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Originally Posted by BeaucoupFish
Yes, it would depend on your assumptions and presuppositions. I mean that deism might be a sufficient explanation, but can you show that it is a necessary one? If you can't, then it is not justified.
If your criteria for justification are only conclusions which are necessary, there are no theories in this conversation which are justifiable. Deism does not deal with necessary conclusions, it deals with observation and reason, I don't see the need to burden the view with necessary conclusions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeaucoupFish
Hmmm, this is not my understanding. Deists can even refer to god as the Great Watchmaker, the creator of the universe. To differentiate between an atheist and a deist, one need only ask them whether they believe the universe was created. So I'm not sure what you mean by this?
I don't think this is right, at the very least the deist will claim a creator God, and nothing more. This is the only requirement which I can see for God. However, since we can't perceive him by definition, we can only infer his existence by looking at the universe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeaucoupFish
Explanations can be rejected without substituting an alternative. Otherwise you might be edging towards argument from ignorance. I don't think universe origin questions can be answered - science certainly cannot tell us capital T 'Truth'.
You have just advocated for an agnostic-only approach.
You can reject God and not posit other theories, but I don't think this is intellectually honest, it's not what most people do, whether unconsciously or consciously. Everyone has some theory as to how and why we are here, most atheists I've spoken to attribute it to something like "chance". So they don't know exactly how it works, obviously, but they do substitute for God. They don't just reject God and not posit other thoughts. If they didn't, why reject God as an explanation in the first place? Seems odd to say, "I have no idea how anything got here, but I know it wasn't God."
If one admits that we cannot know, they are putting forth some form of agnosticism, so there is no real reason to reject God. The belief that God is not a good explanation is no different than the deist saying otherwise. Unless you want to say we can't know, which is plain agnosticism, as you seem to be suggesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeaucoupFish
It's difficult to address in a general way, perhaps I could do better with someone's specific position. But I doubt I'd say anything you are unlikely to have heard from atheists already. A rambling list: as I said above, an explanation might be sufficient but if you can't show that it is necessarily so, it's a kind of ad hoc position. Or an explanation that is itself much more complicated than the phenomena you are trying to explain, in fact it sounds more like a placeholder for an explanation rather than an actual explanation (disparagingly referred to as "God-did-it"). Which in turn can lead to a kind of theological non-cognitivism (if you ever want to expose yourself to a barrage of Deepak Chopra-isms, ask certain theists "But what IS God" )
Ultimately it comes down to the root of being skeptical: what reasons are there to believe something is the case?
I'd add that I would generally consider deists to have somewhat of a better starting point than theists because deism is supposed to be based on reason + observation, not faith / special revelation / personal relationships etc.
PS I'd be interested to read the views of any deists that post here.
I don't see a reason to put God in another category of possible causes for the universe. If I say I believe the universe just began by chance, or is in an eternal state of repeated Big Bangs to Big Crunches, all of which are not necessary conclusions, would you reject these views as being mere placeholders?
I'd also like to hear from a deist in this conversation.