I think that the wiki article runs contrary.

I have already answered that. Under your definition of deism there is no difference. But that is not what many others mean by deistic god. And non intervening does not equate to mindless purposeless force.

You should care as your definition of deism is exactly the same as pantheism.

I already answered, but didn't bother before because the question made no sense.

who is saying I'm a deist...? I think u may have missed the point of that post.

You can say my version is "meaningless" I say what you think of it is irrelevant it is what it is, and it isn't "mine."

You are spending a lot if time ITT arguing against a definition that is pretty well accepted, why don't you just find some definitions of deism, and see which characteristics are the most consistent? this is really pretty simple.

It doesn't seem as your deism.com site agrees with your assessment of their definition. It seems clear that they do not view god as a mindless purposeless unintentional force.

http://deism.com/deism_defined.htm

Briefly reading over that site (very interesting by the way thanks for pointing me that way) it seems that the only difference between deism and theism is that deist do not believe that god has revealed himself through special revelation. Which is very far from atheism.

except it doesn't. I have explained why multiple times and the only other person to weigh in on this doesn't agree with you. Take of that what you will.


I have already answered that. Under your definition of deism there is no difference. But that is not what many others mean by deistic god.

Not "my" definition

Not "my" definition

Not "my" definition

Not "my" definition

Is this clear yet? As far as "not what many others mean" again I tell you to find some definitions and see which characteristics are common to each.

(Hint: you will see the words, "non intervening", "non supernatural", and "natural processes" a lot

You should care as your definition of deism is exactly the same as pantheism.

Is it? Why is it you are trying to equate these two things, or prove to me that they are equatable, yet you haven't posted a single definition of pantheism ITT. If that;s the avenue you want to go down ( it seems you are dead set on it) why haven't you put any effort towards it?

My assessment? This is getting so silly. I posted the definition verbatim. I didn't asses anything.

And its awesome that they would use Einstein, because he is widely believed to have been a pantheist. Maybe these two things aren't as different as you think they are?

I haven't posted a definition of pantheism because you can use the internet as well as I can. But here we go...

from wiki

And I did already post (from the site you quoted) a definition that runs contrary to the one that you are using. And again, "non intervening" (I don't know what you mean by "non supernatural" so I am staying away from it for now) is not the same as a mindless purposeless unintentional force. Which is very different from what deism.com describes as the deistic god.

“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/..._einstein.html

Spinoza is credited as being one of the forefather's of pantheism FYI

You went on to post that god as defined by deism (if not explicitly then by omission) was a mindless, purposeless, and unintentional force which was not explicate in that definition; hence "your assessment".

And as far as Einstein, he is attributed many beliefs and depending on what quote you mine it is hard to tell where he stood.

What quote I mine? Are you suggesting thats out of context?

was a mindless, purposeless, and unintentional force

These are all your words by the way, and didn't say any of these things and hence I made no "assessment"

I'm not the one making the argument.... you know how this works.

(I don't know what you mean by "non supernatural

Dictionary.com
belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation ( distinguished from theism)

What evidence do you have that the thing that created the universe has purpose or intention? Because its personified? how does that follow?

Get over it you two.

Why don't you both make an argument based on both definitions of the word and get on it it.

You said he said i said **** gets nowhere.


just saying..

Maybe I skipped a crucial part of this long discussion, so my apologies in that case.

A big part of the things that appear to be designed (animals, human body, landcapes, nature, etc) are in fact not proven to be designed or not.

What is the name of the logical fallacy here?

Sommerset -

I think the deism/pantheism distinction is as follows. Both deists and pantheists believe there are organizing principle(s) of reality ontologically prior to existence. Pantheists identify these principle(s) as god(s); deists identify these principle(s) as acts of god(s).

In any case, am I correct to read your basic question as: "What new content is introduced by saying either the organizing principle(s) or the god(s) behind them are mindful, intentional, and purposeful?"

That does seem to me the relevant question.

That's basically it. Also, I understand there is a distinction between Pantheism and Deism, I never equated the two, as Jib has alleged.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you equated the two; just thought it might be useful for the thread to make an explicit distinction.

No apology necessary. I thought you may have gotten the idea from what Jib said earlier, I just wanted to make it clear that that isn't the case. I agree with you that the explicit distinction is helpful

Max please explain your contradictory statements. If the cosmological constant were 0 would it be indicative of design or not? So far your posts in this thread are indicative of one flailing around grasping at staws.

This is desperately naive of the physics involved, but here's an analogy I use if I feel like attacking the idea that the stability of matter indicates a designed universe. Imagine a bucket of wet gumballs tossed into a high-speed dryer with a blanket. You then examine the result, and contemplate where all the balls ended up sticking. It is fantastically unlikely that they would end up in that exact pattern. Only a designer could make it work like that!! Conversely, take energy and stir. You'll end up with something unusual and interesting -- our universe. It's only in retrospect that it looks designed.

Actually, I think the delicate values of subatomic physics are the only place a designer hasn't been thoroughly disproved.

What if the gumballs spelled out "Hey Bill, how goes it?", would that cause you to pause at all? Or would you assume that it is just happenstance, after all it has the same probability as every other possible arrangement!

Those statements are not contradictory. You can't do an experiment to show that the cc is not zero without looking far outside the milky way. That is just a fact.

If the cc was zero, it would be a very, very weak argument for design. I certainly never saw any papers written before the CC measurement that made a prediction that the CC should be zero if the universe is designed. I also sure as hell never saw any saying that the CC should be non zero if the universe is designed. I did see a very famous paper that claimed that if the universe was in some sense randomly selected from an anthropically allowed subset of a multiverse we would expect the cc to be a small nonzero value. Experiments did show it was a small nonzero value and the Weinberg paper is the only "successful" prediction of it that I know of in the literature.

With respect to the CC, design basically tells you nothing. Why didn't the designer choose 0? Why didn't the designer choose half of the measured value? Or 2x? Or 3x? It's like asking if me ordering chinese food for lunch is indicative of design. It makes no sense because given the universe was designed, my lunch order could have still been chinese or pizza or indian etc etc etc. And design does not give us any reason to favor any particular subset of possible lunch orders over others.

You should probably just go straight to the insults and ignore the physics altogether.

http://youtu.be/YldowmD89ng

lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

I'm weak, I would immediately bow down to the deity.

So can we draw from this that string theory is an argument for intelligent design? If there are an incredible number of arrangements of physical laws and values of fundamental forces that are valid, most of which would not allow matter and life to coalesce, doesn't that suggest guidance in the setting of cosmological traits? Just saying.