Originally posted by @jacob-verville
it is natural [for deists] to want to not feel these great burdens, or to even get rid of elements of Christianity that don't appeal to the materialism & empiricism rooted rationalism of the modern world.

Would you still stand by the above sentence if the word Christianity was replaced with the name of any other theist religion, like Islam or Hinduism or Sikhism etc.?

Originally posted by @jacob-verville
Deism is right in the sense that there is a God. The basic and persuasive arguments (or 'proofs'😉 for God can be used by Deists and so, in a sense, we agree about that.

Deism seems to try to take this easy route of saying 'oh, there isn't going to be anything in the natural world or any event that I point to as being proof of it, or as having so ...[text shortened]... hat, but there is a reason why there is an affiliation between UU and deism in the 18th century.

I think a lot of the deist sentiment might also fall into the fallacy of people just attaching whatever additional beliefs they want to their Deist structure.

How is this different from Christianity? By some counts, there are over 20,000 denominations of Christianity. Christians pick and choose from the Bible whatever supports their beliefs and ignore whatever doesn't. For all intents and purposes, it yields the same result as in your criticism. A noteworthy difference is that many Christians seem to think that their beliefs are "of God".

Originally posted by @jacob-verville
My point about burdens has to do with the idea that most deists who are familiar with Christianity are going to innately understand the burden that Christianity brings to us if they have any understanding at all of the Bible....

And my point is that you still haven't explained how you think the burden your personal beliefs cause you to feel create any obligation for deists to feel a comparable burden.

Originally posted by @jacob-verville
I'm an Orthodox believer -- my parish falls under the ecumenical patriarchate. Our Bishop is Greek and much of our congregation is Russian, though, so we honor both Greek & Russian elements within Orthodoxy, and there are a significant amount of other Americans as well.

... My point about burdens has to do with the idea that most deists who are f ...[text shortened]... ianity that don't appeal to the materialism & empiricism rooted rationalism of the modern world.

Thank you for answering my question, but just to be clear, is this what we here call the Eastern Orthodox Church?

Originally posted by @fmf
Because, supposing there were a creator of some kind that had revealed itself and was intervening in the affairs of mankind or issuing instructions etc. then surely it would have done this already and I would be aware of its existence; I don't think it has. If there were a creator then, it would make more sense to me if its nature was something along the lines of how deists might see it. But I am not a deist; I lack belief in the existence of a creator.

I see. I thought you possibly considered yourself a deist.

Would you say you are an atheist?

Originally posted by @great-king-rat
I see. I thought you possibly considered yourself a deist.

Would you say you are an atheist?

You could probably describe him as an atheist with a gut feeling that he may be wrong.

Originally posted by @great-king-rat
I see. I thought you possibly considered yourself a deist.

Would you say you are an atheist?

A deist? No. I'd say I'm an agnostic atheist.

Originally posted by @fmf
A deist? No. I'd say I'm an agnostic atheist.

I seem to remember you once upon time didn't want to call yourself a (whatever) atheist.

Have you changed your mind on this or am I misremembering?

Originally posted by @great-king-rat
I seem to remember you once upon time didn't want to call yourself a (whatever) atheist.

Have you changed your mind on this or am I misremembering?

There has been a shift in the way I perceive the meaning of the labels that get used for discussing this kind of thing and this has happened in the last 2-3 years so, no, you haven’t misremembered.

Originally posted by @fmf
There has been a shift in the way I perceive the meaning of the labels that get used for discussing this kind of thing and this has happened in the last 2-3 years so, no, you haven’t misremembered.

Well, welcome to the club.

Took you long enough 😉

Originally posted by @great-king-rat
Well, welcome to the club.

Took you long enough 😉

I am in no hurry. 😀