Deism

[Omega Point]

I originally considered posting this in either the "prove god exists" or "prove god doesn't exist" threads, but then decided it deserves its own thread because it is specific and seperate from many of the ideas discussed in said threads, so if it were brought up there it would probably get lost in the fray.

I currently classify myself as a deist, although admittidly I have not sought after any sort of reading on the possible debunking of deism, hence this thread.

Beyond the oft mentioned logical arguments against the personal god portrayed in the world's major religions, what would the knowledgable atheists of the boards say to debunk the theory of deism?

My conclusion of deism is based in what I have read regarding the "just-so" circumstances surrounding the existence of a life-friendly universe. Before you go about on a tangeant of "the universe is not life-friendly, there is only life on one planet as far as we know", remember that life-friendly for the purposes of this thread is defined as "allowing for the very existence of life".
There are many things that all had to be pretty much exactly how they are for the universe to be life-friendly. How could this happen without a creator? The probablity of all these supposed life-allowing coincedences happening is staggeringly tiny, and thus wouldn't it be intellectually dishonest to discount the possibilty that it wasn't just chance that created a life-friendly universe?

A common argument presented when this line of reasoning is put forth is that we do not know that these specific conditions are the only ones that could allow for life, so the probablity is not so low after all. Before you present that specific argument, let me say that I do not think it is valid. The anthropic coincidences I am speaking of would NOT allow for any form of life that is theoretically possible, most would not even allow for the creation of any elements beyond hydrogen and helium. So please do use that as a theory against deism.

That said, I will leave it to the atheists to enlighten me (I do not mean enlighten in a sarcastic tone, I am genuinely curious for any theories against deism) as to why deism is illogical or impossible or what have you.

I would say that deism (given my current understanding) is at least as rational as atheism.

I thank you for any and all (good) responses.

 

[WillJ]

Ah yes, this again. Well, I'll do my best at debunking it.

1. First of all, why must life be so special? You say, "Well, the universe must be JUST RIGHT for life! It must have been created!" Well, that's like saying, "This meadow must be JUST RIGHT for there to be this exact daisy-tulip ratio, along with exactly this many bees! It must have been created!" No, because there's nothing significant about a daisy-tulip ratio, and although it might be hard to get this notion into your head (it does seem to go against common sense, after all), life is NOT inherently special. Think about it. You can't really provide any sort of perfectly scientific or logical reason to say that it is; you just have a biased opinion that it is, which is natural, considering you're human, and therefore living. Sure, there's only an extremely low chance that this universe could have turned out to be just like the way it is. But so what? It had to turn out some way, and it might as well be this way, unless of course you can provide a reason that this way is somehow special (which again, I doubt you can do).

2. Even if this universe IS so perfect/special, doesn't that mean that if someone created it, whoever did so must be even MORE perfect/special? You can't expect something to create something on a higher level of complexity than itself. Thus, this creator must have been created, because it's so perfect/special. So who created your creator? Unless you plan to believe in an infinite line of creators, each creating the next one, your hypothesis falls apart.

Is that good enough? Note that this does not prove you wrong; it's pretty much impossible to prove you (or anyone else who makes a claim involving god, etc.) wrong. It just shows that your deist mindset is not necessarily true.

And BTW, nice to see that you're so open to conflicting viewpoints.

 

[Vancouver 2010]

Re: Life-Friendly: It's simple statistics, my friend. Given enough planets, one would expect at least one of those to match the required conditions to sustain life. We just happen to be on that minimum one planet.

(Normally, I would go on a "who cares / why are you trying to prove something that cannot be proven with our level of technology" rant, but this is slightly different. Maybe.)

 

[Vancouver 2010]

For the benefit of others:

Definition of Deism according to www.dictionary.com
The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

 

[Omega Point]

Ah yes, this again. Well, I'll do my best at debunking it.

