“Please read the other replies I have made. Thank you.”
Ah, reading them with my question in mind, I see how that applies. As I hadn’t formed the question at the point I read them however, it didn’t seem to me you’d addressed my points.
So then, If I am not to take the “six days” part literally, If “six days” is a simply a metaphore for “How ever long it took to happen once started into motion by devine intervention” (If I understand your interpretation of Genesis correctly) then why bother taking the “created” part literally? Isn’t that just a metaphore for “Well it’s here, isn’t it?”
Or even the “God” part? After all, isn’t “God” just a metaphore for “that which I can’t otherwise explain?”
Yes, I am being provacative. Consider, however, that well within recorded history the text of Genesis WAS considered literally true by most judeo-christians, including all theologions, who all must concede, are THE experts on the topic. Yet as evidence mounts to the point of being overwhelming, the literal interpretation yields to a metaphoric interpretation. Yesterdays literal truth becomes today’s metaphore…So how can I determine what, if any, parts of the biblical creation strory ARE literally true?
Are you sure, Loopy? As I understand it, the primary different between a deist and a theist is that the deist bases her belief on reason and the theist bases it on faith. Because a deist cannot base her belief even partly on faith but a theist can base her belief partly on reason, a theist can be a deist, but a deist cannot be a theist. Wikipedia probably has something on it.
That is clearly one usage of the terms and I have no objection to the Wikipedia articles on those topics. However, another popular (if not acadeically correct) usage of the terms identifies a theist as one who believes in a personal God who interacts (at variously defined levels) with humanity while a deist perceives God as an initial Creator who set the universe in motion, but who then avoids interaction (or interference) with its progress.
I suspect that Loopydude was using the word in the latter sense.
Stone Girl It’s been said already, but welcome to the boards! Few people jump in at the deep end, what you’ve done is jump in at the deep end of the shark pool with a bucket of chum…
Spatial Rift 47 recently argued that a Universe that had design and purpose behind it would be different from one that was designless and purposeless. Therefore, the existance of a Creator could be proven or disproven by looking in the right places. Link to that thread below, if you’re interested.
I argued against his position on the grounds that a Creator who basically designed the Laws of Physics, lit off the Big Bang and then sat back and did nothing would create a Universe that appeared to be purposeless. Not far away from your “lazy bum”, in fact. From my point of view, your position can’t be proven or disproven, it’s a matter of choice more than anything else. Or, since not believing in God “boggles your mind”, a matter of believing what makes you comfortable.
One inconsistency with believing in a Creator is that you appear to accept such an entity can exist without being created, while rejecting that the Universe can exist without being created. Does this contradiction bother you?
IMHO, this is more about the nature of belief and upbringing than the actual subject of God/No God. I submit that you believe what you believe about this (and many other not explored here subjects) because you were taught to by your parents and the predominant culture you were raised in. The power of those messages imparted to you at an early age by your care-givers are very very powerful and do not readily change even through reason.
I have a problem with the whole notion that pure reason leads one by observation to inevitably conclude there must be a creator of the sort a Deist would recognize as a God (as opposed to “God” just being a redundant term for “nature” or “existence”; IOW, God is an intelligent designer of some sort). Seems like faith to me. Hence, I prefer the “academically-incorrect” notion that Deists are just another variety of theists who do not see God as a concerned, worshipful entity who regularly intervenes in human affairs. God is the usual “divine watchmaker” in this definition, but I reject the notion that pure reason can justify belief in this Being, no matter how much the deists insist logic demands a Creator of this sort.
I really don’t want to discuss the point further. If any and all think this notion stinks, I’m happy to agree and forget all about it forever.
Stonegirl, the post quoted also illustrates that you are not a deist, since by your account, God stepped in relatively recently to “create the first organic matter”. Why could he not have set it up at the time of the bang so that organic matter would eventually come into being by natural processes?
Whether the Creator is physical or meta-physical, or somehow bridges those two realms in a way you don’t care to explain, you still have the baffling problem of why the Creator should exist in the first place. It’s really just the same core mystery all over again. It doesn’t matter what class of entity He is, or what properties He is proposed to have. He is purported to be the Thing which Caused the Universe, Yet which Needeth No Cause of His Own, However the Hell That’s Supposed to Happen.
If you choose to sidestep the mystery and just live with it — if you don’t require that the Creator have a cause, or any known cause anyway — then why require it for the universe to begin with? How does the God Hypothesis really help explain anything?
So as long as we’re admitting ignorance about first causes — which we all are, somewhere along the line, whether we’re atheists or not — my vote would be to place the ignorance where we know for certain it belongs: on the creation of the physical universe. We don’t know why it exists, what caused it, why it has the particular attributes it seems to have, or even whether it makes sense to ask these questions.
So I say matt’s question and contradiction still stand, and I hope Stone Girl will have a go at answering the question.
Absolutely not. You have made yourself look like a valuable addition to these boards. I hope you stick around.
That is the only definition I’ve ever heard of these terms. The theist believes in a God who does stuff, the deist believes in a God who doesn’t. If “theist” and “deist” doesn’t mean that, then what does? What words should I be using?
Good on you. A very plausible and truly scientific stance to take.
When evolutionists allude darkly to the threat posed by the opponents of their theory/theories, I always recall the comment of J.D. Bernal, erstwhile Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society - so no mug as a scientist, and a Marxist, to boot - on the evangelical character of many evolutionists in the Darwinian controversy: ‘it was not … that science had to fight an external enemy, the Church; it was that the Church … was within the scientists themselves.’
I have trouble seeing the relevance here. Who are the scientists fighting? When did evolution even come into this conversation? As far as I can tell, Stone Girl (welcome, btw) is not discussing evolution but the Big Bang and abiogenesis. She’s not threatening evolution at all.
Bytegeist’s post mirrors my take on this matter. However, from past experience I often miss the thrust of your arguments first time around. Are you saying that metaphysical entities can arise spontaneously without a cause?
There are two big questions that are sometimes conflated in these discussions:
Why is there Something, as opposed to Nothing?
Is the Universe purposeful, or purposeless?
The first I regard as unanswerable. If there’s a God, the question should bug Him too. Or are you claiming that metaphysical things lie outside the Something/Nothing set?
The second may or may not be answerable. Theoretically it might be determined by careful observation. If the Universe has evidence of being purposeful, then that is evidence for a Creator, or at least an Administrator. If the Universe is demonstrably not purposeful however, that does NOT disprove a Creator - you could have a Creator that metaphorically flung paint at the canvas with his eyes shut.
The second question interests me more, firstly because it may be answerable, and secondly because the answer may be important. (Or it may not. The purpose of the universe may be purely involved with dark matter, atomic matter being only a sideshow, and non-plasma matter being the cold crud left over when plasma matter has finished doing its stuff.) The discussion then revolves around what constitutes evidence of purpose. I think we lack the perspective to be able to answer that one - some people see purpose in a tsunami, others don’t.