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Old 06-23-2007, 10:26 AM
 
Location: Tulsa, Ok.
3 posts, read 10,125 times
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Greetings. Its interesting to see what others think of Deists. It is very diverse. I am what is known as an Atheistic Deist (yes there is such a thing) and thought I would clarify some of the misconceptions. This is from a reply I posted at the Dynamic Deism Forums:

If the world is fundamentally logical then it must have a logical reason for being. But is the world logical? I don't know. But I must assume it is because I can only think logically and it appears to behave logically and that is all the evidence I have to go on. And if it is that means it can be explained.

Assuming the world is logical it seems to me there are two and only two possibilites here; 1- the universe can explain itself because that reason for being is intrinsic to it. 2-the universe is contingent on something else that has a logical reason for being intrinsic to it.

Eternity is a fact I have no problem with but just pushing "causes" back in time (or even outside of time for that matter) one after another without end seems to me to be the wrong way to think about it. It is in my opinion nothing more than a linear version of a circular argument. The system may go back forever but what explains the system itself? Why should it exist at all?

Now do I have any reason to believe the universe can explain itself? Well what is the universe? Science tells me it is an energy field that exists in a continuum, formed in the big bang, that curves in various places and in various degrees. The greater the curvature the greater the energy. Also energy, according to Einstein, is equivilent to matter. There is an argument that presents itself here. If the outward expansion of the universe exactly balances the force of gravity trying to pull it all back in then the curvature of the universe as a whole would be zero. So matter then would also be equal to zero or nothing. That is the universe just popped into being like a virtual particle out of the void because of the inherent uncertainty arising from quantum physics.

This argument attempts to make a connection between something and nothing (if matter is just a form of energy it, too, is equivalent to zero or nothing) but in my opinion it actually fails because it uses the term zero (0) incorrectly.

To see for yourself what kind of problems can arise from the improper use of zero in mathematics study the problem below (for some reason I can't make superscripts so remember the symbol ^2 denotes a square):

start with the equation: “a=b”
next multiplying both sides by “a” gives us “a^2 =ab”
subtract “b^2” from both sides to keep it equal “a^2-b^2 =ab-b^2”
then factor “(a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b)”
now divide both sides by “a-b” “(a+b)(a-b)/a-b=b(a-b)/a-b”
giving us “a+b=b.”

If “a=b” and we make “a” equal to 1, then “b” also equals 1, but the last line of the equation states “a+b=b” or substituting 1 for “a” and “b” then 1+1=1 or 2=1. How can this be? If you go back and check all the steps there are no apparent mistakes in operation. This non-sensical answer arises when the equation “(a+b)(a-b)=b(a-b)” is divided by “a-b.” Until this particular operation is performed there are no difficulties. In fact the resolution of the problem up to that point equals an absolute value of zero. If “a=b” and both are equal to 1 then “a-b” is the same as 1-1=0 but dividing any number, even zero itself, by 0 (0/0 as is done here) is not allowed because it can lead to absurdities just like this if your not careful.

The reverse is also true. Zero divided by any number always equals zero:

0/2=0.

The fallacy here, it seems to me, is that the argument equates zero meaning "nothing" with zero meaning "no difference". In other words it is ambiguous. I could put an ounce of gold in each pan of a balance scale and it would indidcate zero meaning no difference but I would still have two ounces of gold.

Zero meaning nothing is not the same. You can not divide zero and get any answer other than zero. Half of nothing is still nothing. And since complexity seems to arise from simplicity not the other way around and this seems to be the simplest possible description of the universe (half the energy,gravity, is positive and attractive and goes this way- the other half, the force of the outward expansion, is negative and repulsive and goes the opposite way) I have no reason to assume there is any intrinsic reason for being to be found materially.

Besides even virtual particles seem to require an infusion of pre-existing energy in order to become stable and thus "real" and where did that come from? It appears for uncertainty to explain anything you must first have something to be uncertain about.

In fact the Polish mathematician Jacob Bronowski, author of the book The Ascent Of Man, found the term "uncertainty" so misleading he proposed using the word "tolerences" instead. After all that there are 36 possible outcomes on a roll of two 6 sided dice is certain it is only the actual value that comes up on any specific toss that is unpredictible. Our universe may be the same. Uncertainty may indeed have played a role in its formation and the way it turned out but where did the dice come from? Why is there uncertainty about nothing?

Now again asking how can something come from nothing? may be the wrong question. For the time being we could rephrase it and ask why is there something instead of nothing? Or what is it about nothingness that keeps it from being absolute?

If the world is logical then it is subject to the rules of logic. Terms in a sentence are qualified by the copula using a form of the words is or is not. By applying the words is not to the concept of being as a whole you will get the concept no being or nothingness. And since it applies to the whole it is absolute by definition.