1. First of all, why must life be so special? You say, "Well, the universe must be JUST RIGHT for life! It must have been created!" Well, that's like saying, "This meadow must be JUST RIGHT for there to be this exact daisy-tulip ratio, along with exactly this many bees! It must have been created!" No, because there's nothing significant about a daisy-tulip ratio, and although it might be hard to get this notion into your head (it does seem to go against common sense, after all), life is NOT inherently special. Think about it. You can't really provide any sort of perfectly scientific or logical reason to say that it is; you just have a biased opinion that it is, which is natural, considering you're human, and therefore living. Sure, there's only an extremely low chance that this universe could have turned out to be just like the way it is. But so what? It had to turn out some way, and it might as well be this way, unless of course you can provide a reason that this way is somehow special (which again, I doubt you can do).

2. Even if this universe IS so perfect/special, doesn't that mean that if someone created it, whoever did so must be even MORE perfect/special? You can't expect something to create something on a higher level of complexity than itself. Thus, this creator must have been created, because it's so perfect/special. So who created your creator? Unless you plan to believe in an infinite line of creators, each creating the next one, your hypothesis falls apart.

Is that good enough? Note that this does not prove you wrong; it's pretty much impossible to prove you (or anyone else who makes a claim involving god, etc.) wrong. It just shows that your deist mindset is not necessarily true.

And BTW, nice to see that you're so open to conflicting viewpoints.

To address your first part first (I do not know how to split quotes )

I would say that the existence of life in the universe is indeed special. The overwhelming probablity is that no life could exist in the universe. The physical constraints upon the universe specifically allow for the existence of life. If it were even marginally different, NO life would exist under any forseeable circumstances. A common analogy I could cite would be winning the lottery. Only one out of a copious amount of possible numbers yields the winning result, so that particular number is in a way special. It is a common refutation of that analogy to say that the number is special only because we make it special, because we have a preconcieved notion of winning being special when it really isn't, and the number is truly no different then any other number. However, given the incredibly slim overall odds of picking your winning number, I don't you can instantly chalk it up to chance alone. If the odds of something happening are one in a million billion, and that something happens, you can't discount the possibility that it wasn't entirely by chance. I acknowledge that there is an incredibly small chance that life is just a "cosmic chance", pre-ordained by the laws of physics, but given the odds, I think it is more prudent to say that indeed something "set up" the laws of nature to be life-friendly.

As for the second part:

I have not heard that argument before, and it is a pretty good one. However, giving it some thought I came up with these possibilities:

First, I'm not sure about your saying that you cannot create something at a higher complexity then yourself. Doesn't evolution dictate that you indeed can? The first life on earth through a process of natural selection and evolution created humans, but humans are indeed more complex then archaebacteria or other forms of primitive life. Or with artificial intelligence. If we can create a robot that can learn, can't that robot concievably learn better then us given enough time and build it's own robots that are more complex, etc. etc.?

Second, perhaps god could be infinite? It would obviously be an entity beyond the confines of the universe in some way, so it would not be subject to our laws. Perhaps god exists where time doesn't exist, and could thus be infinite? I realize this is dicey in the sense that it is just utter conjecture with no basis in anything observed, but perhaps it is possible?

Good things to think about though, especially the second point, I havn't thought much about that before.

 

[Omega Point]

Re: Life-Friendly: It's simple statistics, my friend. Given enough planets, one would expect at least one of those to match the required conditions to sustain life. We just happen to be on that minimum one planet.

I'm not sure if you read the part in my first post in which I stated that for the purposes of this thread life-friendly means "allowing for the very existence of life".

The forces to which I refer that make the universe life-friendly would not allow for life on ANY planet under ANY circumstances if they were tweaked, heck, in many scenarios planets and stars would not even exist if the laws were tweaked.

 

[cgannon64]

Look, if the universe is like a giant deck of cards, and there are trillions of black ones and one red one....

 

[WillJ]

To address your first part first (I do not know how to split quotes )

Simply quote the post that you want quoted, delete the text you don't want in the quote, then hit the "back" button, quote the post again, delete the text you don't want in THIS quote, and paste the old quote into the post reply box, along with the new quote. Do this as many times as you wish, and just insert your replies in between the quotes.

