Deism, an intellectually serious position in previous centuries, now must reject scientific explanations

[bilby]

Firstly, who said it is a "god". A creator would be a creator. Computer, upper level existence, some blind set of circumstances.

You can use whatever placeholder word for Creator you like.

So you are using the word "creator" instead of "god". That does make more sense.

Well, that depends. In the context of "everything" a creator makes no sense regardless, because any creator would have to be a part of "everything", and so must either be eternal, or have sprung into existence spontaneously.

If things can spring into existence spontaneously, we need not bother to posit a creator; We can simplify by positing the spontaneous existence of matter/energy.

And if things that are eternal are real, we need not bother to posit a creator; We can simplify by positing an eternal existence of matter/energy.

If it is impossible for things to be eternal, AND it is impossible for things to spontaneously begin from nothing, then it is impossible for anything to exist - including any "creator(s)".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Firstly, who said it is a "god". A creator would be a creator. Computer, upper level existence, some blind set of circumstances.

You can use whatever placeholder word for Creator you like.

So you are using the word "creator" instead of "god". That does make more sense.

Well, that depends. In the context of "everything" a creator makes no sense regardless, because any creator would have to be a part of "everything", and so must either be eternal, or have sprung into existence spontaneously.

Naw. That'd be a "god", which is why Lion IRC went with the word creator instead. Because God typically means power, intent, dickishness. Where as a creator can be many things.

It is possible the universe has a creator and our universe is some microcosm in a much larger whateva. A creator need not encompass anything. Merely, it just needs to be a cause.

If things can spring into existence spontaneously, we need not bother to posit a creator; We can simplify by positing the spontaneous existence of matter/energy.

My argument for a while is if a deity can exist without being created, why aren't there an infinite number of deities. Seems like if existence without creation isn't a problem for god, why aren't there more of 'em? Theists only like that loophole to be used once... and for their personally selected deity.

It's cute they consider it logic.

If it is impossible for things to be eternal, AND it is impossible for things to spontaneously begin from nothing, then it is impossible for anything to exist - including any "creator(s)".

I posit our existence is impossible without a creator!

While I did a use an exclamation point, one will need to notice that my statement carries no weight in nature.

I find it comical that most people want to demand to have a satisfying conclusion regarding origins. The reality is, however, we don't know. We don't have a clue. And that's okay.

 

[bilby]

It is possible the universe has a creator and our universe is some microcosm in a much larger whateva.

Not according to my definition of universe, which is, well, universal in scope - it includes everything that exists.

 

[bilby]

I find it comical that most people want to demand to have a satisfying conclusion regarding origins. The reality is, however, we don't know. We don't have a clue. And that's okay.

It is okay not to know, but it's not true that we don't have a clue. The first law of thermodynamics is a strong hint that mass/energy is probably eternal.

 

[Jarhyn]

It is possible the universe has a creator and our universe is some microcosm in a much larger whateva.

Not according to my definition of universe, which is, well, universal in scope - it includes everything that exists.

The problem here is that this is not a sensible definition for a set, insofar as at certain ranges, existence is not observable nor meaningful, and this allows no interrogation of properties. It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change.

Rather, universe is better treated by equivalence to "closed system of change upon some field or set of fields".

In this way, we can treat the concept of closed systems of change in a sensible way particularly when we recognize that "everything we see" is actually implemented that way.

Certainly defining it with a moving goalpost that one may shift every time someone observes a wider scope means you don't have to change your definition, but again this definition just isn't useful, even if it is trite.

Until you can point to theoretical object that does not necessarily exist and class that object as a "universe", I don't think you really can be said to understand the class of "universes".

 

[bilby]

It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change

Why would that matter one iota?

 

[Jarhyn]

It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change

Why would that matter one iota?

Because THE universe in terms of "everything that exists" is not an approachable concept. NOTHING can be said of it with any kind of certitude other than "something is happening here".

It doesn't allow perspective in terms of hierarchy or systemic structure, it doesn't allow examination of anything really.

It's just a useless word at that point incapable of creating leverage upon any sort of information about it.

There's a reason mathematicians don't work around or treat "the set of all sets".

 

[abaddon]

Firstly, who said it is a "god". A creator would be a creator. Computer, upper level existence, some blind set of circumstances.

You can use whatever placeholder word for Creator you like.

Will "universe" do?

