Posted on 08/22/2019 10:35:35 PM PDT by OddLane
“Then what ‘good’ is there in being a Deist?”
What good is there in being a Christian if it is not based on truth? To understand why we don’t accept the Bible as truth would take more space than we have here. The best explanation can be found by reading Thomas Paine’s book The Age of Reason.
This excerpt explains what would be the bible of a Deist.
“The Creation speaks a universal language, independent of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this Word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.”
Thomas Paine
“What is a Deist required to do?”
There is no dogma in Deism
“What do Deists ‘worship’?”
Only giving thanks to the creator for giving us life and reason with no expectation that it cares. We do not pray for it to help us because we see no evidence that the creator interferes in the affairs of man.
“Is the concept of ‘worship’ even a thing with Deists?”
See above.
“Would not a Deist be the same thing as a humanist?”
Yes but does that have to be a bad thing?
“As for my 1st Amendment comment it was only in reference how lucky we are to live in the U. S. instead of a radical Islamic country. “
1st Amendment, it is indispensable that Trump appoint judges that will defend it !
Did he steal this from the book of Romans?
Creation must be a poor teacher, if so many humans kill, steal and destroy.
“1st Amendment, it is indispensable that Trump appoint judges that will defend it !‘
Ditto and along with the original meaning of the rest of the Constitution!
“other words the complexity of the universe makes it evident there is an intelligent creator, we see no direct evidence that the creator intervenes in the affairs of man.”
You are an existent self aware person in this universe that was created evidently by some creator, right? Nothing occurs in a vacuum, dominos trip other dominos , right?
So why even the concept of a God that some try to find and others try to run away from?
There is never smoke without a fire!
As a Deist I of course believe that there is a God which I prefer to call a creator but have never been able to buy what I see as the absurd storyline of the Bible and have researched and found no evidence that the stories ever happened.
As to why atheists don’t even believe in a god at all, perhaps the complexity that I see is not enough to convince them. They want direct evidence not circumstantial.
So do you have a source for what is to be determined “absurd” or not “absurd”? Has science determined such? I’m not sure how or where you researched or what methods you used in ascertaining that the stories of the Bible are absurd. Absurdities are to be defined how? By what personal standard? By what objective standard not defined by personal bias? Can I trust that your own standards are them selves ...not absurd? Have all knowing space aliens given you the transcendental overarching book of how absurdities are to be judged? Are absurdities to be assigned negative moral qualities once they are assigned by questionable personal bias to be indeed...absurd?
Who is your Deist God that I should be mindful of his definitions of absurdity?
The absurdity is by my own opinion that an all powerful god would have resort to such extreme measures to control mankind who he created. Such as drowning all except one family and sending a son to become a blood sacrifice to excuse the sins of those that he created. You may have another definition of what is absurd.
The research is to find evidence that the events in the Bible occurred in historical records other than the Bible.
My Deist god is simply an intelligence that put the creation of the universe in motion, ie the Big Bang, that is beyond human capabilities to understand at least for now. So as such it has no definition what is absurd.
At least you admit that your sense of “absurdity” is a self defined one; a singularity of wit perhaps. For a second, one would have thought that you were proclaiming a mastery of all that which was to be defined as absurd!
I suspect that everyone has their biases as to what they see as absurd.
Yup!
“you can come up with it pretty much with common sense, reason and logic. “
Really?
Well now as we are beset with a constant barrage of fake news would not you prefer that the purveyors of fake news be guided by the Commandment; “You shall not bear false witness ” ?
Well I personally feel it wrong to lie and I came to this though reason and logic without the need to be commanded to do it.
As for the purveyors of fake news they are beyond being guided by reason and logic or any commandment to tell the truth.
“reason and logic without the need to be commanded to do it”
Sounds like a good game but I do believe it has been falsified.
League of Nations and the United Nations comes to mind. Earthlings alive on this planet living in a nuthouse. A bombs. ICBM’s, EMP bombs, Satellites that maybe weaponized circling over their heads? WW1, WWll, and threat of WWlll?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNfn17y7iNo
I can relate to this. My religious background is “complicated’ and at this point I am completely impervious to either religious or atheist arguments.
I come down on the side of religion and am thinking of converting to Catholicism because:
1) as an engineer it seems to me there’s simply too much clever design for there not to be a designer
2) I like the ritual and the incense and stuff
3) our best modern defenders of the Constitution on SCOTUS have been Catholics
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