Now here is where the contradiction arises. Ideas are not concrete things but that does not mean they are not something. I can distinguish between a 9 which is an odd number and a square and an 8 which is an even number and not a square. They have different properties and are therefore things in their own right as concepts. But concepts seem to require a mind to exist. That is they are contingent on an observer.

The example I use are stones and coins. I can hold 9 coins in one hand and 9 stones in the other but where is the number 9 apart from what I hold in my hand? I can sense no other property they have in common other than they are physical but changing the quantity doesn't seem to affect the physical characteristics of either group. So the number itself is not intrinsic to either group. I can understand the number 9 but I can not point to anything in nature and say this is the number 9 by itself. I can only think about it.

Nothingness is likewise a concept. After all we are thinking about it now. But if it is a concept then nothingness is not nothing. That is a paradox and in logic paradoxes can not exist. What happens when an irresistible force collides with an immovable object? An inconceivable event of course. Paradoxes must be dismissed as inconceivable and nothingness is a paradox therefore I must conclude a "state of nothingness" can not exist. Just saying "non-existence exists" is absurd. The only way to avoid a paradox is to have a state of existence instead of non-existence.

Absolute nothingness is to my mind an impossibility. Absolute means just that. Absolute. No properties at all. Not even potential. That means it can not even be thought of as there would literally be nothing to think about (and no one to think it anyway). But, again, since we are thinking about it nothingness can not be absolute. Nothingness is the only thing we can think of in completely negative terms except for the fact it can be thought of.

Also in logic things must follow or you have a non-sequiter. In the syllogism itself it is the middle term that unites the major and minor premises and leads to a conclusion. In life it is the DNA passed from one generation to the next that permits the evolution of species. And in pool it is the energy transmitted from the stick to the balls that allows the game to be played.

So, following from the definitions just established, whatever that fundemental state is it must also be a concept as that is the only thing being and nothingness have in common. That is, to be clear, the concept of nothingness exists but is self-contradictory and therefore unstable. It must collapse into a state that is stable and non-contradictory. This is not an assertion anything came from absolute nothingness which I hope to have shown I have no reason to believe is possible. And because concepts must be observed by a mind that fundemental concept must be self-referential as there is nothing else to see it. That means it can say I AM, which is the same self-referential foundation of the mind we all share, and thus hold Itself in existence. Therefore it is a self aware observer and since it is fundemantal it is prime. Therfore it is the Prime Observer.

Things happen because they can happen and they can happen because those things don't result in paradoxes and cancel out. Likewise the requirement It be completely logical also requires the "Prime Observer" to be completely neutral so as to avoid contradictions that would negate Its own existence. A perfect "God" that is both all knowing and all powerful could only create a world that is perfect because to do otherwise would be imperfect. Since the world is not perfect we may conclude that while the the "Prime Observer" is prime it is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. That is It is just an observer. Nothing more. (for a more detailed account of "God" and Its relationship with the world check this link. Dynamic Deism Fellowship & Community :: View topic - The Paradox Of Nothingness And The Case For The New Deism (http://dynamicdeism.org/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1802 - broken link) )

In that case worlds may just be an epiphenomenon that arise spontaneously for no other reason than the properties they display don't cancel out so they can be observed. Explaining how a "God" (a word I try to avoid because it is too ambiguous) with no influence on the world could "cause" that same world.

Although for the reasons just stated I see no evidence the universe could explain itself after it forms it could easily evolve guided by nothing more than its own internal dynamics. So it would look and behave as though it were fundementally material even if it isn't.

Does this match what I see in the world? Yes. Einstein showed that matter is just energy in particle form. Erwin Schrodinger then showed that particles can be manifested as a wave. Lastly Max Born showed that waves are just probability distributions which are mathematical in nature and mathematics is just the logical organization of numbers which are concepts.

Some materialists argue that numbers are just manifestations of processes in the brain we impose upon the world. But I have no reason to accept that either because it too is a circular argument. You can't just assert the brain and its processes are material in order to prove the brain and its processes are material. If the universe and the things in it are basically concept then so is the brain. The brain is an organ made of tissue built of cells composed of organelles fashioned from molecules that are conglomerations of atoms which are accumulations of particles formed of energy...

A better tactic I think would be to counter the argument by saying it must be wrong because it holds paradoxes can not exist yet we see paradoxes all around us especially in physics. For example quantum theory says particles are also waves isn't that a paradox? Maybe. Maybe not. To know for sure that was a true paradox and not an illusion that results from our limited experiance we would have to have a complete theory of everything. But we don't. So we must regard any theory that asserts anything paradoxical as incomplete which physics is. In fact there are theories that do seem to suggest wave/particle duality is an illusion (Julian Barbour's quantum state theory of the universe for instance.)

