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None of us can honestly say what belief system is "right" or "wrong" (although some feel so empowered) so I cannot objectively comment on the validity if your assumptions per se, but I would like to point a few things out based on your post above. I mean no offense in any case, [no offense taken] these are merely my thoughts on the matter:
1. The belief system that you are describing is not Deism as the term is commonly defined. I am not the proberbial "word police," so I cannot prevent you from calling it Deism, although you would do just as well to call it Christianity, Islam or Buddism, because in any of those cases (most significantly Deism included) you are wielding a personal definition that does not coincide with the commonly understood meaning of the word.
It's true, my definition is not the classic definition of deism, which is more closely identified with a closeted form of atheism. As someone commented, we're all looking for what best works for us and sometimes we have to mold, shape and re-form a rigid definition to get it to conform to our perceptions of what best fits our conception of a good belief system simply because it does make it the closest thing to that belief system that can best work for us.
The classic deism doesn't work for me because it promotes a disinterested God. I think God is interested or I wouldn't be here now. I think God had a desire to see me live because by all accounts, including what the surgeon said to me, I should have died driving by myself to the hospital, given the shape my brain was in. A disinterested God by deism's definition would have just let nature take its course. Somehow, I came out of it against all odds. To me, that was a miracle, but not the type of miracle I could go bragging to the world that God did. To the world, including cupper above, it was the Dr's skill that saved me. And as I said, I think God prefers it that way. He prefers to stay out of the limelight, I'm convinced.
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Originally Posted by Hyker
2. I disagree with your assertion that common Christian belief holds that simply praying for healing would have been sufficient. On the contrary, I suspect this is a fairly minority view, and that most Christians certainly do believe (as you seem to) that god utilizes the actions of others to answer prayers.
Some Christians, the more enlightened ones would often attribute a 3rd party's actions to be God answering prayer. They are often bound by their fundamentalist rigid upbringing to do anything else except attribute any good outcome to Jesus because of fear of upsetting God, demonstrating lack of faith in Jesus, maybe even worrying that a lack of faith would send them to hell--who can say why one Christian thinks this way and another thinks that way.
But I've seen sincere prayer--the kind that meets all the criteria Jesus lays out in Mark 11:24 fail 9 out of 10 times. It's open to debate whether Jesus was referring to miraculous intervention (stage 5 pancreatic cancer spontaneously disappearing overnight, like Benny Hinn claims), or just good medical intervention saving the day. The Benny Hinn stuff fails every time. There's much more success when natural laws are allowed to intervene. God works through both, I believe, hence my belief that God watches from afar but does take an interest at times, and doesn't at other times.
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Originally Posted by Hyker
3. I again fail to see the critical distinction between your belief system and of the average Christian. It seems to me as though you are saying that god answered prayers - or doesn't - in a manner of his own choosing, for reasons of his own choosing, at a time of his own choosing. At its heart this is the same argument made by Christian apologists frequently, and in any case leads to a god that the casual observer would find pretty unreliable. If my car started at some times, but not others, and for no particular reason, I would think it time to replace my car.
Thanks.
My belief system rejects the infallibility of the Bible, eternal torment, penal substitutionary atonement, any idea that God had wrath against us pitiable ignorant humans when He's the one who set Adam up to fall in Eden, and those are just the major things. From what fundamentalists in the Christianity forum tell me I am an atheist pretending to be a liberal Christian.
I cannot say whether you are stupid or not, but I am certainly reading you posts...I'm just not sure what to make of your "Schrödinger's cat" model of god. Like any quantum phenomenon, none of his properties would be fixed until we observed him...so can we? When we see a "miracle"...even of the "mundane" type that thrillobyte is describing...are we somehow observing god's "position" and in doing so losing any information on god's "velocity"?
I believe it was Richard Feynman who demonstrated that quantum phenomenon could be described as a "wave function" without violating the uncertainty principle. Can we construct a similar model for your quantum god? If not, then the concept does us little good in any case.
More importantly, before such details can be addressed, one must first ask oneself of there is any rational cause to consider this god-claim more valid than any other. If not, then you might as well be positing worship of the Flying Spagetti Monster.
I cannot say whether you are stupid or not, but I am certainly reading you posts...I'm just not sure what to make of your "Schrödinger's cat" model of god. Like any quantum phenomenon, none of his properties would be fixed until we observed him...so can we? When we see a "miracle"...even of the "mundane" type that thrillobyte is describing...are we somehow observing god's "position" and in doing so losing any information on god's "velocity"?
I believe it was Richard Feynman who demonstrated that quantum phenomenon could be described as a "wave function" without violating the uncertainty principle. Can we construct a similar model for your quantum god? If not, then the concept does us little good in any case.
More importantly, before such details can be addressed, one must first ask oneself of there is any rational cause to consider this god-claim more valid than any other.
I know I'm being overly technical, but it wasn't a god-claim; I was just spit-balling. And again, maybe God exists as a quantum phenomenon and a classical phenomenon. Maybe he exists in other types of ways that we can't even conceive of. Maybe the idea of existence is variable. Maybe the idea of god is variable. I'm just challenging all notions. That's all. Let's open 'em all up and explore 'em.
