Deist Intelligent Design

Glad you accepted my invitation. Your quotes are indented and in italics (saddly, no quote function on this forum):

...and that we would somehow be able to conceive this possibility of
a deity being without ideas from theism as a base for the idea.

I might argue this from some personal experience.  I was raised in an agnostic and strongly anti-religious house.  Most of my friends and family are atheists.  I don't personally know any deists (though I'm married to a pantheist).  If atheism were the natural default, I should have turned out that way.

...Since you don't believe God is personal, and that nature or complexity acts as
a evidence of God, why credit God for intentionally creating life?

For any creation to have meaning, it must have a life of its own.

OK, I can't prove this, as it's a subjective assertion, but on some level, I think we can understand this.  Whether its art or engineering, the quality is usually inversely proportional to how much the creator needs to be involved to make it work.  This is why, for example, performance art quickly died out as a fad.  What's the point of someone doing bizare things on a stage?  Better to have a piece of music or a play that can be re-performed by other musicians and actors.  Better still, have that art continue to grow with their new interpretations.  A creation must be appreciated, duplicated and carried on by other independent minds.

Is it just as possible that there are two Gods? Three? A thousand? A million?

The universe is a supernaturally tranquil place with one set of laws that govern it, a contra-indication for a polytheistic universe (which, btw, Christianity and Islam are since they also include a devil).

...How can we know anything about any impersonal deity (assuming
there is something to know and it's possible for us to perceive or even
glimpse), its role, its limitations or lack thereof, its interests or lack thereof,
personality or lack thereof, and if such a thing even has a meaningful
definition of "God"?

I define God as the mysterious First Cause of the natural universe.  My take on deism is agnosticism with regard to the rest.

And by that I mean, if "God" would turn out to be
(yeah, don't ask me how, but hypothetically) just the laws of nature
and physics, how could it be labeled as "God" (with any real
definition)?

Scientific pantheists have no problem with this definition.

Disclaimer: Ask five other deists these questions and you'll probably get five different sets of answers.

EDIT TO ADD: I cringe that the author of deism.com used the words "Intelligent Design" with deism.  I've said before that ID is Christian Creationism masquarading as deism.  I think it's a mistake to offer any legitimacy to this anti-evolutionary ideology.

I don't claim there is no God. Atheism to me isn't the question, "IS there a God?". Atheism is "Do you believe in God or a supernatural deity?" And my answer is, "Based on the lack of evidence of that specific claim, I see no reason to believe such a thing." If God is the natural spark at the beginning of existence then how is it supernatural? If it's impersonal, only evident in nature, and lacking supernatural attributes, how is it even described as God? If "God" (word redefined to be nature) is just the natural laws of the universe, and that's deism, even atheists are deists, but that's not the case.

To me, Agnostics (when used incorrectly as a middle ground term) for the most part aren't actually answering the question, but more of making their own question nobody asked and and answering that. When I ask you if you believe you exist, and you answer that we can't know if we exist, that doesn't answer the question I asked. Atheists, or at least any intelligent ones, don't claim absolute knowledge about or against the existence of a being that may be described as God and do not make the claim that there is no God, however they don't personally believe in a deity. This isn't agnostic, it's atheist, non-theist, a lack of belief in deities.

However, Deism makes the leap of "faith" ("faith" by a standard dictionary definition to avoid a semantic argument) and proclaims that they do believe in a God. Their evidence is ironically nature and natural laws, while "God" by any meaningful definition implies supernatural. If God is entirely natural, impersonal, and lacks any characteristics attributed to a God Being, why call it "God"? Well that doesn't really mean anything to redefine the word God to mean nature or natural causes, it's just a semantics argument that I'm not even going to entertain.

If it's purely a belief, fine.

