Doesn't deism seem more logical?

[Pandeist_Man]

Pandeist Man,
Do pandeists such as yourself (or deists, if you know any), have any sort of practices or rituals, such as praying?
and I was also wondering, do you believe there is an afterlife?

Other than the ritual of having all the ridiculously good sex so as to share the pleasure of that experience with our Creator? Well I will not speak for all pandeists as there are different views within the metatheory, but in my personal observance and general experience, we do not especially have religious rituals or practices Certainly, the idea that there are practices dictated by an eccentrically intervening deity is not supported by the pandeistic model, nor would it make any sense for men to pray, as we are all part of our Creator and would ultimately be praying to ourselves. But I and many whom I know spend time in meditation and reflection.

Now as to an afterlife, that is something of a more interesting question. Again, there is no single monolithic pandeistic view. But, every pandeist will have a conception based on a logical extrapolation of the evidence presented by our Universe. Theistic views of an afterlife tend to be arbitrarily dichotomous, split into a pair of possibilities, eternal reward or eternal punishment, separated by a very thin line of correct belief.

But for those who believe the logical purpose of our creation was for our Creator to learn through our experiences, it follows that our Creator must itself exist after the end of our Universe (for what use would it be for our Creator to become our Universe, but to be able to later contemplate the knowledge gained through that process). It is logical, as well, to expect that if our Creator has teh capacity to maintain a complete record of everything which occurred within our Universe (including our individual existence) then our individual consciousnesses will be preserved within the mind of our Creator; it is thusly entirely possible that we will come to share in the knowledge of our Creator, as continuing aspects of its greater mind.

 

[kbwall]

The Big Bang and evolution may dispose of scriptural accounts, but why was there a Big Bang? If it was simply a result of gravity, why is there gravity, and why is it able to generate a Universe capable of going through an amazing set of steps culminating in intelligent life able to ask questions about it? And as to outdatedness, the aspects of Deism which have left open questions which seem to place it in that category are surpassed by continuing developments within the philosophy of Deism itself, as with Pandeism and Panendeism.

Really, trying not to sound rude, but that doesn’t really make it any better. That’s still basically the “I don’t understand sufficiently complicated science, therefore, the universe came about by magic”, which is, no offense, one of the more ignorant approaches to philosophy, religion, or whatever you wish to call it.

 

[Pandeist_Man]

Really, trying not to sound rude, but that doesn’t really make it any better. That’s still basically the “I don’t understand sufficiently complicated science, therefore, the universe came about by magic”, which is, no offense, one of the more ignorant approaches to philosophy, religion, or whatever you wish to call it.

It is not a question of understanding complicated science – scientific theories proposed of late seek to explain how gravity could bring about our physical Universe, but no scientific explanation has yet been offered at all as to why a law of gravity exists at all, nor indeed why anything exists, instead of nothing existing.

And, incidentally, some great modern minds in the field of astrophysics ascribe the Creation of our Universe to deistic or pandeistic theological models – NASA PhD astrophysicist Bernard Haisch has proposed such a model in The God Theory and The Purpose-Driven Universe, Timothy Ferris put forth a similar conception in the postscript to his cosmological masterpiece, The Whole Shebang, Paul Davies in The Mind of God and Cosmic Jackpot, as well as scientists in related fields such as Duke University physicist Robert G. Brown (in his paper The Pandeist Theorem) and PhD computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup (author of Rationalist Spirituality and Dreamed Up Reality). All of them and many others are respecting the explanatory power of science in their fields, and still proposing meta-explanations as to why our Universe first originated at all.

 

[samiam1611]

Have you read all these books you’ve mentioned? It sounds like you do a lot of reading!

 

[Pandeist_Man]

Have you read all these books you’ve mentioned? It sounds like you do a lot of reading!

The longest of them is not more than 250 pages – I suppose I do a fair amount of reading, but time and literacy and access to books are rare gifts in the history of the human condition, so there we are.

 

[abucs]

Hi Sam, if you are thinking that Deism is semi sensible then doesn’t that mean you are open to our physical world as only a second order of reality - a creation.

Then wouldn’t God acting in the world come down to how he created this second order of reality (with respect to himself) and what his purposes are - the how and the why.

For such answers i believe we have to look at both disciplines of quantum physics and Theology together.

That is, the study of physics at the smallest level and the long history of interpretation of God given the state of the world and the environment we find ourselves in.

I think both areas can be quite speculative, although i favour a Theist answer.

 

[samiam1611]

Hi Sam, if you are thinking that Deism is semi sensible then doesn’t that mean you are open to our physical world as only a second order of reality - a creation.

