0 Votes
RE: Atheists Leading the Pack
Well, that’s a nicely reasoned response.
Deism isn’t the same as atheism, but it’s much more like atheism than it is like Christianity.
- Deists reject the divinity of Jesus, hence, they aren’t any more Christian that Muslims.
- Deists reject prophecy, miracles, and revelation, holding that religious beliefs must be founded on reason and observation of the natural world
- The deist notion of the "supreme being" is one who is not active in the world – they see the world as a "clockwork universe" that the supreme being set into motion at the beginning of time, but then doesn’t mess with.
As an atheist, I don’t disagree with any of that. The "supreme being" idea is essentially one of Wittgenstein’s "language games" – you can’t really know anything about an entity that isn’t active in the world, so it’s an arbitrary symbol that doesn’t have much real-world meaning. If they want to use that word for the "start of it all", big deal.
But most mainstream (and all orthodox) Christians have to disagree with every one of those items.
Thanks for proving my point about "arrogance." I was hoping you’d rear your smug head and trot out all that baloney about Deism and how it’s the same as atheism.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la la" doesn’t make me wrong.
RE: Atheists Leading the Pack by Brandon
I think you are way overstating the detachment deists have towards God. Deism is, after all, a religious philosophy. While they reject things like revelation contained in religious books, claims of miracles, a literal interpretation of the Genesis account of creation, the doctrine of original sin, etc., they still accept the idea that humans have souls which survive death and are judged by a God who will reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior.