But I can - and maybe one day will - decide to declare that I am one if I realize that it is what I am.
It's a process not a decision.
What will theists make of this if it happens?
And what will atheists make of it?
Thoughts and pertinent YouTube clips welcome.
Having and a quick read up on it this wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, although knowing you personally supports my matching your ideology to this description.
However have you considered the nature of the deity you would loosely identify with; I.e. why would a deity create a universe and not “interfere” with it?
@divegeestersaid Having and a quick read up on it this wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, although knowing you personally supports my matching your ideology to this description.
However have you considered the nature of the deity you would loosely identify with; I.e. why would a deity create a universe and not “interfere” with it?
Looking back, I think I was more or less a deist for a few years right at the end of, and then after, my long stint as a Christian - in fact some here will remember only 3-4 years ago I was still recoiling from the label "atheist".
That might have been a bit of a 'stance' though which was sorted out by coming to realize more clearly the breadth and variety under the umbrella of atheism.
@FMF Consider yourself a deist. Then how would that change your life? Would you pee better? Have more stamina in a race? Live longer? Just be happier? What?
@divegeestersaid However have you considered the nature of the deity you would loosely identify with; I.e. why would a deity create a universe and not “interfere” with it?
While the universe and human nature might be evidence of creation, I see no convincing "revelation" yet to the human race i.e. communication of any instructions from a creator being.
I doubt I will ever believe in an afterlife again [though one should never say never]. I really don't see why it should follow on as if automatically from the idea of being created as it does in so many religions.
@sonhousesaid @FMF Consider yourself a deist. Then how would that change your life? Would you pee better? Have more stamina in a race? Live longer? Just be happier? What?
Dunno Sonhouse. Stick in your ear and see if that answers your questions.
@fmfsaid While the universe and human nature might be evidence of creation, I see no convincing "revelation" yet to the human race i.e. communication of any instructions from a creator being.
I doubt I will ever believe in an afterlife again [though one should never say never]. I really don't see why it should follow on as if automatically from the idea of being created as it does in so many religions.
Deism would not 'require' that of me.
So, anyhow, it remains to be seen.
I think that if you decide to proclaim yourself a “deist” then you will also need to calibrate your hard stance on there being no afterlife.
If there is indeed a being capable of creating a universe where it so far evidently appears that life and especially intelligent life is only present on this planet, then perhaps our place here is rather more important to that deity than having no importance at all.
@divegeestersaid I think that if you decide to proclaim yourself a “deist” then you will also need to calibrate your hard stance on there being no afterlife.
I wouldn't decide to proclaim it until at least a year or two after realizing it, I think.
As for there being an afterlife, why would I think there was one? It seems like a heady mix of [1] conjecture about an unprovable thing and [2] really wanting one.
The fact that the aspiration for everlasting life is virtually ubiquitous in world religions says more, I think, about the human condition than it does about the actual implications of our having been created.
As for there being an afterlife, why would I think there was one? It seems like a heady mix of [1] conjecture about an unprovable thing and [2] really wanting one.
The fact that the aspiration for everlasting life is virtually ubiquitous in world religions says more, I think, about the human condition than it does about the actual implications of our having been created.
In understand you, but surely the same argument can be put to you about the appeal of the existence of the deity itself?
@divegeestersaid If there is indeed a being capable of creating a universe where it so far evidently appears that life and especially intelligent life is only present on this planet, then perhaps our place here is rather more important to that deity than having no importance at all.
You make it sound as if such a creator entity or being would necessarily be like a 'person' in the same way we humans perceive each other.
One of the far fetched [for me] things for me about a lot of mainstream Christianity is the profoundly manmade-sounding notion that the world was created as a kind of audition space to give people the chance to get to "Heaven" [the eternal residence for those who pass] with the rest getting tortured for not passing the audition!
Maybe the creator entity is nothing like the sort of "being" that would dream up anything remotely like that.
@divegeestersaid In understand you, but surely the same argument can be put to you about the appeal of the existence of the deity itself?
Being a deist would allow me to say 'God did it' when asked about creation by theists, rather than the old 'Neither of us know' chestnut which is more or less the answer I use now.
I might be realizing I'm a deist
07 Mar '19 09:46
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