I am a deist, and base my belief on my current understanding of physics, cosmology, quantum mechanics and neuroscience. Like Mulder from the X-files, however their is a part of me that wants to believe. Basically, from how I understand the laws of thermodynamics, their should be nothing rather than something, much less an ordered universe like ours. This leads me to believe in the old fashioned “watchmaker” type of god. Obviously this god would be nothing like any of the deities of classic religions like Jehovah, Allah, Zeus, Zoroaster, etc. I question, however, even this level of belief. If I was to decide based just on the science, should I be an atheist, or is their room for a watchmaker type deity and deism as a belief system?
I do not mean to belittle anyone who follows other belief systems, especially if based on faith, since faith is not something that I feel could be addressed scientifically, and would rather this discussion not turn into an attack on the traditional religions. Instead, I want to focus on deism vs atheism and what our scientific knowledge supports.
Scientific knowledge would seem to have nothing to say on the existence or non-existence of deities, besides those defined in such a way that they are involved in a material, scientifically invalidated, manner.
Why not? You can believe in an undetectable god that created the universe exactly as we find it. There’s no evidence against it, but there’s no evidence for it, either.
ETA: As for just going by science, the old analogies of unicorns or fairies seem entirely appropriate. There’s no evidence against them, but that doesn’t seem enough to call a belief in their existence entirely rational.
What I am asking is if their is a way to fit in a deity that fits within our current framework, belief based on what science has shown, rather than just by faith. Some of the questions that I feel can be addressed with a deity as a possible hypothesis include these. What force created the Big Bang? How did we end with a universe that is not smooth, if the laws of particle anti-particle creation seem to say that they wily be created 50/50? If entropy always increases, how did the universe not start out at maximum entropy? And is their room to hypothesize a deity (not a traditional old bearded man in the sky, but an absent watchmaker) to answer these questions?
I suppose my last post was kind of contradictory. What I meant was that deism can be entirely consistent with all science, present and future. It needn’t hurt your understanding of science or the universe at all, and you can be, for all practical purposes, entirely rational as a deist. But that doesn’t mean deism is an entirely rational belief.
It depends on what you mean by “rational”. There’s rational in the sense of “compelled by reason to believe this” and there’s rational in the sense of “not unreasonable to believe this”.
Deism is certainly rational in the latter sense. The scientific method relies on a number of axioms - that the universe is real and not illusory, that it is governed by laws, etc. Being axioms, they can’t be proven, or even investigated, by science. Some people are happy just to accept them as truer without wondering why that might be so. For those who find that unsatisfactory, deism offers an account of why they might be true. That’s not irrational; in fact it seems to me rational in a way that a belief in unicorns and fairies is not. Unicorns and fairies have no role in accounting for our understanding of reality.
Even though there are interesting ideas to explain the creation of something from nothing, all explanations finally have to rest on the existence of some “laws” which exist that allow all else to arise. Although I’m an atheist I would not have the slightest issue with anyone who posited a god to explain those laws.
Assuming that it’s really hard/unlikely for a universe to be created naturally, but relatively easy for a universe to be created actively, then the odds are that most universes are manufactured.
So for example, it’s unlikely that a table-like structure will naturally form. Not impossible, but it’s relatively infrequent. Most tables that I find can be presumed to have been fashioned by someone.
So it’s more likely that there was a manufacturer of our universe (assuming that it’s easier to make universes manually, than for them to rise in nature). But it’s also more likely that the person/team/company/organization which created our universe, was itself part of a manufactured universe. Of course, each manufactured universe will, necessarily, be less complex than the universe above it (a 2D man can’t draw a 3D universe, though he might be able to understand one mathematically). So there is probably a threshold on how deeply this can go, before it becomes impossible to create sub-universes. And of course, most universes will be like World of Warcraft - too simple to allow the dynamic creation of anything interesting. Though in higher universes, it might be easier to create sub-universes, so even their quick-and-easy versions end up being as fully realized as ours.
But personally, I wouldn’t mark any of that down as “god”. Sure there might be some scientific organization that made a universe simulator in order to test some theory about their own universe, which lead to our creation. But my stomach is churning with life and life is living all around my skin and everywhere about my person, and they’re all indebted to me. If they want to call me God, good on them, but what value does that serve? It makes far more sense to be thought of like Q, in Star Trek, a fantastically powerful being that is interesting, powerful, real, and not a god, just another feature of reality.
The problem with this line of thinking is as follows.
Q What created the big bang?
A God did it,
Q What created god?
A ???
As soon as you try to explain the beginning of the universe with ideas instead of evidence you end up with an infinite stack of gods creating universes and or each other and at the end you are still left with the same question as the original.
Modern Science has nothing to say about how the universe got started, that infinitesimal moment at the very beginning is a point in time that we have no explanation for. Anyone who puts forth a Hypothesis like god or unicorns is talking out their ass.
So Imho no it is not rational to think there was a deistic type god that got the ball rolling.
If universes are created within black holes, then we don’t have the problem of something from nothing. Universes would evolve, with universes that have characteristics that include the creation of stars, and lots of black holes, being more successful. These universes are also more likely to be suitable for life.
But beyond that, what do you mean by deity? Does this deity somehow preordain the shape of the created universe? Does the deity have anything interesting to say about morals? Or could the deity be a grad student, creating a universe for a cosmology 401 project?
By the very definition of deism we don’t know. And even if it is not necessary for our universe to be created, it still might be. Now, deities who interfere are something else, and I assume that is not the type of god you are referring to.
I think the important question is: What is the additional explanatory power that follows from positing a deity?
Some people might say (and indeed do) that it explains the origin of the universe.
Perhaps it does. But at the same time leaves us with a bigger question: if existing things need a creator what created God? (And the infinite regress of meta-Gods that naturally follows and already mentioned in this thread.)
Some people might say (and indeed do) that God needs no creator.
This is a cop-out: if some entities (gods) are given a free-pass, why not other types of entity – why do we need to suppose that the universe itself needs a creator?
And after that I struggle to see any possible further explanatory power.
So if you want to believe in something that explains nothing knock yourself out, I won’t be joining in calling it rational though.
If you think there should be nothing then why and how does a god come into the picture? Why is it immune to this problem but the universe isn’t?
I don’t think any investigation into the birth of the universe will be satisfying in a common-sense folk physics sort of way. At the extremes either something will have existed forever or something will pop out of nothing. Or even worse, something completely perplexing like things happening before time exists.
If you’re interested, Lawrence Krauss has a lot to say on the origins of the universe and “Why There is Something Rather than Nothing”. He might try to persuade you to drop the deism, though.
As noted earlier, it’s perfectly fine to posit that some being created the universe to be exactly as it is, but it’s certainly not based on anything other than faith.
Although there is, of course, no empirical evidence for this, just as there is no evidence for a creator God. There cannot be, if you think about it.
Would those who regard belief in a god (as an explanation for the phenomenon of existince) as not rational also hold that belief in the multiverse (as an explanation for the existence of our universe) is also not rational? If not, what’s the distinction?
