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Does Deists exists? What do they reason about Deus?

Discuss religions and philosophies not associated to Judaism, Christianity and Islam

What is Deism and what is it like to be a Deist?

I am a Deist and have this definition on it.
0
No votes
I am not a Deist and have this definition on what it is.
0
No votes
I am curious on what it is all about. Is it really reasonable and atheistic?
1
14%
I think it all is BS and will not participate in pure speculation.
2
29%
I am not a Deist but think it is less dangerous than Theism.
4
57%
All kinds of religions are dangerous and especially the liberal ones.
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 7

wordy
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Does Deists exists? What do they reason about Deus?

Post by wordy » Wed Dec 17, 2008 7:56 am

In another thread in the Gods part of the forum they do philosophy on Deism.

I should not have participated in that thread. Too much philosophy.

Deism is a very different form of faith it seems to me. Do they really exists as a significant part of the market for religions?

Does anybody have figures on how many in your country?
Are there competing fractions who differ in their interpretation on what a Deus is about.

Some say that the Deus are a personal god.

Does that mean that Deus is a self aware person that one can relate to personally or is it an impersonal "intelligent" designer that is totally unaware of itself and us? an impersonal creator "god".

Not much of a personal god if it doesn't care about it's creation is it?

Have any of you met a Deist? I have forgotten if I met such. I met thousands of Christians and a few Islamistic Muslims and non-practicing cultural muslims too and a few practicing Buddhists but fail to remember to ever have met a Deist other than online in the Universist forum.

A guy there was upset on Ford Vox who set up a competing site about Deism and his site got less supporters when everybody joined Universism instead. that is only how I interpreted it. He maybe can correct me.

Anyway. What is Deism and what is it like to be a Deist. One need to know how to reason that seems clear, so it is not for me who lack skills doing reasoning.

Edit

seems too late for me to add a poll to this thread.

1, I am a Deist and have this definition on it.
2. I am not a Deist and have this definition on what it is.
3. I am curious on what it is all about. Is it really reasonable and atheistic?
4. I think it all is BS and will not participate in pure speculation.
5. I am not a Deist but think it is less dangerous than Theism.
6. All kinds of religions are dangerous and especially the liberal ones.

SecularFuture
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Post by SecularFuture » Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:18 am

[quote=""wordy""]Deism is a very different form of faith it seems to me.[/quote]
Deists believe that an impersonal god created the universe and then stepped aside, and that science and math work best for studying this creation.
Do they really exists as a significant part of the market for religions?
I know a couple of deists.

And here is a list of famous deists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Deists
Does anybody have figures on how many in your country?
I'm sure there are a lot of them.
Some say that the Deus are a personal god.
As far as I know, "Deus" is just Latin for the word "God."
Does that mean that Deus is a self aware person that one can relate to personally or is it an impersonal "intelligent" designer that is totally unaware of itself and us? an impersonal creator "god".
It depends on who you ask. The definition for "God" tends to vary.

wordy
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Post by wordy » Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:30 am

SecularFuture, thanks that was nice to get an anwer from you.

You confirm my vague memory that not many of the Deist see their god as a personal god.

You use the word impersonal. I was told in another thread that the deistic god was personal and supreme.

The word supreme is that something you could ask the deists you know if they have that view too?

Ford Vox has to be famous. Edward O Wilson seems to not mind that we refer to him as a Deist. Even Steven Pinker seems to. Which surprise me.

suppose one did a poll here in the forum on how many Deists that are active here?

First one need to get what they mean by them being deist so they don't say

Fail to vote cause the definition was wrong.

ok maybe one could ask without any definition what so ever.

Can you add such poll to this thread. Or is that feature still open for me?

wordy
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Post by wordy » Wed Dec 17, 2008 9:44 am

1. I am a Deist and have this definition on it.
2. I am not a Deist and have this definition on what it is.
3. I am curious on what it is all about. Is it really reasonable and atheistic?
4. I think it all is BS and will not participate in pure speculation.
5. I am not a Deist but think it is less dangerous than Theism.
6. All kinds of religions are dangerous and especially the liberal ones.

I got inspired by apostateabe and his Ideatheism that see gods as ideas that humans have. and he later came up with an improved such view.

Gods are information that believers use literally or metaphorically. My crude reteling.

I tried to improve that view by adding that:

Gods are what emerge as established public ways of referring to a focus for a group that seek recognition of them as a political body that present values they hold high and wants to defend in public by acts of faith.

The believers public acts of faith let their god emerge or arise as a declared social factual agent that they submit to.

I still say it in a confusing way and not so concised as needed to get through.

My take is a kind of Deism but seen from a from ground up functional perspective while Deists reason in a Top Down perspective.

So not sure if my poll is even usable. I am at mercy of you folks to make a better poll in your answers to me.

aupmanyav
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Post by aupmanyav » Thu Dec 18, 2008 6:00 pm

For God as ideas, you should read Zoroastrianism at Wikipedia. Look for 'Spentas'.

wordy
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Post by wordy » Fri Dec 19, 2008 9:03 pm

[quote=""aupmanyav""]For God as ideas, you should read Zoroastrianism at Wikipedia. Look for 'Spentas'.[/quote]

Thanks, yes it seems possible to have such interpretations. Maybe theOrthodox Z don't like it but Alexander Bard here in Sweden seems to see himself as someone having such an interpretation.

Splarnst
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Post by Splarnst » Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:03 pm

[quote=""SecularFuture""]And here is a list of famous deists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Deists[/quote]Note that almost everyone on that list is dead – long dead.

wordy
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Post by wordy » Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:51 pm

There are rather many??? new Neo-Deists that have pages or sites online, blogs maybe or facebook?

At least some years ago when Ford Vox made it popular to be visible as a Deist online.

He managed to get both Edward O Wilson and Steven Pinker to endorse his new version that turned into Universism.

Didn't they try to create a Deist Church and to structure it hierarchically and financely and a kind of Manifest what they believed in.

Did they succeed or did they out of competition abandon the whole thing?

It is a bit "ironic" that Deists who claim them to use reason fail to cooperate good enough to accomplish such a thing while theists whom we see as "stupid" are good at organizing their Churches as Multi-National enterprises that sell the message all over the World.

The better one are at using ones capacity for reasoning the better one shall be when it comes to organizing any kind of organization. Even a Deist Church.

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Post by trendkill » Sat Dec 20, 2008 12:20 am

[quote=""SecularFuture""]
And here is a list of famous deists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Deists[/quote]
I get the sense from reading about their beliefs that 18th-century Deists were almost like freethinking or non-dogmatic Christians. They believed God should be worshipped, that Jesus was a great moral and metaphysical teacher (whose teachings were distorted with superstition), and that God would punish and reward people after death. Very different from the definition you often hear cited nowadays.

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Post by pescifish » Sat Dec 20, 2008 1:55 am

Mod note: Added poll per wordy's list of options in post #1 and #4.
pescifish ><>
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