I think cosmological panpsychism is at least "barking up the right tree". It proposes that consciousness is ubiquitous throughout the matter of the universe so that the universe is in effect an evolving brain. This opens up the possibility for teleology and an explanation for fine-tuning that doesn't involve either spiritual beings or a multiverse... maybe this universe "leaned" towards the conditions where life could evolve and eventually become self-aware (thus by extension making the universe self-aware through the minds of the meta-conscious beings within itself).

Is that a "placeholder" for either "creator" or "God"?

I don't think so. It's not what I mean by suggesting the universe is a mind.

 

[stanley]

Yes, while the non-interfering, non-personal creator god of Deism was still a fallacious argument from ignorance, it was far more intellectually defensible prior to Darwin. Essentially, those like Jefferson (more importantly, Thomas Paine to whom Jefferson owes much of his progressive thinking) rejected the prevailing notions of god in religions in favor of a minimalist god who got the natural world up and running, then did a mic drop walk off. There standard argument was really just an argument from design, which is just and argument from ignorance (I can't imaging how something this complex was not designed, so it was). But Darwin and ToE more generally really exposed the problem with this argument.
They had a willingness to eschew religion at a time when it often meant social death, which it did for Paine, b/c he was the most publicly honest in his view of religion. But the penalty for full blown atheism was more severe, so they found a thin excuse to maintain some minimal form of theism, although most spent little effort trying to defend deism against the atheist alternative. Given that, it is likely that many deist, especially Paine and likely Jefferson, would have greatly leaned more and more toward atheism had they lived into the 20th century, especially given the anti-science, anti-intellectualism that became so entrenched in American theism during the Great Awakenings of the 19th and 20th centuries.

 

[steve_bank]

Deism was popular in 19th century America.

Jefferson was a Deist. He believed in a creator and thought he would be reunited with family in an afterlife. He put together a NT version minus the supernatural.

I'd call it a 'thinking man's religion'.

Deism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change

Why would that matter one iota?

Because THE universe in terms of "everything that exists" is not an approachable concept. NOTHING can be said of it with any kind of certitude other than "something is happening here".

It doesn't allow perspective in terms of hierarchy or systemic structure, it doesn't allow examination of anything really.

It's just a useless word at that point incapable of creating leverage upon any sort of information about it.

There's a reason mathematicians don't work around or treat "the set of all sets".

"hierarchy" and "systemic structure" and "perspective" are meaningless concepts, only given any meaning by humans. The universe is beyond the concept of sets, as Godel proved that set concept has limitations of validity.

 

[Jarhyn]

It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change

Why would that matter one iota?

Because THE universe in terms of "everything that exists" is not an approachable concept. NOTHING can be said of it with any kind of certitude other than "something is happening here".

It doesn't allow perspective in terms of hierarchy or systemic structure, it doesn't allow examination of anything really.

It's just a useless word at that point incapable of creating leverage upon any sort of information about it.

There's a reason mathematicians don't work around or treat "the set of all sets".

"hierarchy" and "systemic structure" and "perspective" are meaningless concepts, only given any meaning by humans. The universe is beyond the concept of sets, as Godel proved that set concept has limitations of validity.

Incompleteness is not itself a limit of validity, only a limit of being able to positively declare "such is all".

Systems have structure. If they didn't we could lt build a system with a particular structure such that it exhibited a consistent behavior, and computer science wouldn't be a thing at all.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

It might be "true" but it doesn't allow generalization of the sort that lets someone design a similar system of change

Why would that matter one iota?

Because THE universe in terms of "everything that exists" is not an approachable concept. NOTHING can be said of it with any kind of certitude other than "something is happening here".

It doesn't allow perspective in terms of hierarchy or systemic structure, it doesn't allow examination of anything really.

It's just a useless word at that point incapable of creating leverage upon any sort of information about it.

There's a reason mathematicians don't work around or treat "the set of all sets".

"hierarchy" and "systemic structure" and "perspective" are meaningless concepts, only given any meaning by humans. The universe is beyond the concept of sets, as Godel proved that set concept has limitations of validity.

Incompleteness is not itself a limit of validity, only a limit of being able to positively declare "such is all".

Systems have structure. If they didn't we could lt build a system with a particular structure such that it exhibited a consistent behavior, and computer science wouldn't be a thing at all.