I would say that the existence of life in the universe is indeed special. The overwhelming probablity is that no life could exist in the universe. The physical constraints upon the universe specifically allow for the existence of life. If it were even marginally different, NO life would exist under any forseeable circumstances. A common analogy I could cite would be winning the lottery. Only one out of a copious amount of possible numbers yields the winning result, so that particular number is in a way special. It is a common refutation of that analogy to say that the number is special only because we make it special, because we have a preconcieved notion of winning being special when it really isn't, and the number is truly no different then any other number. However, given the incredibly slim overall odds of picking your winning number, I don't you can instantly chalk it up to chance alone. If the odds of something happening are one in a million billion, and that something happens, you can't discount the possibility that it wasn't entirely by chance. I acknowledge that there is an incredibly small chance that life is just a "cosmic chance", pre-ordained by the laws of physics, but given the odds, I think it is more prudent to say that indeed something "set up" the laws of nature to be life-friendly.

Think of all the possible "set-ups" of the universe. That is, all the ways the universe could have turned out. There are obviously a lot of them, let's say 999 trillion (probably way more than that, but oh well). And let's say that 2 of these "set-ups" allow for life. Well, if the universe happens to have one of those set-ups, and therefore allows for life, that's not really special. One of those set-ups had had to have been "chosen" (not implying that there's a creator, but I think you get my drift), and either of the life-allowing ones has an equal chance of being chosen as ANY ONE of the life-disallowing ones. You might be thinking, "But there's so many life-disallowing ones, and so few life-allowing ones!" Well, that's true, but so what? Unless you can somehow show that life or the absence of it is significant, there's no reason to group all the set-ups into two groups (life-allowing and life-disallowing), and instead you can only look at each one individually. See what I mean?

First, I'm not sure about your saying that you cannot create something at a higher complexity then yourself. Doesn't evolution dictate that you indeed can? The first life on earth through a process of natural selection and evolution created humans, but humans are indeed more complex then archaebacteria or other forms of primitive life. Or with artificial intelligence. If we can create a robot that can learn, can't that robot concievably learn better then us given enough time and build it's own robots that are more complex, etc. etc.?

About your evolution point: Well, bacteria didn't create protists, our ape-like ancestors didn't create us humans, etc. They *developed* into one another, which is different from creating each other. About the robots: That's a very good point. However, I'd still say that this hypothetical smart robot would have to be simpler than humans (or whoever created it) at the time of creation. Only afterwards can it develop into something more complicated. Thus, whoever created this universe (if anyone at all ) must be more complex than the universe at the time of creation, which [according to you] was very complex, what with life-allowing rules and all. (Actually, "complex" probably isn't the right word; perhaps "perfect." Whatever the case, I think you get what I'm trying to say.)

Second, perhaps god could be infinite? It would obviously be an entity beyond the confines of the universe in some way, so it would not be subject to our laws. Perhaps god exists where time doesn't exist, and could thus be infinite? I realize this is dicey in the sense that it is just utter conjecture with no basis in anything observed, but perhaps it is possible?

Of course it's possible, but by your reasoning this infinite god of yours must have been created, because it's so complex/perfect/whatever. It's infinite, after all.

Look, if the universe is like a giant deck of cards, and there are trillions of black ones and one red one....

I like it when I get inside jokes.

 

[newfangle]

My only question is, why? Why bother believing in a God who abandons this realm and never returns. There obviously will never be any sort of evidence to support it and there are no benefits from persuing it. It all seems pretty arbitrary to me.

 

[Free Enterprise]

Simply quote the post that you want quoted, delete the text you don't want in the quote, then hit the "back" button, quote the post again, delete the text you don't want in THIS quote, and paste the old quote into the post reply box, along with the new quote. Do this as many times as you wish, and just insert your replies in between the quotes.

That works however you can also type the:
[-Quote] text would go here [-/quote] and insert the text you want to quote into the center of the two boxesboxes. In the first "quote" section you type quote=NameOfPersonBeingQuoted to have it display who (or where) you are quoted from. Might save some time (and there is the possibility of something going wrong with the internet if you are relying on it instead of a word program).