Lastly the phrase I think therefore I am is an observation. But that observation can also be put in the form of a syllogism:

I am a thinking being.
In order to think a being must exist.
Therefore I must exist.

Because self awareness seems to incorporate both experiance and reason the assertion that one can "mistake the things of logic for the logic of things" is a false dichotomy because there is no difference between them. The observer is logic manifest.

I can't remember who first said it but it is quoted all the time. Probably because it sounds profound but nobody ever says why or how anyone is making that mistake. Personally I think its just a diversion. The person throwing it out can't refute an argument so they say the other person is confused.

Asserting God as a solution to a problem is called the argument from incredulity. The trouble with it is that answer does not follow from the problem to be solved. Ancient people couldn't explain life so God must have created it. I don't think I've done that here. The conclusion that there must be a "Prime Observer" follows directly from the premises. It is not something I just threw in. In fact as I look back on it I don't see how I could come to any other reasonable conclusion"

But all this does raise one interesting question. If God exists and holds Itself in existence because It can say, "I AM" what does it mean for us since we can also say, "I AM"?
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Old 06-23-2007, 10:28 AM
 
Location: Tulsa, Ok.
3 posts, read 10,125 times
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Default The Non-creator God

One of the most common questions asked of Deists who doubt divine intervention is how can a God incapable of interferring in the world "create" that same world? The short answer is God doesn't "create" the world.

This does not mean the world is not contingent on God. I have written before why I think a Deistic God probably exists so I won't go over it again here but I will elaborate a little on why I think it unnecessary to think of God as an active "creator".

I call myself a "philosophical idealist" because I think the world is fundamentally concept. This appears to be congruent with the way quantum mechanics describes the "physical" world. Albert Einstein demonstrated that matter is just a form of energy. Then Erwin Schrodinger showed energy is manifested as a wave. Finally Max Born proved that waves are just how mathematics distributes probabilities.

If the universe is nothing more than probability waves manifested as space/time then it could "precipitate" naturally out of what I call the "Prime Observer". Utilizing a technique first developed by the French mathematician Jean Baptiste Fourier complex ideas may be produced by adding together many different frequency waves making one wave with a distinctive shape. If all possible waveforms, positive and negative, are added together the resulting “shape” would be a single flat line (not no line).

As the source of all being the Prime Observer then could be thought of as a perfectly smooth self-referential concept analogous to a sphere (remember this is just a device to help us think about something far beyond our experiance). God, then, would be the simplest possible concept but contain within It all the complexities that can ever be.

Imagine a perfect sphere. "Ripples" could emerge soley by chance on the surface of such an object simply because it is possible for them to. As long as they don't occur simultaneously and cancel out such probability waves may arise unprompted. If the crest of a wave equals its trough then there is no net difference in the overall geometry of that sphere. That is there is no change in it as a whole.

Applying this to the world we see around us we could say any combination of waveforms that don't cancel out could spontaneously emerge (as long as they are balanced) simply because that which we call "God" is aware of them. Things happen because they can happen and they can happen because those things don't result in contradiction. Thus since all possibilities are already incorporated within It God does not need to "cause" anything. As long as the chance of them occurring does not equal zero they will happen all by themselves. This has the potential of solving several problems among them:

1- It shows how God can be the source of all being and remain immutable.

2- It could explain why our universe is predominately matter by saying we could have a sister universe that is mostly anti-matter (if the world is contingent on God then God must be able to explain the physical properties of the world).

3- Why the world seems designed for life by holding all possible worlds may emerge including those that are barren and we just happen to be in one of the few that has physical laws that allow the formation of planets that can support life. Kurt Godel pointed out the philosophical difficulties of mathematical descriptions of the world based on axioms. Why these rules? Why not others? May be those questions can simply be avoided if all non-contradictory axiomatic models, manifested as universes, are possible.

4- If Deism is true why would God would abandon It's creation? The world was not "created" therefore it was not "abandoned". You can't blame the evils in the world on God.

5- If God exists then why does It exist? God exists in order to avoid the "paradox of nothingness" and holds Itself in existence because It is self referential thus allowing God to say "I AM" the same foundation of the self we all share.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the world is basically concept it must be observed and, therefore, God must exist but that is not the same as saying the universe must be "created". If that is true then there is no divine purpose to the world. It exists simply because it can. However that does not mean our lives are meaningless. Only that we are responsible for creating that meaning for ourselves.
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Old 06-23-2007, 10:42 AM
 
Location: Metro Detroit, MI
3,490 posts, read 3,198,895 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CelticLady1 View Post
Hey JerZ! I like this thread. Deism is one of those beliefs that I have also been looking into, for the last few years. I don't know if it's because of my Christian(Baptist) background, but I have a hard time with the concept of God not being involved in people's lives, but at the same time, Deism does make sense, on some level. As you said, maybe it's kind of like the elephant and the blind men! Of course, there does seem to be varying degrees of acceptance as to just how much God is involved. There is even a Christian Deism, though not overly popular or accepted, (it does seem to be contradictory). Actually, the website that you gave is one that I don't think I've seen before, (or at least, I don't remember it), so I will be looking closer at it. I have read a number of other sites. I don't accept the whole concept, obviously, but it is interesting to read about. Just another thing to put into my mental bread basket. Perhaps, in searching, this is one of those situations where, it's not the journey's end that's important, so much as the journey itself.
Ah Celticlady, I always love your posts. I pretty much have to 2nd most everything written here.