The universe is a physical reality, whereas sets are mathematical abstractions. Systems are not things that can build the universe, but part of the universe. Computer science is a human invention, and the only sense that it is linked to the universe is that the universe has the property of emergence that leads to the creation of life and the products of life.
Furthermore there is no such thing as a physical "set". But what about this set of three apples or this cutlery set? Collections of physical objects to which the word set has been applied, but set has many meanings and the abstract mathematical concept of set is not being applied to these physical items.

 

[stanley]

Deism was popular in 19th century America.

Jefferson was a Deist. He believed in a creator and thought he would be reunited with family in an afterlife. He put together a NT version minus the supernatural.

I'd call it a 'thinking man's religion'.

Deism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

200+ years ago it was "a thinking man's religion". Today, it is for people who have not thought about any knowledge/science of the past 200 years.

 

[Swammerdami]

Perhaps because I have "pseudo-deism" as my Basic Belief I feel obligated to address this topic! Or rather, to address some of the EASIEST parts.

First, discard any notion of Time as intrinsic to the universe or its creation. The Universe does not exist in Space; Space is just useful in describing our universe. Treat Time the same. If some "Deity" created our universe, he did it all-at-once in a realm beyond our concept of time.

Do not focus on The Big Bang or what came "before it." For decades, "Big Bang" was just short-hand for "Our models cannot shed light on the first fraction of a second", but cosmologists are now starting to move beyond that. Did the universe "begin" in a singularity? Or is it some sort of endless cycle? It is fascinating that cosmologists may finally be able to guess answers to these questions, but I'm not sure it affects our notions of Creation or Deism.

The claim that the universe could not have arisen out of nothing is also confused. The claim that the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy prevents this may be irrelevant. But interestingly, it might be refuted by the concept of  Zero-energy universe developed by Richard Feynman and others.

During World War II, Pascual Jordan first suggested that since the positive energy of a star's mass and the negative energy of its gravitational field together may have zero total energy, conservation of energy would not prevent a star being created by a quantum transition of the vacuum. George Gamow recounted putting this idea to Albert Einstein: "Einstein stopped in his tracks and, since we were crossing a street, several cars had to stop to avoid running us down"

But even if we decide that we are just part of a multiverse, or some multitude of multiverses, that just pushes the problem back a level.

The premier mystery of physics -- so mysterious that it is usually completely ignored! -- is Time's Arrow. Why do the past and present affect the future, but not vice versa? Or DOES the future exert some cause-effect influence over the past and present? Mystery. To paraphrase the woman who thought the universe rested on the back of an elephant, it's mysteries all the way down.

So: Can or should we believe in a Deity who can guide our spirit? Is there a Plan? Was Leibniz right after all?

I have no answers to these questions. I post just to reject some of the superficial arguments.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

To say that something "began" is kinda vague, doncha think? The whole "began" thing is really just a step around the stupidity of intelligent design which says that complexity can't happen unless magic is involved, the magic being some kind of god thing if one is religious. How complex must one of these magic god things be? Yet religious crazies say it just happens to exist. Brilliant in its unvarnished and unrecognized contradiction.

If I'm deist or theist or in some way hold that gods or creators are necessary the simple fact is that I must believe in magic, and that magic is necessary in order to have a universe. And that means I'm not thinking very well about what I'm saying because I'm a walking contradiction. I might as well just come out and admit that I believe in magic, and that it takes magic to make anything real.

 

[bilby]

How complex must one of these magic god things be?

Infinitely.

The "debate" between creationism and science is, at its root, a disagreement about whether reality started out very, very simple, and then got more and more complex by the repeated application of simple "rules"; Or whether complex things can only arise by the deliberate actions of something even more complex, so that reality started out infinitely complex, and then deliberately manufactured a bunch of simpler things.

The problem with the latter is that it's batshit crazy; It declares that complex items cannot exist without a more complex creator, and then utterly fails to notice that this is the antithesis of an explaination.

If you don't know how a complex system arose, you can either find a less complex precursor, and then re-iterate the reduction in complexity until you find something so simple that it is unremarkable that it could arise spontaneously ex nihilo*; Or you can find a more complex precursor, and then re-iterate the increase in complexity until you arrive at something too complex for you to fully comprehend, and then declare ex ano** that that incomprehensibly complex system existed eternally. Oh, but it is invisible and undetectable. So don't ask me for any evidence that it exists. But you will be wanting to worship it, and to give it ten percent of your income. Oh, don't worry, I will take the cash on your behalf and pass it on...







* Latin: ex nihilo, "From nothing"
** Latin: ex ano, "From the anus"