Why is no God more likely than a Deist one?
Sometimes I have trouble refuting this Deist God idea. Deists often say that God has always existed and is not subject to time.
Posted: April 20th 2010
Eric_PK
Sure, it’s possible. But I don’t understand why it’s an interesting question to discuss.
A universe that was created by a god and then just left to run on its own is indistinguishable from one that was created in some other manner.
At which point I ask, “What are the characteristics of this god and how do you know that?”
Or, how do you know that it wasn’t the “Great Green Arkleseizure”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_characters_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Great_Green_Arkleseizure
Deism used to be fairly common, but has melted away with the discoveries of modern physics and cosmology. As a belief, it doesn’t really do anything.
Posted: April 22nd 2010
Paula Kirby www
Sure, it’s possible. There’s just absolutely no evidence to suggest it’s true. All kinds of things are possible, but that doesn’t mean we should believe them just in case. It’s possible that there’s a crocodile lurking under my bed this morning, but since I cannot smell or hear a crocodile, and since my dog is still in the room, unharmed and unperturbed, and since there’s no obvious way a crocodile could have walked into my house without my noticing, I would not be justified in either remaining in bed all day for fear of this possible crocodile, or in calling the emergency services to come and remove it for me.
The whole point is that there a million things that are technically possible, but we are not justified in actually believing them to be true unless there is some evidence that actively points towards that. Atheism is the refusal to hold a belief which, though not disprovable, is not supported by any evidence whatsoever.
The deist god you describe would not in any case, by definition, care one jot whether you believed in it or not. An uninvolved, non-personal god would not answer prayer or offer comfort, care about our morals or provide any kind of afterlife – and certainly not one divided into heaven or hell, since it would not have been involved enough to notice which of us should go to which. So it could hardly matter to us much whether it existed or not.
Besides, where would any such god have come from? You’re right, many people SAY that any god would have been uncreated and outside time, but now you’re back at our original crocodile-under-bed problem: people can SAY anything they like, but unless they can point to some evidence that supports their claims, then there is no reason to actually believe them. Everything we know about how complex beings arise tells us they evolve from simpler beings, over vast periods of time. (And a god capable of creating a universe complete with the laws of physics would be an extremely complex being indeed.) Yet these people want us to believe that a god whose existence cannot even be demonstrated, never came into being but always just existed. In what way exactly does this differ from guesswork? How can they possibly know such a thing? What objective evidence can they point to that supports their claim? And in the wholesale absence of anything whatsoever that might objectively justify such a claim, why on earth should we believe it to be true?
Posted: April 22nd 2010
Eshu www
Yes, it’s quite possible. The thing which makes atheism a better explanation is only “Occam’s Razor”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ockham%27s_razor.
It’s worth asking deists how they know that their beliefs are true. Perhaps they will admit that it’s faith or guesswork, in which case one guess is no better than another. Also as such a deity is said not to intervene in the universe today, deism can have no consequences for anyone’s lives and so is irrelevant and of academic interest only.
Posted: April 22nd 2010
SmartLX www
It’s possible, sure. That doesn’t mean that there’s any evidence that it’s true.
A lot of Christians say exactly the same thing about their theist God: that depending on who’s speaking He’s not subject to time, causality or even logic. This can’t be “refuted” because there’s no evidence one way or another. If we don’t know whether a god exists, arguing over its specific nature is almost entirely moot.
The claim is made to protect a god from critical analysis. It works only in the sense that it hihglights one possible reason why no evidence for a god has been observed. It does not itself constitute evidence.
Posted: April 21st 2010