The pure and simple belief in God — the Uncaused Cause and Designer of all things — without the added baggage of unreasonable and unsubstantial claims of special revelations (i.e. ancient sacred books) is what defines deism. A deist’s knowledge about God is based on reason, nature and his own conscience.
It has been remarked so many times that the God of deists just set the universe running with its predetermined laws and then left. But, that is not an essential component of deism. Some deists do believe that God may intervene or may have intervened at some point in history in some places and some people but it is a deist’s firm stand that these interventions were not intended to be used as stamps for a supposed message from God.
For one thing, these interventions (classically called miracles or suspensions of the natural laws) can hardly be proven. When the person or persons who were witnesses of such miracles (if it really happened) relate this to other people, those who will receive their message would have to rely on their words for anything that they will have to say.
Thus, modern deists do not out rightly claim that miracles are impossible to happen. They can occur by God’s will, but they are miracles or maybe revelations only to those who have witnessed it first hand. Any revelation/miracle that comes from second hand sources becomes unreliable and is not anymore obligatory for any reasonable person to believe.
Secondly, people can easily be deceived by what they see or perceive. The prevalence of ghost stories show that even in modern times, people are still prone to deception. As David Hume rightly commented, it is more possible that the person who reports a miracle is lying or is deceived than that a miracle has really happened . The rationale is that we see so many people in our lifetime being deceived and/or lying but very rarely or none at all do we see miracles occurring.
i am a atheist and just wanted to say that you should not try to confert the non belevers cause that is not right everybody has their own appinion wrong or right so dont try to convert people like the jhovas wittneses plz
what you dont realise is that u have a theology about God. U might say that you are an atheist but to not believe in God you firstly have to believe that there is a God to not believe in.
Everyone does have a right to their own opinion but Jesus is alive and hes living and hes bigger than anything is this world. our God is awesome and there is no way that you can tell me he doesnt exist when he created this world and he created you so amazing and complex. Atheisim is just an easy way of saying…i dont have a real opinion and i cant b bothered finding out the truth so ill say it doesnt exist.
I am not religious but I do believe in God…..but that is beside the point. In reply to the person above me, what??? You said “U might say that you are an atheist but to not believe in God you firstly have to believe that there is a God to not believe in.” How does a person who does NOT believe in God and his existence first have to believe that he exists?? That is both nonsense and insanely wrong! He simply doesn’t believe that God exists. Subject closed. And as much as I do not necessarily reject religion but love God more, I have to say that what I feel is based purely on faith and on no REAL facts. Anything could have created this world. Maybe there isn’t one God but many gods. No one knows and neither do you. But I respect your beliefs and you should respect the beliefs of others. Plus, in all your argument, you based the world on your conception of Jesus and God and ultimately can offer no proof that it is true. After all, your conception of Jesus as the son of God came a few centuries after Jesus’ lifetime in an attempt to unify Christianity but you have no proof of its truth besides the word of man! And what of other people that believe in God (and maybe Jesus), do you reject or criticize them if they do not believe in Jesus’ divinity even when religion itself cannot be proven and there is no real truth below God and actually knowing/seeing him firsthand?
I want to be a deist, but I can’t seem to believe in a god. I thought I was a deist until I realized that they are almost like other religions. The message I get from reading about deism is that there is one god, the creator, and we should not believe in revealed religions, only on reason. I can’t reason that there is one god or anything like that. Reason just tells me that I don’t know what there is or IF there is. So I guess that makes me agnostic.
To be an agnostic, in my opinion, is an honest admission of the natural limitation of human mind to reach a complete knowledge about God at a given time. We all have been agnostics at some points in our lives. On the other hand, to be a deist is to have a mature realization that despite the incomplete picture we have of God, we cannot deny his existence. I understand your struggle, J Michael…we all have this gut-feeling and deep-down emotional lead that there is a Divine Being, moral Governor and Cause of All Things but sometimes our reasoning just fall short to prove his existence. Just don’t stop discovering the rational basis of God’s existence. Aristotle’s proofs of God’s existence has been valuable in my self-studies.
You may read my version of Aristotle’s cosmological proof of God’s existence in my blog where this article was also posted. Click the lick below:
http://filipinodeist.blogspot.com/2006/09/yes-god-exists-and-you-can-prove-it.html
I believe in God because this is what I choose to believe. My beliefs are based on my acceptance of the bible as God’s word/
truth. I have also had personal experiences that confirm my belief in God. I also believe in Jesus Christ. I believe he is the son of God and died to save me.I have witnessed miracles in my life that also confirm my beliefs.There is a lot of deception in this world and to know God one has to earnestly seek him. I believe sin seperates us from God. Prayer draws us closer to him. I believe God is the source of love, all wisdom,truth, justice and power.
The “I believe this because I choose to believe in this” mentality..i think, is dangerous. If choice and preference (a.k.a. faith) are made the primary deciding factors, and not reason and logic, then you cannot blame fundamentalist muslims for believing that America should be destroyed because its evil. After all, they also have the right to choose what they want to believe. You should have faith on something not just because you choose to have faith in it. There should be objective and rational basis for your belief.
So the bible wouldn’t be considered a rational basis for an individulas beliefs?
A much better explanation of deism than belief in an “uncaring” or “apathetic” God, which is nothing more than a misinformed slant on deistic beliefs that comes from stubborn churches and organizations that have a habit of discrediting others’ beliefs about something they have know absolute omniscience.
deism does not have a picturesque image of what a supreme being is/are/was/will be/should be/. deism believes that the whole reality, including this universe or others it there are, is a product of some thing/s. beyond the belief of an architect is not a creed of deism. we do not claim to know the characteristic of this creator. the creator could be anything. our diminutive minds, whatever potential it contains, could not possibly comprehend the exact nature of this creator.
Jesus is alive I just saw him at the car wash he even had a name tag. You can believe in God or a higher power w/o the man made religion. I don’t mix God with religion and I don’t need to confess to some man who thinks he is closer to God and has to know my intimate details. God already knows. I can talk to him and ask for forgiveness w/o the aid of a priest or church. Religion teaches hate plain and simple. I pray my God is nothing like the one in the Bible. He knocked up a woman who wasn’t his condoned slavery and murdered more men, women and children than any dictators on earth combined.
I love it. I just wrote an article on why Special revelation (Like the bible) fails to tell us anything about God.