But God, by any meaningful definition, lacks evidence and is justifiably doubted by atheists.
The misconception agnostics have is that being agnostic and atheist is mutually exclusive, it's not.
But I don't claim to be agnostic, that in itself makes a claim that I don't agree with.
Agnostic means "metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, ghosts, or even ultimate reality are unknown" and "cannot obtain absolute certainty".
Is a red apple red? Yes. Define absolute certainty and tell me if it has a practical definition in reality.
Do you think you exist? Yes. (insert argument of infinite regress).
Even though infinite regression is logically sound, it has no application. We live as if we exist.
Regardless, it avoids the -actual- question with any practical meaning, do you personally believe in a deity?
Going off on our ability to know anything doesn't mean you've answered the question proposed.
If you don't believe in a god then you're an atheist, and if you haven't decided then you're an implicit atheist as everyone is born an implicit atheist having no thought as to the existence of deities.

"Those who have not thought about the existence of deities, let alone decided against it, are de facto (implicit) atheists"

Deism, however, is harder to get any agreement on.
You start with a claim of belief in the existence of an easily redefined term with infinite possibilities, "God".

http://www.deism.com/deism_defined.htm
"Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation."
God, solely defined as a singular universal creative force supported by personal observation of laws and designs of nature, doesn't seem to portray "God" as any sort of being. Nature is nature. Personal observation is what we get through our senses and process with our mind, and we can accredit that to nature without trying to redefine "God" to mean nature.

This is just my personal opinion, but I see deism far more lightly, it doesn't impose it's beliefs or tell people what to think or anything that theism does. That's a major plus to me, though it's still holding onto a term that seems to have lost meaning. The problem is that it still seems to desperately hold onto the word "God", no matter how many times "God" has to be redefined to mean natural occurrences of an impersonal (unprovable being or) force of existence. I personally think it's more rational to say I don't know 100% but I don't believe in the claim of a God (by any meaningful definition) due to the lack of evidence.

Looking for God in nature seems like a wild goose chase. Look at a tree. 100 different cultures will tell you 100000 different things about a tree, some supernatural and some natural or a combination. It's not meaningful. What is profound about all of it is that human perception of nature is suppose to be our evidence, so aren't we in essence creating our own god? Deism seems to mix nature and the supernatural at a whim, otherwise you'd probably just have a broad philosophy about the gifts of nature rather than a belief in the existance of something supernatural.

In short, nature is not supernatural, therefore it doesn't need God.

I'm not starting an argument on my behalf  - been there, done that. My experience has been that atheists, bless their tenacity, are the fighting dogs of freethought, latching on at the throat and not letting go until some Michael Vick steps in with a hose. I admire this ballsy quality of thought, but I'm the give-peace-a-chance type. I'm just here to share a few thoughts, and that's it. Anyone is free to take my thoughts and argue until Armageddon if they wish.

I'm a pandeist, twin sibling of pantheism in the sense there are only slight differences, at least in my case. The definitions of pandeism you'll find on the Web state God made the Universe and then became one with it. This is fine with me, but I don't believe it. I use the term "pandeism" because the Universe has, to a degree, the aloof, indifferent qualities that deism ascribes to God, even though I believe (as atheists do) that the Universe is our real creator.

This brings up, IMO, something important: the nature of freethought religion is inherently abstract and, well, free in many cases. It's like trying to herd pagans. It's not easy to pigeon-hole non-atheistic freethought into nice, neat categories. Such thought is abstract and personal, perhaps why many people are afraid of it and avoid it. They need four solid walls and a roof.

To me, and to many pantheists, God is a metaphorical expression of the emotional joys and fears we feel when contemplating the Universe. Why use "God"? Well, I ask, why invent a new word when "God" works just fine? After all, if you study the history of God, you'll find humans have been doing this for at least several thousand years. You'd see that God is a most likely a projection of human emotion onto the cosmos. "God" works just fine in speaking to this aspect of the human mind. It's not logical - quite frankly, fuck logic. It doesn't work in this case. For me, the term "Universe" comes into play when focusing on its concrete, rational components. It doesn't cover the emotional human side.