Note: The -should normally not be used. I put it there to prevent the text from becoming an actual quotation.

 

[Shadylookin]

I originally considered posting this in either the "prove god exists" or "prove god doesn't exist" threads, but then decided it deserves its own thread because it is specific and seperate from many of the ideas discussed in said threads, so if it were brought up there it would probably get lost in the fray.

I currently classify myself as a deist, although admittidly I have not sought after any sort of reading on the possible debunking of deism, hence this thread.

Beyond the oft mentioned logical arguments against the personal god portrayed in the world's major religions, what would the knowledgable atheists of the boards say to debunk the theory of deism?

My conclusion of deism is based in what I have read regarding the "just-so" circumstances surrounding the existence of a life-friendly universe. Before you go about on a tangeant of "the universe is not life-friendly, there is only life on one planet as far as we know", remember that life-friendly for the purposes of this thread is defined as "allowing for the very existence of life".
There are many things that all had to be pretty much exactly how they are for the universe to be life-friendly. How could this happen without a creator? The probablity of all these supposed life-allowing coincedences happening is staggeringly tiny, and thus wouldn't it be intellectually dishonest to discount the possibilty that it wasn't just chance that created a life-friendly universe?

A common argument presented when this line of reasoning is put forth is that we do not know that these specific conditions are the only ones that could allow for life, so the probablity is not so low after all. Before you present that specific argument, let me say that I do not think it is valid. The anthropic coincidences I am speaking of would NOT allow for any form of life that is theoretically possible, most would not even allow for the creation of any elements beyond hydrogen and helium. So please do use that as a theory against deism.

That said, I will leave it to the atheists to enlighten me (I do not mean enlighten in a sarcastic tone, I am genuinely curious for any theories against deism) as to why deism is illogical or impossible or what have you.

I would say that deism (given my current understanding) is at least as rational as atheism.

I thank you for any and all (good) responses.

Being somewhat of a deist myself(more of a deist agnostic) I present this argument to you. Life is but an illusion, at the heart of all living creatures is innorganic material. We are made up of cells which are at the basic level a combination of many atoms(yes I am aware that there are things smaller than atoms but lets ignore that for now seeing as it wouldn't change the arugment) Atoms also are the basic elements of non living things like your computer desk. Therefore "life" is really just a specific combination of non living things and not some special entity. Face it you are a fluke of the universe and you have no specail divine right to be here. That doesn't mean you should be depressed that your life has no real universal meaning, instead just make up your own meaning for life(to become rich and powerful, to be loved, help your children, whatever) Life is irrelevant, but totally awesome. I would say deism is rational, a deist typicaly says that the universe was created by something(be it a sentient being or 2 universes coliding and froming this one) while an atheist says that our universe has always existed. Neither can be proven and both are logical, perhaps one day science will give us an answer as to which theory is correct until then it's about what is logical. so deism falls into the realm of reason until you start adding dogmas to it(like bad people go to hell, our creator gave a few people a divine relevation and expects all of you to listen to it kinda stuff).

 

[Omega Point]

Think of all the possible "set-ups" of the universe. That is, all the ways the universe could have turned out. There are obviously a lot of them, let's say 999 trillion (probably way more than that, but oh well). And let's say that 2 of these "set-ups" allow for life. Well, if the universe happens to have one of those set-ups, and therefore allows for life, that's not really special. One of those set-ups had had to have been "chosen" (not implying that there's a creator, but I think you get my drift), and either of the life-allowing ones has an equal chance of being chosen as ANY ONE of the life-disallowing ones. You might be thinking, "But there's so many life-disallowing ones, and so few life-allowing ones!" Well, that's true, but so what? Unless you can somehow show that life or the absence of it is significant, there's no reason to group all the set-ups into two groups (life-allowing and life-disallowing), and instead you can only look at each one individually. See what I mean?

