Posts Tagged ‘revelation’
What is Deism?
Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that derives the existence and nature of God from reason and personal experience [and not from revelation or faith].
Isn’t that a kind of contradiction? Surely there isn’t any way to “reason” that God exists? Logic can’t prove that God exists, otherwise there wouldn’t be atheism, we’d all believe in God.
Obviously this isn’t a contradiction, I expect there is more than one way to find belief in God, but it does strike me as changing the nature of religion. If you can reason that God exists without using scripture or having faith then religion and, specifically, following Gods law becomes less religion and more philosophy. This then can lead you further down a path littered with rhetoric when you consider that much of what NT God says (and OT God when you talk about the Commandments) is, at it’s very core, common sense. So, it then ceases to even be a philosophy and finally becomes the “abscence of abject stupidity” and isn’t really very special at all.
1. belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation.
2. belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it.
So, God made everything and then buggered off to some place to put his feet up and drink a Mai Tai. Now, that’s something I might be able to believe! *
I can’t stop thinking that deism is some wishy-washy cop out on the part of someone who doesn’t really believe in organised religion, but also won’t take the time to learn about the alternative explanations to everything. Not an untenable position for someone who doesn’t really give a rats arse and really just wants to get on with shopping at Asda and playing their PS3.
*Not really, that’s just as ridiculous.
