What about deism? (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, June 19, 2008, 15:11 (6000 days ago) @ Cary Cook

I wrote: "Once you are free from the scientific faith of atheism and the dogma of religion, you can pick any scenario you like, because they are all equally possible/impossible." Cary disagrees that they are equally impossible. - Either God exists/existed, or he doesn't/didn't. - 1) If he doesn't, the astonishingly complex mechanisms of the universe and of life must have come about by chance. The odds against this happening are astronomically high ... so high as to be out of sight. I can't believe it. And every religion and every account relating to an afterlife is based on lies or self-delusion. I can't believe it. - 2) If God exists, he is a supreme intelligence which has always been there or magically sprang from nothing and nowhere. I can't believe it. - But one of these unbelievables is true. If 2) is true, we can mess about with hundreds of different possibilities (as offered by the different religions, theories and philosophies), but since they are all based on an unbelievable premise, they are all equally unbelievable. Perhaps "unbelievable" is a better term than "impossible", although in both cases I'd have to add "for me". Of these impossible possibilities, which seems probable? You are betting on a just God. I'm not a gambling man. - As regards deism, you write that if you had created the universe, "the rules...would depend on the end results I wanted". This presupposes that God wants results, whereas one deist scenario that I have suggested is that the whole thing has to be unpredictable because it's for his entertainment (which I suppose does constitute a result), and this might leave us and our fellow creatures to make our own rules, apart from the practical ones of nature (gravity etc.). If we blow ourselves up with our cleverness, that will all be part of the show. As I said before, no need for justice, an afterlife, reward or punishment. - You think that the biggest motivator of all religionists is fear, with culture the second biggest influence. I hope we will get some feedback on this from some "religionists". - The Agnostic's Exit Strategy: please give me time to think about that.