Again, I would argue that life is significant in the sense that it is so improbable. I understand your reasoning of "improbable, but so what?", however I think the sheer fact that life happened when the overwhelming odds are that it wouldn't happen is indeed special. Sure, it could have been an extremely tiny chance, but I don't think it is appropriate to immediatly say it was. Isn't science all about determining what is more probable from the evidence and assuming that it is true (assuming absolute proof cannot be attained)? It's like saying what is more probable: a guy named jesus walked around performing miracles and was crucified and rose from the dead, or it was some sort of hoax or political gambit or misenterpretation, etc. We can't absolutly proove that jesus didn't do all that, but most here would agree that it is much more probable that the latter is true of jesus. I try to employ the same reasoning with the life-friendly universe:

a.) the universe is the product of a random assortment of physical laws and the physical laws that exist in the universe just so happen to be the needle in the haystack set which allows for the existence of life.

b.) the universe was somehow preordained to allow for the existence of life by some sort of entity or what have you.

I would say B is the more probable hypothesis, and I am thus a deist.

 

[WillJ]

Again, I would argue that life is significant in the sense that it is so improbable. I understand your reasoning of "improbable, but so what?", however I think the sheer fact that life happened when the overwhelming odds are that it wouldn't happen is indeed special. Sure, it could have been an extremely tiny chance, but I don't think it is appropriate to immediatly say it was. Isn't science all about determining what is more probable from the evidence and assuming that it is true (assuming absolute proof cannot be attained)? It's like saying what is more probable: a guy named jesus walked around performing miracles and was crucified and rose from the dead, or it was some sort of hoax or political gambit or misenterpretation, etc. We can't absolutly proove that jesus didn't do all that, but most here would agree that it is much more probable that the latter is true of jesus. I try to employ the same reasoning with the life-friendly universe:

a.) the universe is the product of a random assortment of physical laws and the physical laws that exist in the universe just so happen to be the needle in the haystack set which allows for the existence of life.

b.) the universe was somehow preordained to allow for the existence of life by some sort of entity or what have you.

I would say B is the more probable hypothesis, and I am thus a deist.

I think you misunderstand my point. B is NOT necessarily more probable; it's just that if it's true, it gives a more probable chance to life happening than A, which is completely irrelevant. I'll try to use an analogy.

You are looking through a haystack, and you find a needle. What are the chances of that needle being exactly right there? Very, very tiny. There's practically an infinite number of possible locations within the haystack for that needle, and you discovered it in a particular one. There are two possibilities for how the needle got there:

a) It just got there by chance. (An example would be a person was playing around with the needle while the hay was being stacked, and it fell in.)

b) Someone purposely put it there, in that exact location. (An example would be John saw the haystack and said, "I think I'll put this needle 3.5 centimeters from the left edge of the haystack, 27.4 centimeters from the top edge of the haystack, and 13.25 centimeters from the edge of the haystack facing me.")

Well, by your reasoning you should assume b is the case, because with b the chance of the needle ending up there is 100%, but with a it's 0.000001% (or something like that).

Now you tell me which one is really more logical of an assumption.

 

[Syterion]

I would say that the existence of life in the universe is indeed special. The overwhelming probablity is that no life could exist in the universe. The physical constraints upon the universe specifically allow for the existence of life. If it were even marginally different, NO life would exist under any forseeable circumstances. A common analogy I could cite would be winning the lottery. Only one out of a copious amount of possible numbers yields the winning result, so that particular number is in a way special. It is a common refutation of that analogy to say that the number is special only because we make it special, because we have a preconcieved notion of winning being special when it really isn't, and the number is truly no different then any other number. However, given the incredibly slim overall odds of picking your winning number, I don't you can instantly chalk it up to chance alone. If the odds of something happening are one in a million billion, and that something happens, you can't discount the possibility that it wasn't entirely by chance. I acknowledge that there is an incredibly small chance that life is just a "cosmic chance", pre-ordained by the laws of physics, but given the odds, I think it is more prudent to say that indeed something "set up" the laws of nature to be life-friendly.

I would argue that life could exist even if the laws of physics were drastically different(though it is beyond my imagination to see what they could be). How do you know life is constrained to carbon based life forms with an affinity for methane, oxygen or carbon dioxide? Your thinking is too limited. You think it is an incredibly lucky chance that one planet has conditions able to foster oxygen breathing carbon-based life. It might not. For all you know, there is life out there that can survive in the most extreme condidtions not duplicatable on Earth.

