Hi, John
Is there some formal Deism organization or church?
If so, what is its tax status? Is there some type of clergy?
I am a former Protestant and I don't know ANY other Deists. The Atheists seem more hostile to Deism than the religious folks I know.
I like your youtube videos.
Greetings Billy Jo,
There are no deist organizations or clergy that I know of. The idea would seem to go against deism: The human mind is the true church, there are no special agents of God, etc.
I can understand the desire to find like-minded people. I've personally had much better experiences with atheists. The only hostile ones I've encountered are internet trolls. In fact, I'm one of three co-organizers for the Louisville Atheists and Freethinkers.
You might try a Unitarian church. They're the closest thing to deism that your going to find among organized churches. When I was considering a church wedding with my fiance, Unitarian was the only church I would consider.
Good luck,
John
The reason I am curious as to Deist organizations is because it's kinda lonely being a Deist, especially out here in flyover country.
BTW, I love your picture. Hamlet, right?
Good night, sweet prince.
Yes, Hamlet. I was taking some company photos and picked up a skull we have for medical training. I decided to take one of me doing a Hamlet impersonation.
I know the feeling, btw. I was the only deist I knew of until I met my fiance. You may try expanding your search a bit. Don't let a few bad experiences with atheists bother you. I really think that's not the norm. The "dracula like response" as Robert Price calls it, seems unusual.
Hey this is a great site. I'm looking forward to reading John's
book. I'm a strong Atheist. That is I have no theistic god beliefs
and I actively disbelieve that a theistic god exists. A theistic god
is an entity being that interacts with human beings on a personal
level. The very notion that a transcendent being can communicate with
spatial physical human minds is absurd and logically impossible. As
for belief in a deistic god, I am a weak A-deist. That is I hold no
deistic beliefs. However, I think it is logically possible for a
deistic god to exist.
A very strong case for non-existence of a creator god was
constructed by Jeffery Grupp of Purdue University's Philosophy
department. My recommendation carries no weight, but Grupp's work is
high quality and gets almost no attention amongst atheist web sites,
thus you may have never considered Grupp's argument. I submit it for
your reading pleasure.
http://www.abstractatom.com/gods_spatial_unlocatedness_prevents_him_from...
John is right about the internet trolls. Some of our distant
cousins are mentally defective. As rational minded free thinkers, we
should strive to liberate the minds of those enthralled to religion's
cruel tyranny if we wish to help fashion a civilization that will not
self-destruct. One of my great fears is that a religious theocracy
will come to power in the USA and force its religion on all people
within its power. Fortunately, former governor Huckabee will not get
the GOP nomination. Unfortunately neither will Congressman Ron Paul.
But will Senator Obama kow-tow to the Christian Right as President?
Or will he be more like Jefferson in an effort to influence the
Christians to ameliorate their fascism.
Best Regards and Wishes
kbrown45
Eeew, Ron Paul. I veiw Ron Paulogists amoung the other internet miscrients like creationists and conspirisy theorists. Fortunity he has no chance of getting elected.
According to his own words, Dr. Paul is a Christian, not a Deist or an Atheist. He is not a 911 thruther. He has defended Gov. Mitt Romney, saying that there should be no religious test for office. He did not raise his hand during a debate when the moderator asked who did not believe in evolution.
I am a strong supporter of Ron Paul because I believe that he is the only candidate committed to reducing the size and power of the government and to ending the war. Atheist Penn Jillette also supports Dr. Paul for the same reasons.
Well, it's a moot issue since John McCain is presumtively the nominee now, having secured the delegates he needs to win. I'm watching the results in Texas closely now as we speak. I hope Obama wins. We need to wrap this up and starting looking toward November.
Frankly, I can't believe John "Bagdad is safe to walk through" McCain has even a shot at the White House. After 8 disasterous years of Republican rule and a nominee who thinks that the greatest of these disasters, the Iraq war, was a good idea, you'd think we'd be looking at winning in a walk.
I agree that RP doesn't have a chance, but his staying in the race will jurt McCain and Help Obama, hopefully. Obama is the least war-like of the three remaining viable candidates, so of course I hope he wins. What RP does is give a protest vote to those who oppse all government expansion, both foreign and domestic. If the GOP can develop a substantial small-government anti-war wing within the party, it may force the Dems to do likewise.
I am a Libertarian Pary member, but I have come to think that the dominace of the two-party system is insurmountable for the forseeable future. It is sad that our best hope it thast Obama is lying when he kisses up to AIPAC and the neocons that dominate both major parties. It is very encouraging that America is starting to embrace a black guy whose middle name is Hussen and whos last name rymes with Osama. I never dreamed he would get as far as he has, but I am glad he has done so.
The big concern with BHO is that his economics are keynsian at best and marxist at worse.
