Just how seriously is Deism (in a nutshell, the belief God can be known on rational grounds) taken today?
I know there are Deism sites all over the internet. But they all seem to run by non-scientific laymen. And that is really my question: Are there any scientists today, who would proudly take the label “Deist”?
I know I first heard of Deism in high school. And I even considered myself one for a time. And with good reason too. One of my high school teachers, Mr. K, rather thought of himself as a Deist too, I think.
Then again, a lot of scientists seem to think we should all be atheists. In fact, and I can’t figure this one out. But my dictionary lists “atheist” as a “synonym” for Deist. What on earth does that mean?
So how seriously is Deism taken among scientists now? And (gasp), has it just degenerated into modern day atheism?
I actually have some issues with your use of the term “scientists.” I’ve known a lot of professionals who use (classical) scientific methods in their work, but don’t apply similar principles in establishing their personal political or religious beliefs. IOW, I don’t think you can just say that a person is a “scientist” because he or she does biological research or teaches physics.
The path to religious belief is usually personal revelation, reference to authorities or sacred writings, rational thought, or some combination of these. It sounds like you’re assuming that scientists could only come to have religious belief through rational thought, and that this would be “deism.”
This is definitely not the case. I’ve known lots of people personally who work in scientific endeavors and who base their personal religious beliefs on personal revelation or sacred scriptures.
Is that what deism means? I had thought it meant belief in a generic god, who isn’t bound by dogmas, doctrines, scriptures, revelations, or priests. Just, “Well, there’s a creator out there, but the world’s major religions have made up a lot of details.”
That view, at least, has a fair following. It often follows the argument from complexity. “Look at this wonderful, marvelous, miraculous world. You can just see that there had to be a creator.”
I would think, if your definition is the correct one, the “rational grounds” are very similarly shallow: they reflect a superficial, almost emotional, analysis, not a serious argument from first principles.
Basically, there aren’t any such arguments. If there were, everyone would be a deist! Religion always fails the test of evidence, and evidence-based reasoning is the heart and soul (so to speak) of rationality.
Well, if such arguments exist, then everyone who was convincible via rational argument would be a deist. Those who aren’t convinced by rational argument could still be atheists.
In a scientific world view, everything is just science. If there really were some creator of the universe, then that entity is a real thing, provable by science, and is simply a life form in a higher dimension of reality. Basically, it’s an alien. A really fancy alien, but an alien nevertheless.
If the alien wants us to follow particular precepts, that he has decided, and which he backs up through a punishment/reward system, then he’s not a deity, we’re just his property. Intellectually, I disapprove of slavery. So, the heck with that sort of alien.
If the alien is just interested in seeing what we’re doing, then he’s just an alien scientist. And while that is cool, it doesn’t have any more bearing over my life than whether there is or isn’t going to be a Big Crunch. It’s interesting, but not personally meaningful.
Basically, an atheistic, scientific world view doesn’t rule out creator creatures. It just doesn’t relegate them into a great mythos that’s personally meaningful. Why, after all, would the creator of the universe care about how complete my penis skin is? Why would it care whether I borrow money at interest or not? One feels like something of that magnitude would have bigger fish to fry. And certainly it wouldn’t be fooled by a declaration that fish ain’t meat. The creator of everything is presumably not dumb. The gods in religion are morons. Ergo, religions are not accurate.
Or whatever other faith – Catholic, Baptist, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, Buddhist, Hindu, etc. A great many of the followers of all the world’s major faiths never got there by reason, but simply by being born to parents who practiced.
Pure deism doesn’t tell us anything about, say, the Trinity, or whether God wants heretics put to death.
That was in fact the original meaning of “atheist.” The prefix “a-” means “without.” Thus, we talk about technology being amoral. It has no inherent morality; people can use it for either good or bad.
Deists believe that God created the universe–possibly very much like Genesis describes it–but that was it. By far the most common analogy is a clock–after you wind up a clock, you walk away. They believe that God created the universe with its scientific laws, and then walked away. Thus there is no point in praying, because God won’t intervene in human affairs.
Except the majority of scientists, presently and historically do believe in a god or higher power:
Truth is atheists are a minority in science, you won’t hear this from Dawkins and co but in reality they are the outliers and extremists. The majority of scientists do believe in a god or higher power, and don’t find religion or spirituality a “threat” to science.
Whether atheists like it or not, they really don’t have many historical figures of intellectual notoriety on their side, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Nietzsche, Marquis de Sade, as opposed to Einstein and Newton who were philosophically spiritual - won’t judge all atheists but “the company you keep” rings a bell.
I’m not an expert on deism, however I’m not sure if it is specifically the notion that the physical laws of the universe prove the existence of God.
There is of course, also the notion that the physical laws of the universe are actually an inferior way of understanding the universe, than the formal sciences such as mathematics and aesthetics, understandable through higher reason alone without any “testing” or experimentation, and that the formal laws of the universe prove the existence of God; philosophers and mathematicians such as Godel are among those who hold these ideas.
Plus for what it’s worth, the modern scientific method is less about pure reason (deduction) and more about observation (induction).