My argument basically means I do not find life as special as you do. And I think it is foolish to take the leap of faith and think it is special because you do not know if other forms of life exist.

 

[Vancouver 2010]

I would argue that life could exist even if the laws of physics were drastically different(though it is beyond my imagination to see what they could be). How do you know life is constrained to carbon based life forms with an affinity for methane, oxygen or carbon dioxide? Your thinking is too limited. You think it is an incredibly lucky chance that one planet has conditions able to foster oxygen breathing carbon-based life. It might not. For all you know, there is life out there that can survive in the most extreme condidtions not duplicatable on Earth.

My argument basically means I do not find life as special as you do. And I think it is foolish to take the leap of faith and think it is special because you do not know if other forms of life exist.

There's only one thing I have to say to that: I agree with you.

 

[Omega Point]

I would argue that life could exist even if the laws of physics were drastically different(though it is beyond my imagination to see what they could be). How do you know life is constrained to carbon based life forms with an affinity for methane, oxygen or carbon dioxide? Your thinking is too limited. You think it is an incredibly lucky chance that one planet has conditions able to foster oxygen breathing carbon-based life. It might not. For all you know, there is life out there that can survive in the most extreme condidtions not duplicatable on Earth.

My argument basically means I do not find life as special as you do. And I think it is foolish to take the leap of faith and think it is special because you do not know if other forms of life exist.

Isn't assuming life can exist in different forms without any proof just as bad as saying that an all powerful diety beyond the confines of the laws of the universe can exist without any proof?

 

[Omega Point]

B is NOT necessarily more probable; it's just that if it's true, it gives a more probable chance to life happening than A, which is completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure how it is irrelevant. Life did happen, and so why should we consider it irrelevant? You could say life is a simple bi-product of the random laws and is not inherently special. I think (emphasis on think, I'm not sure!) I understand your reasoning but still I wouldn't say the fact that life exists is meaningless for no reason other then it happened.

 

[Perfection]

Isn't assuming life can exist in different forms without any proof just as bad as saying that an all powerful diety beyond the confines of the laws of the universe can exist without any proof?

Ah but there is evidence toward the possibility! Such things as cellular automata show that complex interacting patterns can arise from numerous diverse systems of basic mathematical rules. It appears that the universe runs on a fairly basic set of mathematical rules, and we are complex interacting patterns (much more than cellular automata, of course, but the point is still valid). So this provides evidence that different rules in a universe would still be conducive to complex interacting patterns which would have many of the mathematical characeristics of life!

Thank you Stephen Wolfram! You are awesome!

 

[WillJ]

I'm not sure how it is irrelevant. Life did happen, and so why should we consider it irrelevant? You could say life is a simple bi-product of the random laws and is not inherently special. I think (emphasis on think, I'm not sure!) I understand your reasoning but still I wouldn't say the fact that life exists is meaningless for no reason other then it happened.

Well, okay, it's not completely irrelevant, but nonetheless it doesn't logically lend to the conclusion that this universe was created. To use my analogy, when you see a haystack with a needle in it, do you jump to conclusion b? If not, what makes it different than life in the universe?

And another point that I forgot to (explicitly) bring up: For creation to better explain life existing than pure chance, the creator has to favor life. Why is that a valid assumption? Again, why is life so special? To use my analogy again, why is it different than a needle in a particular location of a haystack?

Also, just out of curiousity, what's with you favoring deism? You never brought up why you think our creator has let the universe run its course after creating it, which is a core part of deism. Could it be that you're (nearly) sure that we have a creator (for reasons you've already explained), but that you're not sure in any way about the nature of this creator and what it's done since the universe's creation? If so, that's not really deism in my book.

 

[Perfection]

Of course, you always must remember the weak anthropic principle as well. You can only observe a realm in which "life" can be created. So the probability of us being in a "life" possible universe must be 1