ask for evidence against it. That would be like me asserting that unicorns exist and you have to prove that there isn't a single one. Do you see what I'm saying?

Ah Deism, a very interesting belief system. I've actually considered converting a view times, but I think I have a bit more questioning, and reading to do.

Well I' ll start backwards through your statements ,Bones because the easier questions come last. I did not deny that it could not be some intangible or spiritual life force, That is why I describe God in vague ambiguity,like he,she it.
Here is the main problem I have with asserting that no god is in existence.
I cannot believe that humanity is the most powerful form of intelligence in the universe. The Bible asserts that believers should respect their government leaders because their god ordained the governments. But this is easily debunked by world history. So then how can I assume men are the Higher Power, when they are so easily corrupted in the assumption of leadership roles?
If I need no god, why do I need government. And if the police therefore disband as of agreement with that, then presumably we can all either defend our selves and homes from predation, or learn to live amicably among our respected neighborhoods. I'll give to you that this is all idealistic sludge, that I have never discussed this stuff on the level we are both doing now, but for the first time in my life I am asking why not? Whether my Deism is real or Atheism has more rewards? hell once we've all disposed of superstitious
religious claptrap, we got lots of time to explore the rest.

__________________
America has no distinct criminal class excepting maybe Congress
MARK TWAIN

James Otis of Massachusetts on Parliament
1768 :A parcel of button-makers ,pin-makers, horse jockeys,gamesters, pensioners,pimps, and whoremasters.

sic semper tyrannis

I never said that humans were the highest power in the universe. An atheist simply refuses to believe in any higher power without proper evidence. Also, there can be more intelligent beings than humans that aren't necessarily gods.

You're looking at religion in the wrong way. It shouldn't be based on which belief (or lack thereof) has the most benefits, but which one is most rooted in reality. I didn't choose atheism thinking that it would empower me, I chose it because there is no reason for belief in the supernatural. It didn't matter whether I needed it or not (and trust me, no one needs a god; you're morals are built in).

"In George H. Smith's book ATHEISM - THE CASE AGAINST GOD, it is stated that rationality will not lead to God. That instead, God can only be brought about by rationalization. The book describes rationality as first finding evidence, then arriving at the idea, like Newton seeing the apple fall to the ground and then discovering the law of gravity. It then describes rationalization as first accepting an idea and then searching for evidence to support it, like someone inventing the idea of God and then saying God created the universe. Deism says it is rationality and reason that leads to God. To the Deist, the evidence is the creation and the idea of what brought about the evidence is the Creator. There is absolutely nothing known to man that created itself. For example, if someone shows us a computer, and tells us that all the individual parts that make up the computer just came about by chance, that they somehow just formed into a perfectly working computer system all by themselves, we would be foolish to believe that person. Reason, if we use it, won't let us believe a statement like that. Likewise, if someone tells us the ever growing creation and its perfect order "happened" by pure chance, we are under no obligation to believe them. From our own experience we know everything created has a creator. Why then should the creation itself be different? There is, however, one quality the creation has that makes leaving its existence to chance even more remote. That quality is motion."
------ Now I bring you guys this quote off the Welcome to the Deism Site! site.
It brings up what I consider a difficult challenge. How did the current order and splendor come about, if no god or creator authored it? what are the odds
all this stardust and water that man is comprised of ,and all the other things we even have a clue of existence ,just sprang into being. Even as children we ask this question,manhood just makes us more curious as to answers.
What makes inanimate objects move through space?
Whether I embrace atheism or deism makes no difference,guys, the universe and beyond all we've mapped of it ,and right back down to the nature of things in my back yard; Squirrels, trees ,birds. You tell me , how do we explain any of it ,as accident devoid of a designer,if not at least an intelligent force capable of making us who we are and creating all we see?
Or to reverse course, ponder this, and I am not being a smartass I promise; Is this all just a tragic accident, and everybody and everything we see a wretched joke,and we keep ourselves occupied with distractions ,and goodies until the sun supernovas and we and all our wretchedness disappear,
Until the universe in its' stupidity allows this tragicomedy to appear in a similar
star system on a different grid of the universe?

__________________
America has no distinct criminal class excepting maybe Congress
MARK TWAIN

James Otis of Massachusetts on Parliament
1768 :A parcel of button-makers ,pin-makers, horse jockeys,gamesters, pensioners,pimps, and whoremasters.

sic semper tyrannis