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Deism vs Theism and Atheism
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Date: 2008/03/21 18:16
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By: titojtd
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I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I find it pretty interesting. I am always open to criticism, btw, just because someone might point out something to me that I never saw before. None of this is meant to offend anyone.
Okay, so I'm a Deist. What is a Deist? Basically, a Deist is someone who believes in the existence of God through reason/logical reasoning, and not through what I call "blind faith", aka, believing in God without some kind of logical evidence/reason. An example of "blind faith" would be believing in God "just because" or because you were raised to believe in God, etc. Deists don't rely on, and most often reject, revealed religious teachings and books (an example would be the Bible), and instead rely on their reason and personal experience to justify the existence of God. I could go in to the finer details of Deism, but that's basically it in a nutshell.
By the way, what do I mean when I say reason? Let me give a personal example: The main thing that convinces me that God exists is the creational argument. I believe that everything in existence comes from the Big Bang. Now, what caused the Big Bang? Well, there are many theories out there, but there's one concept that remains constant: everything has to come from something else preceding it. With the concept, you eventually reach a point where you come to the conclusion that something had to have started the process known as, or even led to, the Big Bang. This thing would have to transcend time, space, and it would have to be unmade and be all powerful since it would be literally making something out of nothing. I call this thing God.
So where I am going with all of this? Basically, I feel that most Theists and Atheists alike are missing the big picture when it comes to God because
- Theists (not all, but most) tend to believe in God through blind faith, and their arguments for God tend to be very weak. Also, because of their often reliance on religious texts (to different degrees), they sometimes deny obvious scientific claims and weave inaccurate views of others.
-Atheists, even though they do question things (Bob bless them), tend to have arguments against God that many times are just as weak as a Theist's argument for God.
I feel like Deism is the best road because it combines the skepticism of Atheism with the God aspect of Theism. That's not to say that Deism is a synthesis of these two (it isn't), but that it takes the best qualities of the two. Also, Deism doesn't have any discriminatory teachings, teachings on the afterlife, etc, because it's really a personal religious path without any prophets, books, etc. I would love to hear people's thought's on this topic. Once again, I mean no offense to anyone. Okay, discuss.....
"Try not. Do or do not, there is no try."
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