I’d personally say that using pure logic one can prove the existence of God, objective morality, etc, and debunk atheism or the believe that this current physical life is all that exists as logically fallacious. I’m not sure if this makes me a “deist or not”. As I don’t believe that a god created the world and “walked away”, but rather that God and the formal laws of the universe, mathematics, logic, aesthetics are directly interrelated.
Hence “miracles” in the notion of God just “making” things happen out of nothing in the physical world wouldn’t exist, since God is not of the ‘physical’ universe, but of the firmament, which is more fundamental than physics.
In the story of Genesis for example, I believe “heavens” was actually intended to refer not to the astral bodies, but to the firmament, or the fundamental formal logical or aesthetic structure of the universe itself, and from which everything physically measurable comes from. While “earth” referred not just to the physical planet earth, but the entire physical universe, less fundamental than the formal universe, or underlying logic of all that exists that is.
I think you want to claim things that the cite does not show, the numbers are actually:
Once you reach for the bible you are indeed outside the group that does believe in “a universal spirit”, because AFAIK most deists Deists deny the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible.
I’m honestly not sure of a name for what the OP describes. Deism is what Flyer describes: you believe in a Creator God who set everything in motion and then just let it run.
The problem I’ve always had with it is that, if you presume an omniscient and omnipotent God, then there’s really no discernible difference in that and one that does interact. He just knows what’s going to happen and has his reactions built in.
And, if you argue God is outside of time, there literally is no difference between the two interpretations.
Agreed. I work with lots of honest-to-goodness researchers, mostly in physics, biology, and chemistry. I would guess that the number who consider themselves atheists is higher than the general population, but I would not say overwhelmingly so. I have known many who could be described as evangelicals. And among those who are believers they usually just see science and religion as separate things. They wouldn’t look to classical literature for advice on rewiring the kitchen, and they wouldn’t look to chemistry for advice on God.
I’m a deist and I use your first definition. There is a something, we don’t know what it is, but it isn’t Thor. Or a Judeo Christian God. Its a spiritual energy. Its serendipity. Its glimpsed in a sunset or the smell of a baby’s head. Its a place to send your hopes (prayers) and a place to send your gratitude - and when life is shitty - a place to direct your anger and frustration.
I have far more in common with atheists than I do with most varieties of theists.
And there are lots of me.
ETA: I don’t really care about the finger pushing the button on the big bang. Creator isn’t really a thing for me.
No one’s talking about the Bible, the Koran or the Book of Mormon.
We’re just talking about those who believe in a god or higher power, and those who do not, regardless of faith or creed.
I’d have to do some more research, but if I’m not mistaken, I think that mathematicians are much more likely to believe in a God or higher power than those in the physical scientists.
So that definitely leans me in the direction of not agreeing with the insinuation that scientists are less likely to be ‘religious’ because they’re “smart”, but because their profession primarily focuses on simply the material or physically observable, so they likely just have less interest in more abstract concepts like philosophy and spirituality.
Similar to the idea that scientists are more socially awkward with women; if it’s true it’s not because they’re “smart”, but because science and technology are pretty ugly and about breaking things down into boring, mechanical parts, rather than creative and beautiful like the arts and humanities. This is why musicians in general are way more attractive to the ladies than scientists, and you can’t deny that musical geniuses such as the Beatles aren’t “smart” in a different way.
“How can this be! You made the system of the world, you explain the laws of all creation, but in all your book you speak not once of the existence of God!”
“[No, Sire,] I had no need of that hypothesis.”
-Reply made to Napoleon, attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer.
Yes and no. The initial creation of a model or hypothesis is pretty largely induction-based, but science also has a verification procedure – let’s actually do a test to find out! – and that’s strongly deductive.
Ah yes, ye olde “Believe in God, because you’ll get all the women who you can’t sleep with unless you’re married to one, monogamously, and then you can only have sex with the express purpose of procreation.” strategy. :dubious:
I’m a deist. I came to my belief from a combination of what I learned in various courses that I took in college (biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics), what I learned in medical school, and my observations of the real world.
I’ve never witnessed any event* that would require the existence of a deity of any sort or that it be attributed to a miracle having occurred. No life after death, miraculous healing, or anything else that can’t be explained by natural laws. The existence of a soul separate from the body? I’ve never seen a shred of evidence for it. Life after death? I’ve never seen a shred of evidence for it. Changing water to wine? I guess possible in theory if you had a lot of time and energy and a particle accelerator that was really powerful to conduct the appropriate nuclear fusion reactions that would be required to turn hydrogen into carbon and then use that carbon to form all the complex chemicals that are part of wine. Not possible given what is alleged.
*. Their is one exception, which is the existence of the universe itself. The laws of thermodynamics seem to make the existence of a universe such as ours impossible, but yet here we are. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a physicist out their that has a good explanation, or even any explanation at all, as to how this occurred. I don’t see any possible way physics can explain the existence of the universe itself, so the conclusion I’ve reached is that something outside of our universe as it presently exists must have set the whole thing in motion. But I’m willing to be proven wrong. If we do find evidence of what happened, I’d gladly reject my deism and become an atheist (or a theist if it turns out a deity of some sort is demonstrated to be the cause).
