Deism

[Freethinker43]

I believe in God and I believe that God works through nature, specifically through evolution and the Big Bang Theory. I believe that we serve each other best when we use our God- given reason. I believe that the philosophy of Deism is the most practicable one today. Here's a link for those interested in exploring deistic tenets: http://www.deism.com/index.html.

[American Deist]

We understand that organic material is indeed constructed of inorganic material. It's all the same atoms, just arranged differently. In fact, we are the ones who created the labels "Organic" and "Inorganic". And it's not always clear precisely when these labels should be applied. The line between organic and inorganic material is not well-defined in nature.

I especially like this vague answer. Science has yet to figure out how nonliving matter (think rock) can spawn living matter. What would cause things that are inanimate and "dead" to aggregate and undergo some type of chemical change in order to produce life? Light from a star? Nuclear fusion? Gravity? The only thing the scientific community has are some theories, but using those theories they can't replicate life from nonliving material.

What they don't understand is that nature seems to have an intelligence unto itself. Nature causes creatures to evolve, it drives weather cycles, grows vegetation, and includes the water cycle. The natural system is very complex, and to think that it came from randomness and has no purpose, "is just silly." God defined the laws of nature long ago, and it is under that providence that natural phenomenon happen.

[Divine Insight]

That does not disprove the philosophy of deism. Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins refuses to debate deists because he knows he can't win that debate. He has even stated that, "***IF*** there is a God, it would most likely be the God of deism."

He won't debate deists for the same reason he won't debate people who believe in fairies, the boogeyman, or that we can't prove there isn't a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars.

This doesn't give deism any credibility. He only means to demonstrated that an ill-defined God cannot be disproved. After all, how can you disprove something that cannot be shown to exist and has been claimed to never intervene with reality?

By the way, you are not arguing for deism anyway since you are arguing that there is an intelligence that is somehow intervening in the universe magically changing non-living things into living things.

Keep in mind that if you want a totally non-intervening God then you need to have a universe that can evolve into living things from nonliving things.

So you already have a contradictory position.

[American Deist]

By the way, you are not arguing for deism anyway since you are arguing that there is an intelligence that is somehow intervening in the universe magically changing non-living things into living things.

Keep in mind that if you want a totally non-intervening God then you need to have a universe that can evolve into living things from nonliving things.

So you already have a contradictory position.

Nah, that's what is meant by God created the laws of nature and set everything in motion. That is deism 101.

[Divine Insight]

We understand that organic material is indeed constructed of inorganic material. It's all the same atoms, just arranged differently. In fact, we are the ones who created the labels "Organic" and "Inorganic". And it's not always clear precisely when these labels should be applied. The line between organic and inorganic material is not well-defined in nature.

I especially like this vague answer. Science has yet to figure out how nonliving matter (think rock) can spawn living matter.

They actually do have this figured out to some degree. Especially in terms of inorganic molecules evolving to become organic molecules which was your original complaint. They just don't yet have the precise details of how this continues to evolve into a more complex biological machine. But there's no reason to think that they won't eventually answer all these questions. At this point all you are doing is proposing a "God of the Gaps". Plus you need an INTERVENING God for your argument which would NOT be deism. Remember? A deistic God doesn't intervene.

What would cause things that are inanimate and "dead" to aggregate and undergo some type of chemical change in order to produce life?

Thus far we don't even have a well-defined line between things that are "dead" and things that are "alive". That definition itself is a man-made construct.

Light from a star? Nuclear fusion? Gravity? The only thing the scientific community has are some theories, but using those theories they can't replicate life from nonliving material.

They understand light, nuclear fusion and gravity quite well. And they have technologies to prove that their understanding is more than just a guess. In short, their "theories" on light, nuclear fusion, and gravity, cannot be wrong. They could potentially be further refined however, but that's not the same as being wrong.

What they don't understand is that nature seems to have an intelligence unto itself. Nature causes creatures to evolve, it drives weather cycles, grows vegetation, and includes the water cycle. The natural system is very complex, and to think that it came from randomness and has no purpose, "is just silly." God defined the laws of nature long ago, and it is under that providence that natural phenomenon happen.

No one is saying that it came from randomness.

I've already addressed this before. Just because something isn't random doesn't mean there needs to be an intelligence behind it. Also there are many things that actually are somewhat random but don't appear to be random because they are highly ordered. The crystalline structure of snowflakes is a perfect example. There are so many different ways that water molecules can form into crystals so in that sense any given snowflake is a "random" crystal, yet the flakes themselves appear to be very well-structured and not random at all. This is because of the underlying structure of the molecules that seed these growing crystals. So here we have an example of both randomness and primal structure operating at the very same time.

There is no "intelligence" required behind the process of making snowflake crystals. Yet, by your argument. there must be a "Snow Flake God" because snow flakes don't appear to be random.

Also, if there exists a Snow Flake God, that God cannot be a deistic God because it would need to intervene in the creation of every snowflake.

This is really no different from your argument that a non-intervening God is required to intervene in order to create life.

You may as well abandon deism entirely and start worshiping Yahweh, Zeus or Jesus, because in the end you need a God who can intervene in order to save your arguments. Deism doesn't support your argument that a God needs to intervene.

[Divine Insight]

By the way, you are not arguing for deism anyway since you are arguing that there is an intelligence that is somehow intervening in the universe magically changing non-living things into living things.

Keep in mind that if you want a totally non-intervening God then you need to have a universe that can evolve into living things from nonliving things.

So you already have a contradictory position.

Nah, that's what is meant by God created the laws of nature and set everything in motion. That is deism 101.