Ron paul is is so obviously for a theocracy, he's just going about it in a sneakier way. He's talking about removing public education, and simply allowing corperations, churches and and home schools teach the next generation, and to me that's scary. Teaching psudoscientific inteligent design and abstinance only sex ed will become rampant, and without a control structure it would be more difficult to change. He's prolife and anti-gay marrage, and if he makes these state issues it's pretty obvious which states are going to ban them.
I don't care if he's a truther or not, but he obvious anti-regulation and procorperation. Weakening the federal government will let corperations get what they want without having to wast money on bribes and lobyists. And he wants to go back to the bloody gold standard. If we're prepared with our homeschool education our gold stores and shot guns, we'd be prepared for the libertarian/madmax paradise.
While in theory religeos affiliation shouldn't matter, there is something to be said if the leader of america rejects rational thought and has no understanding of the basic principles of science. I'm sorry but if you don't 'believe' in evolution, I don't believe in you.
But it's not like I particularily like any of the other candidates, I just hate RP the most.
i have always thought of myself as a deist....but really im not sure thats what its called.....because i dont know that there is a god out there....so much as i hope that there is something superior to us out there....even if that means that from where we sit....it looks like a god....is that deism....
I can't speak for you, but...
You say superior to us, I'm not sure what that means, superior is a highly subjective term. I mean you may consider yourself superior to a bacteria, but even if all other life on earth is wiped out that means that the bacteria was superior to us in terms of survival. So any superiority complex has to be created from a specific viewpoint.
Deism is quite simply the most skeletal belief system you can have, as deists make the fewest assumptions except for atheists. The only difference is that deist believe then universe was created with conscious effort and such an entity has done nothing else as far as we are aware of. However I'm not sure if it can even be called superior.
Deism is the belief that the universe was consciously created but we don't know much about that Designer except what we can determine through reason, science and observation. Aside from God, we believe in a natural universe governed by laws we can eventually understand with enough knowledge.
Just a belief that there might be more intelligent or evolved life out there isn't a belief in God or a consciously created universe.
If you're not sure how to classify yourself, just remember one rule of thumb:
When in doubt, you're an agnostic.
Deism for me is a reaction to the arguments of Theists who unconvincingly claim evidence of a personal God and Atheists who weekly attempt to explain away evidence of a fine-tuned universe. I don't see how a nonprovable theory of multiple or infinite universes is more rational/logical than belief in a Creator.
The general appeal of Deism to me is the argument that if there is a god, that god would not break his/her/its own laws (laws of physics) to perform "miracles." That argument gets complicated if we consider the possibilty that God could exist ouside of the dimension of time as we know it and therefor not be subject to causality or cause and effect. The whole clockwork universe description of Deism may be oversimplified.
Agnosticism is not imcompatible with atheism, theism, or deism. It is simply tyhe belief that knowledge of God is unattainable while belief is. I "believe" in God, but admit that I do not "Know" there is a god or can I ever. That makes me agnostic, as well as deist.
"I don't see how a nonprovable theory of multiple or infinite universes is more rational/logical than belief in a Creator." Are these mutually exclusive?
If there is an omnicient creator that exsists outside of time, then it wouldn't really need to fine tune anything, it could set up the initial reation to create a universe to exact specifications knowing the placement of every atom at every moment in time.
And I do agree with your definition of agnostic. Unless you claim god talks to you personaly or, you witnessed the laws of physics breaking down with concious effort, I don't see how anyone could not be agnostic. The default position is probably weak athesism, where you don't believe in anything, where as strong atheism is positive denial. Though you could argue solipism is the default.
Edit: come to think of it you can also devide agnostism into weak and strong. Weak being you have not witnessed the anything that can prove the exsistance of a deity, and stong agnostism being you believe knowledge of deities cannot be known.
As a matter of fact, agnosticism is divided into "soft" and "strong" by the definitions you mention. The strong agnostic denies that the truth can ever be known by anyone. Oddly enough, that becomes a paradox, for if something is a mystery, how can you know it can't be solved?
I am doubtful (not certain but doubtful) that the debate can ever be settled. Even if God were to come down and say "here I am", how could we be sure it's really God? I personally would feel skeptical. Star Trek V was a horrible movie but it did have a good point at the end.
As soon as my fiance has chapter 12 uploaded, I'll put together a podcast on the topic of what I think is the strongest indication of God...
Star Trek V was indeed wretched cinema: Ship meets God, Captain decides God's a dick and shoots him with photon torpedoes. Come to think of it, all the Star Trek movies sans Ricardo Matalban were awful.
SERENITY on the other hand, was good stuff and marred only by the psychic powers plot device.
Gattica rocked.
why would anyone believe that the universe was created.....