Deism is interesting to me. I think that it comes closest to what my natural logic tells me, but I can't just go off of my logic. To do so would be to discount my spiritual experiences in Christianity, which flies in the face of logic. I therefore have to conclude, based on my personal experience, that Christianity is real--or I have to deny my own Christian experience, which I can't do.

However, as I said, Deism appeals to me noggin'. It seems to make the most logical sense--unlike athiests, I feel that to say there is not a Supreme Power of some kind is illogical. Also, to say that this Supreme Power would be active in some people's lives also seems illogical to my carnal mind. IMHO, of course.

But, my faith is not based on logic.
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Old 06-23-2007, 02:52 PM
 
7,996 posts, read 12,272,809 times
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"Absolute nothingness is to my mind an impossibility. Absolute means just that. Absolute. No properties at all. Not even potential. That means it can not even be thought of as there would literally be nothing to think about (and no one to think it anyway). But, again, since we are thinking about it nothingness can not be absolute. Nothingness is the only thing we can think of in completely negative terms except for the fact it can be thought of."

--But can't "nothingness" also be experienced? What of the Buddhist who in meditation experiences "nothingness" or "no mind"? The individual's sense of self (and obviously, his/her observing ego) cease to exist. Thought ceases to exist and so does self...

Just wondering....
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Old 09-14-2008, 07:08 AM
 
Location: Southeast US
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Default Beginning the Journey

Frankly, I was unaware of what Deism was all about until a few years back when I stumbled across a description of it and was stunned to learn that its tenants, so to speak, mirrored what my thoughts on religion have been over the years! I cringe when I see football teams huddling together in prayer! Do people really believe that God is sitting up there with the time & ability to help a high school football team win a Friday night game?? I had the same reaction years ago when my husband lost his job and a very conservative & religious friend told my husband that he would pray for him to find a new job. Again, why would anyone believe that God has time to deal with my husband's job? If God has time and the ability to affect change down here, he has far, far more pressing issues to deal with.
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Old 09-14-2008, 09:36 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
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I would also say that in Deism, one see this God as not being a respecter of persons, what this God sees for one, this God sees for all. Also, this God isn't a champion for any one belief system, this God is as it is and nothing more.
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Old 09-14-2008, 01:27 PM
 
Location: Richland, Washington
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The problem with deism is that it inserts an entity which can't be empirically proven.
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Old 09-14-2008, 03:32 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Terryj View Post
I would also say that in Deism, one see this God as not being a respecter of persons, what this God sees for one, this God sees for all. Also, this God isn't a champion for any one belief system, this God is as it is and nothing more.
Interesting post, Terryj.

I think puny human minds can only scratch at the surface of some deity. And some puny minds dedicate their whole lives and every waking moment to study and contemplate the essence of Truth. If in fact there is an Almighty One, we can only grasp as far as our human potential brainy-matters allow.

That's why so many people run around like idiots proclaiming they have FOUND the truth, when on the opposite side of the "elephant", others are running around proclaiming THEY have found the true essence of this Mega-Master-Omnipotent-Being.

So when and where do they meet? Wars.

God? Meet God.

Not so! Here is God.

Nyet. Nein. No way, jose.

Surely, Deity's are chameleons! Changing shape and form for each culture. How can you define something that cannot be empirically proven?

Last edited by _redbird_; 09-14-2008 at 04:14 PM..
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Old 09-14-2008, 06:58 PM
 
Location: In the North Idaho woods, still surrounded by terriers
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I think I am a Diest...sort of...but I do not believe in a god who has a thinking, acting mind. When I say that I believe in a Source, that is my way of explaining the "god" that I believe in. Something started or created all of this...my logical mind forces me to think that...something created the Universe by using the Big Bang, but that something, to me, is simply the Source of everything...not a literal God Being. The Source is energy and intelligence and perhaps spirit, I'm not sure on that, but I am very sure that that Source does not listen to prayers or work miracles. I think we, as humans, can enact our own miracles and answer our own prayers simply by the use of our energy.
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Old 09-14-2008, 07:05 PM
 
Location: southern california
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any body of ethics needs to be studied and practiced usually in a group. without that discipline and the sounding board of our peers, we go into circumstancial ethics. which is worthless.
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