But if you allow for this, then your argument that life cannot arise from non-living matter fails. What you have just described would require that your deistic God created a universe that CAN indeed evolved from non-living things into living things.

So you need to stop and re-think your entire paradigm.

You're trying to argue AGAINST science whilst simultaneously trying to claim that your views on deism don't conflict with science. That's an oxymoron.

[Divine Insight]

By the way, you are not arguing for deism anyway since you are arguing that there is an intelligence that is somehow intervening in the universe magically changing non-living things into living things.

Keep in mind that if you want a totally non-intervening God then you need to have a universe that can evolve into living things from nonliving things.

So you already have a contradictory position.

Nah, that's what is meant by God created the laws of nature and set everything in motion. That is deism 101.

But if you allow for this, then your argument that life cannot arise from non-living matter fails. What you have just described would require that your deistic God created a universe that CAN indeed evolved from non-living things into living things.

So you need to stop and re-think your entire paradigm.

You're trying to argue AGAINST science whilst simultaneously trying to claim that your views on deism don't conflict with science. That's an oxymoron.

Let me expand on my above comments:

If you claim that there exists a God who had created the universe at the Big Bang and did not stick around to baby-sit the universe nudging it along by constant intervention, then the resulting universe could not be distinguished from a purely secular naturalism paradigm. Everything we observe, including the evolution of life from non-living matter would not only be correct, but we should also be able to explain precisely how this unfolds using the scientific method.

In short, if deism is true, this universe should in indistinguishable from a universe of purely secular naturalism.

But you are arguing that a baby-sitting God was indeed required to intervene in order to create life in an otherwise lifeless universe. But that wouldn't be deism. You would need something like Zeus, Yahweh, Jesus, or some other intervening God for that argument.

[American Deist]

[Replying to post 26 by Divine Insight]

Nope. You don't understand deism at all. I hate to use it, but deism is often defined by the watchmaker analogy. God created the universe (watch), made the laws of nature and set in all motion (the watch hands move without God's help). The watch can chime an alarm, keep up with the date, have built-in functions, etc. That is all by design.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 26 by Divine Insight]

Nope. You don't understand deism at all. I hate to use it, but deism is often defined by the watchmaker analogy. God created the universe (watch), made the laws of nature and set in all motion (the watch hands move without God's help). The watch can chime an alarm, keep up with the date, have built-in functions, etc. That is all by design.

What?

Isn't that precisely what I just got done saying?

If what you have described above is the paradigm that you are supporting, then you have no choice but to also support that the evolution of non-living matter into living matter would be a perfectly natural process just as science suggests, because according to your "watchmaker analogy" the universe would have been designed to do precisely that from the get go.

Not only this, but then scientists observing the mechanics of this clockwork universe should indeed be able to discover precisely how this process works.

So you are arguing for a "theism" called "deism" that would be totally indistinguishable from a purely secular naturalistic world. You are arguing for an imaginary "Watchmaker God" who has absolutely no need to intervene in the ticking of the watch.

How could that be distinguished from a purely secular naturalistic worldview?

If you're going to take that view, then you need to also support the idea that life can indeed emerge naturally from what appears to be a non-living clockwork universe. Precisely the same worldview as secular naturalism.

The only difference is that you suggest that there must have been a watchmaker, where the secular naturalists argue that it's not evident that a watchmaker was needed.

So that would be the argument you would need to make with the secular naturalists. You need to argue why you think a watchmaker would be absolutely required. And that's a very difficult argument to make. It's been tried many times over without any compelling success.

You can't argue that evolution needed to be helped along by your deistic God because that would violate your claim that your deistic God doesn't intervene with the workings of the watch once the watch was wound up.

So you are being inconsistent. Not me. If you're going to claim deism, then you can't argue against the evolution of life via natural processes.

[American Deist]

[Replying to post 28 by Divine Insight]

Apparently you don't understand theism either.

Theism is the belief in God and that you can have a personal relationship with God. That divine revelation and intervention happens, miracles are performed, etc. Deism rejects those beliefs because of free will.

The watchmaker analogy has nothing to do with a God that is interacting and making things happen in the here and now.

[Divine Insight]

The watchmaker analogy has nothing to do with a God that is interacting and making things happen in the here and now.

Exactly my point.

So why then are you rejecting the secular scientific idea that living organisms have evolved from non-living chemical building blocks?

That was one of your original arguments against the secular naturalistic view, remember?

From your post #21:

Science has yet to figure out how nonliving matter (think rock) can spawn living matter. What would cause things that are inanimate and "dead" to aggregate and undergo some type of chemical change in order to produce life? Light from a star? Nuclear fusion? Gravity? The only thing the scientific community has are some theories, but using those theories they can't replicate life from nonliving material.

Why would it be important that science has yet to figure this out? If deism is true as you would like to believe then life must be naturally able to evolve from inanimate things. So your objections to science aren't making any sense here.

If you are a deist then you should expect that science will eventually be able to explain precisely how life can evolve in this universe since this is how a deistic God would have necessarily had to have designed this universe to behave. This also means that once scientists do figure this out they too then should be able to create life in the lab at will since they will then have the knowledge of how it's done.

So it's your own objections that seem to be in contradiction to deism.

If deism is true then there should be no way to tell our universe apart from a purely secular materialistic universe. The scientific method should continue to work all the way back to the Big Bang. Prior to that perhaps the scientific method will not be able to say anything further, but everything from that point forward should be identical to a purely secular naturalistic universe.

So why should it make any difference whether scientists have figured out precisely how abiogenesis works yet? If deism is true, they should be able to do that eventually. Right?