I'm just challenging all notions. That's all. Let's open 'em all up and explore 'em.
Hello again rcp1.
I hear what you're saying here, but you are firing randomly into an infinitely large field of targets. The problem with infinity is that it's really big. What if god were made of microwaves? What if god is made of microwave ovens? Maybe he only exists on Tuesdays. Maybe he really wants to help but is hearing impaired or doesn't speak English. The list goes on and on...
I would suggest a different approach...start with things you know to be true and begin constructing your god-model from there. I'll briefly describe two of my own to illustrate:
1. If there were no religious texts or teachers of faith...if I was the first person to realize the god concept, and had to discern his nature only from what I saw around me, what could I deduce?
2. What can I identify in god's creation that I know with near certainty is true?
My answer in the first example was that god must be very intelligent, as creation is mind-bogglingly complex. This has been a guiding principle for me, as I challenge any belief that makes god seem to be acting in a silly or irrational manner. My answer in the second example was "entropy." What metaphysical implication this could have is still beyond me...
Thanks.
PS - This can lead to some unsettling ideas. For example, god could have designed a creation where there was plenty to eat for all creatures. Instead he created this one: where animals fight for limited resources and the survival of predator and prey are mutually exclusive. Does god thrive on strife? Is it inevitable by god's design that some should suffer so that others might succeed?
In a way this is the whole point about the acceptability of deism by atheists whereas the personal god -religion is not acceptable to them.
'God' could be anything, and anything could be labelled 'god'. Whether it mattered to us or was relevant to us, is an academic question if not meaningless.
One could ask 'What if' until our beards grow white (mine already is) but it doesn't concern the God -debate.
The only matter that is meaningful in the debate is a god here with us on earth who or which intervenes in our lives or at least did, and is still maintaining a watching brief.
The debate really is about the evidence for belief in such a 'personal' god being valid. Belief in such a god without such valid evidence, or with no valid evidence or indeed in spite of the valid evidence, is Faith. 'Blind faith' as we call it, and it is illogical, irrational and invalid.
To those who want to believe nonetheless, that is their good right, but (and here I have faith that people really want to think that they have good reason for what they believe) but many (and increasingly more) will be uncomfortable with the idea of believing with inadequate, or even counter evidence.
To those religionists who admit they have no good reason for believing in a personal - religion -related god, I say we have nothing to argue about except of course whether we need religion for reasons other than it being true.
But in fact repeatedly the debate is about whether the evidence-miracles, Bible as fact answered prayer - really does justify god -belief.
In this respect deism forms no part of the debate unless (like some of the founding fathers), it is supposed that religion is needed to keep people in order. I don't agree with Jefferson about the Gospels being the best moral code. It has some fine things (if perhaps impractical) in, but I think we can do better.
It may be that God has designed Himself to be 99.999% absent from the workings of man. Things are such that neither atheists or theists can successfully defend their positions with empirical proof.
My guess here is that similarly to the views of many "militant" agnostics, you view atheism as more than it is - a simple lack of belief. One doesn't need empirical proof to lack belief in something someone else made up.
I'm leaning more toward a god who somehow simultaneously remains inert in relation to the universe and fully engaged with it. I see God as being totally ineffective and disinterested, and totally invested and impassioned with his creation. I don't understand how this works. I don't think it makes any sense whatsoever. But somehow, I see God as operating a peculiar sort of duality where, on the one hand he's completely hands-off, and on the other, everything is happening according to his plan. Again, it's a totally contradictory notion, but it seems to be where the evidence leads, if you categorize spiritual realizations as evidence, (which I'm not opposed to doing). In other words, I don't see theism and atheism as being mutually exclusive.
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One area in which I relate to your concept of duality is in the oft-debated topic of free will. We have free will, and there is no such thing as free will. We are free to make choices, and the choice we make is predetermined.
Sounds pretty absent and indifferent to me. Forgive me if I don't find it a comforting notion.
Meditative prayer, via Christian mysticism, etc., has always had that emphasis and it is the only remotely empirical attitude towards prayer. It has always struck me as being very like eastern meditation, only with more complexity and indirection and other needless cruft.
For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I'm unable to be so sanguine about suffering -- mine OR other's. I find it degrading and unnecessary. Neutral? I don't think so. That doesn't mean there aren't better responses and worse responses to it, but the need to respond to it at all is regrettable and incredibly costly to society.
But what if God set it all up knowing that every event in history would proceed according to plan, to the ultimate good of all, not requiring any intervention after the Big Bang? That would not be indifferent.
Four types of prayer - Thanksgiving, Praise, Repentance and Supplication - only the last one requires any imagination to be seen as directed at our attitudes, not God's.
Finally, suffering. When a rabbit dies in the jaws of a fox, is it regrettable? Why is Man's suffering any different? The need to respond may be costly to society, but it also represents an opportunity to do good instead of evil.
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