(And in fact, why use Universe? It's not a thing. It's the totality of its parts, not a thing in itself.)

May the Force be with you.

NKHart

Atheists from what I have seen tend to be "fighting dogs" because we want to clarify truth as best as we can understand, not to share any personal feels of reality that we can't back up convincingly. The term "God" has no use when it has to be redefined beyond a useful meaning, it distracts from the subject being discussed. This is why I hate semantic debates, people are arguing over words rather than trying to share thoughts on the whole of the ideas being presented and convincing arguments to support those ideas. For me, it's not enough to believe without a good reason, since being a Christian for so many years I felt (and was also taught, as part of the doctrine) I had to not only believe for myself but be able to answer and convince those who didn't believe as I did. As an atheist, I'm not as concerned if people believe me or not, it's satisfying enough for me to know I was able to introduce an interesting point that people might think about later. I do have insistant tendancies to debate and not only share ideas but to do it in a way that is intended to convince rather than just present an idea and let it stand as-is. I'm not like this with all things, and if I don't have a strong enough opinion, I'll avoid talking about it entirely until I feel very confident in that I think I know what I'm talking about. In my opinion, it's of no benefit to discuss semantics of non-existant (as far as we know) supernatural/mythological beings, whether that be God or lepricons or ghosts. So the question of the number of impersonal "gods" in deism only being one depends on the definition of "god", which isn't a definition I want to discuss. It becomes an "I define this word as this..." discussion, and to me that's just not a practical argument when it comes to redefining words and a whim.

In short, I like to use the dictionary when there is a dispute over the meaning of words. Clarification of the intended use of the word is fine, but word redifinition in a discussion is just a word game, not a meaningful debate about ideas. Again, an opinion, but deism seems like a deserpate last straw the mind has on a belief in a god, regardless of what god is defined as or does or did or is doing, if anything. I don't really see a reason for it as far as a "belief", but the idea is entertaining, certainly. I don't think it's something I could see as believing more than just as a hope though. That sort of sums it up, it's not quite as neatly fit into the category of "faith", but "hope" seems to be the best word as far as I can tell.

If you want to say you believe in leprechauns and say they exist, but then redefine "leprechauns" to "short Irish men", no one is going to disagree with you. If you start saying some short Irish men have pots of gold at the end of rainbows, then you'll get disagreements. I see this as the same argument for a deist version of God when a definition of god has to be presented. You can get agreement on the word "god" only with the redefinition beyond a useful meaning, but as soon as you start proposing impossible/supernatural miracles/capabilities that couldn't naturally/plausibly happen, then you get disagreements. This only happens when these types of claims are asserted out of nowhere, and no decent basis for the claims.

And getting back to the "one" god deist idea. Just looking at this from a different angle, two makes a lot more sense. Two genders. For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. Light and dark. Good and evil. Right and wrong. Law and Chaos. This goes to the idea of yin and yang ("used to describe how seemingly disjunct or opposing forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, giving rise to each other in turn"). Balance.

Or maybe even three:

"Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the maintainer or preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer or transformer."

Or maybe even four:

Earth, Fire, Wind, Water

Or maybe five:

+Spirit

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

So in the end, you have no more basis to claim one than anyone else has to claim two or three or four or five... or thousands. And it could be none, as far as a useful definition of god.
And I think Evolution kind of kills the idea that humans are special in any way compared to any other form of life, sentient or not.

Here's an interesting thought, maybe god is more interested in roaches, they're suppose to be able to survive our nuclear Holocaust doomsday scenario. Maybe we're only here to kill off everything else because roaches are far more meaningful to god. It makes about as much sense as looking at humans on the universal timeline and claiming a god cares about us. From the descriptions of the deist god, he's about as personal as a roach, hiding whenever you try to shine a light on him.

