Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA
Is it though? Suppose we define "rational" as "agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible". What reason do you have to offer for justifying faith in God? Isn't an essential component of defining faith itself that faith cannot be explained through reason or evidence? That it is just an emotion, something you "feel", something you "know"?
I suppose for this scenario, God would be anything supernatural of which cannot be empirically tested or verified through thiswordly means.
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He's basically saying what I would have said but here's something else to.
For me, a belief in God itself is irrational. I can respect Deism as a fairly reasonable conclusion to make through the rejection of religious belief and then through various other arguments that basically bring you to the ultimate conclusion that if there is a God, he doesn't actually effect us in any way other than having possibly created us or (well I don't know the exact specifications of your particular view).
To me, God just serves no purpose. It's just a further complication of one of the only unsolvable questions. Occam's Razor. I think traditionally, deism has been a product of religion, in that it forces people to consider God a necessary aspect of our model of the universe. The reality is, that isn't probably or necessarily true.
TYPICAL GOD'S CHARACTERISTICS: All knowing, All Powerful, All Present.
Unrelated but:
The first one obliterates our free will because God would have to create us with the knowledge of our fate and the "sins" we would commit. Thus making him responsible for our actions and our fate since he alone would have chosen to create us in our particular form and fate. Not to mention it helps with the implication of thought crime, which given his responsibility for our thoughts doesn't make sense... also highly immoral to say that someone is punishable for having thought the wrong thing.
The second one doesn't mean much... but you can always ask if God can create an immovable rock, and then ask if God can move it... good way to make a bible thumper either go away or have a migraine.
Third one would creep me out.
Of course Deism wouldn't support all of these three characteristics. AND I guess all of that relates to the "what do you consider to be God/god/GOD" question. If you define God as something that I can agree exists, then... I will agree that God exists. But then you're just naming things in a confusing way, so it's kind of pointless. Most poignant definitions of God, I will reject.