Then wouldn’t God acting in the world come down to how he created this second order of reality (with respect to himself) and what his purposes are - the how and the why.

For such answers i believe we have to look at both disciplines of quantum physics and Theology together.

That is, the study of physics at the smallest level and the long history of interpretation of God given the state of the world and the environment we find ourselves in.

I think both areas can be quite speculative, although i favour a Theist answer.

I know zip about quantum physics but if you’d like to explain to me why you favor theism over deism, I’m all ears…err, eyes.

 

[abucs]

Hi Sam,

it’s a big topic and i’m busy for the next week.

Check in again next week and i’ll try to put together something.

If you like to read anything in the meantime then try looking into the scientific laws of “the observer affect”, “complimentarity” and the “particle/wave duality” especially as it relates to consciousness. (Werner Heisenburg, Neils Bohr and Eugene Wigner etc)

If you like you can also read up on the non locality theory of life, the Universe and everything from the scientific physics experiments theorised by Stuart Bell (Bell’s
theorem) and the results of those experiments from the mid 1980’s onwards.

 

[abucs]

I think when we look at modern physics to tell us about our reality then we have a platform for a Theistic God and an overkill in design for only a deistic God.

All interactions in our universe are non local interactions with a non material, non detectable and non local platform although it has been made to look to us on the surface to be completely deterministic and causal.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell’s_theorem
upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/BellsTheorem/BellsTheorem.html

Next, this interaction with a non local, non material platform works at least in part on the basis of conscious interaction.

vision.net.au/~apaterson/science/observer_effect.htm
theobservereffect.wordpress.com/the-most-beautiful-experiment/
youtube.com/watch?v=vQe0oiaBssg&feature=related (after 3 mins)

and Eugene Wigner, a Physics Nobel Proze winner in 1963 for his work in elementary particles has said quite bluntly :

“It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner

To quote another Physics nobel prize winner - Wernen Heisenburg - “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”

That was my experience anyway Sam. It looks like our physical world is a second order of reality with a platform for interaction with a first order of reality based on consciousness built into our system. It was this realisation that stopped me being an atheist. Intellectually i could never be one again unless quantum mechanics can be explained ‘sole materialis’ which i don’t think it can although i tried very hard to see it that way.

 

[geekborj]

I am an atheist but acknowledge that maybe I’m wrong (agnostic atheist), and it would be lovely to have some things explained. Namely, creation - how the universe came to be - what was there “before” the Big Bang. Of all the conceptions of God that I have heard of, deism is more acceptable to me than theism. Here is a definition of deism for you:

Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation

(~World Union of Deists)

My definition: An impersonal, nonanthromorphic, nonperfect but nonevil creator who does not use magical powers to communicate to people. It just made the universe and that’s it. Maybe even disappeared after that, I don’t know. That would be pandeism. I find that plausible too. Maybe even more so than regular deism.

Thoughts?

The problem here is the perpetuation of multiple versions of the “god” because of “supported by personal observation of” nature. If a god is supposed to be a god, then that god must be “the god”. Christians believe that “the god” is He Is (He Who Is) because there is no condition for his Existence and the power is limitless even beyond nature.

The magnificence of Nature, as one would put it, is simply a point of his “shadow” because the Earth (this Universe) is an analog to his Footstool.

The basic definition introduced above (yours and the deists) are very simple for the same to be a true god. The monotheistic trinitarian god that the Catholic Christians propose is a very logical one. A mystery that even my imagination (and limited logic) cannot fathom but only believe in awe.

Believe that you may understand; Understand that you may believe more. - St. Augustine

 

[abucs]

Here is an interesting video that i stumbled across which shows the effect of non local actions on entangled particles.

youtube.com/watch?v=LZLRbma9Uj0&feature=related

This non locality can be solved by postulating the existence of dimensions beyond the three dimensions that we are familiar with. All actions in this physical universe happen through a non local process. The question is where do they happen and how? The following video shows conceptually how another dimenion would be invisible to us but able to connect all facets of our 3 dimensional space and time.

youtube.com/watch?v=s-eAoMw6gJg&feature=related

If there is a God, and i think there is, i would suggest a Theistic one is more sensible than a Deistic one given what we know about physics at the smallest level.

 

[illusion_buster]

We are VERY lucky to be living in this time of scientific exploration and research. It may seem on the surface that science bent on disproving “God.”… but look further into quantum physics and nan science and neucleur science and micro science etc…etc…etc… and you find a whole different perspective being unveiled which is…reluctantly… PROVING the existance of a creator… not just an ‘energy’ … but a INTELLIGENT creator. If it’s proof you need… just wait a few decades… It is happening faster than you know. Meanwhile… Blessed are those who believe yet do not see…