<< I'm curious Zairik as to who you think is trying to play semantic games
with the definition of God?  I'm using the most basic one there is, the
First Cause of the natural universe. >>

As is typical in philosophical discussions, Atheists begin with a demand for a precise definition of an undefinable deity. And they are not satisfied with the typical, evasive-sounding, Deist answer. But I'm afraid that's the best we can do. "The First Cause" is a job description, not a personality profile. Anything specific we say about our inferred deity will always be an argument from ignorance. For me, as an Agnostic Deist, that is a situation I have learned to live with. But I then turn my attention to finding more and more specific (scientific) definitions of the tangible fruits of that original causation.

Here's a related comment from a post on another fourm:

The power of the Deist concept lies in its generality, but that is also its weakness. An indefinable deity, with no specific revelation, can be pictured in any form that appeals to the believer. Unlike the book religions, that essential divine formlessness allows Deists to tailor their religious beliefs and practices to suit their own personal needs and preferences.

As Lykos points out, generic Deism can be expressed in the form of Animism, Paganism, Pandeism, Panendeism, and almost any other non-scriptural belief system. This openness and flexibility has the virtue of being very modern and multi-cultural, but unfortunately it is also ambiguous and wishy-washy.

Disclaimer: Some of this is probably insulting, but it's entirely unintentional.

Fine, if first cause is basically all that can be said, there's no real point in arguing it.
However, I don't define that as god, and I see using that word at all as bizzare and misleading.
I don't really care to argue the point any longer since it's getting nowhere.

I'd argue that a "God" didn't "gift" humanity anything, there's no reason to be invoking a deity explanation for something that can be explained simple enough otherwise.  And if he likes humans more than other creatures, you're describing a god who "gifted" over 99% of all species their extinction during the process.  And what exactly was their purpose? Just a stepping stone for us?  This all seems a lot less like a well-formed series of events to "gift" a specific species, and more like basic evolution 101. Trying to invoke a deity to explain things involving evolution and humanity seems like a lean towards personal feelings or hopes. Really it just seems like an attempt at equating personal hopes of a supreme creating force or being in the universe with the objective look at our existence with things we can prove without appealing to hopes and feelings.  And if that's not enough, there's this idea of claiming natural occurrences ARE god, so there's no way this is falsifiable. It's just locking yourself into a safe mental corner of hopefulness.  How is this being a free thinker?

"Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that beliefs should be formed on the basis of reason and logic applied to evidence, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or any other dogma."

Where does a deist fit into this exactly?

"Anything specific we say about our inferred deity will always be an argument from ignorance. For me, as an Agnostic Deist, that is a situation I have learned to live with. But I then turn my attention to finding more and more specific (scientific) definitions of the tangible fruits of that original causation."

So you're basically saying that as soon as you learn of a more scientific explanation for the origin of everything, you're going to label that god too, regardless? To be honest, I don't even think I care to continue the conversation anymore. I'm thoroughly frustrated with the deist rationalization of belief in a deity after so much effort has been put into considering everything else we know and ideas we reject and the basis for that rejection.

http://www.deism.com/deism_vs.htm

"Deism teaches that
the Creator is knowable and discoverable through the creation itself. It
is very understandable how people could be turned off by man-made
religions and superstitions with their bombings and financial
beg-a-thons, and confuse artificial or revealed religion with God.
However, the atheist attitude of accepting things simply as not knowable
is dangerous to the progress of humanity."

First, theism/atheism isn't a claim of knowing or not knowing absolutely, it's a claim of belief or lack thereof.
Gnostic and Agnostic go to what we know.
Second, this is the same damn argument I've heard a thousand times for Intelligent Design.
I can't even bring myself to type or even copy and paste the same crap again from the ID argument.

The foundation of the argument is flawed, it's based on an assumption that a god has to exist because things are complex, that's ID in a nutshell.  Complex, "omg I can't imagine how this could happen without a deity, therefore one exists based on 'creation' as evidence for a 'creator' of some kind".  Take out the random injection of doctrine for a specific deity at the end, and you've got the same argument.