Gettin' In Tune

Very good point. There is a difference in the belief of god, but not in the influence that god has upon your life. Very well said.


I agree with you. It boils down to 'a priori knowledge'. The agnostic restricts themselves to the material plane and therefore requires empirical evidence. The deist is neutral to the material plane and therefore does not restrict themselves to the material plane to empirics.

p.s. [Gettin' In Tune=quote] My rights have been questioned[/quote]. I have no idea what I meant by this.

Gettin' In Tune

Wow. My rights have been questioned...........sad. Our god does not allow us to think.

plainskeptic

Dear Gettin' in Tune.

Your question has stimulated a lot of discussion. I would like to throw my two-cents in.

Belief and non-belief in god(s) is relative to the concept of the deity purposed.

Almost everyone, for example, is an atheist relative to the gods of ancient Greece.

Theists believe in some concept of god. Christians believe in the god described by Christianity. Muslims, the god described by Islam. Etc.

In my understanding, the claims of agnosticism can range from "I don't know" to "We can't know" whether god(s) exist(s). In practice, agnostics are atheists to some versions of god, but do not know whether some god(s) may exist. I, for example, think the Christian god and the gods of ancient Greece do not exist, but I will not say no god(s) exist(s).

Diests thought reason and observation of nature proved that some creator existed. Diests rejected knowledge of god(s) through revelations such as the Bible.

Deists said things like, "we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Since I can't imagine an agnostic saying such a thing, I think deism has practical implications different from the claims of agnostism.

Good luck with your investigations.

jaej

But in the grand scheme of things, the deist god has no affect on any human affairs, so for all practical purposes they are an atheist or agnostic.

I wouldn't really say this is a deist view. This is more of a theist statement, but that's just my opinion.

__________________
Μολὼν Λαβέ

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

Gettin' In Tune

.....hhaohoasdyfosaf

Gettin' In Tune

I appreciate it.

A deist was never a theist.

Deist argue on rational faith........and reason.

Of course, this is not the truth. Lets develop truth.

Power to the individual and beautiful words spoken. How can atheism ever arrive at this conclusion? Theism.....no way. God deserves our truth even if god is untruthful.

Why are we beautiful?

Why are we alive?

Why do I care about you?



Of course there are practical implications and thank you.

Gettin' In Tune

This forum does censor your rights.....but it allows freedom.

plainskeptic

Theism in the broad sense means simply some belief in god(s).
Since deism is belief in a particular concept of god,
deism is also a form of theism.

Deism's concept of god came from reason and observations of nature.
"Nature's god" is a deistic concept.

plainskeptic

"Endowed by their creator with inalienable rights, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" was written by Thomas Jefferson, the quintessential deist I believe.

pseudonous

Since we both agree that this is the difference in between the method of an agnostic and a deist, I think it is interesting to note that this is also the difference between the alchemists and chemists from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The alchemists derived axioms (a priori truths) about the nature of the world using Aristotelian reasoning, and then they tried to fit their observations within their understanding of the world. The chemists on the other hand used induction, where by they would derive axioms directly from their observations and then test these axioms to gain a further understand the world. Not sure I really have a specific point with this but there are obviously a lot of parallels, and I find it interesting.

Anyway, while we seem to have found a difference in their methods we haven't really addressed the differences in their motives. Looking at the above discussion of alchemist, there seems to be a definite difference in the kind of truth that the alchemist sought versus what the chemists sought. For instance, the alchemists wanted a more certain understanding of the world, while the chemists were willing to accept a contingent understanding of the world. I think it goes without saying that an agnostic satisfies himself with a contingent understanding. As for a deist wanting certain truth I can't say but I wouldn't be surprised.

Another interesting thing I learned about a priori knowledge comes from Kant's idea of a categorical imperative. The categorical imperative, if your not familiar with it, is basically a version of the golden rule. Kant, while not a deist, used deductive logic quite heavily in his proof of the categorical imperative. In his proof he makes use of an additional rule of inference, not accepted by most people, which basically says: anything people universally accept is equivalent to an objective fact. On the surface this seems absurd or at least highly questionable. However, I've been thinking about this and it seems to me, if you break up the world into a social and material realm it kind of makes sense. If you were reasoning about a social issue, perhaps morals, then if any particular desire was held by everybody concerned it logically would be indistinguishable from an objective fact. Speaking in terms of how you would treat this statement in a deductive logic system, of course. In this way, Kant seems to prove that synthetic a priori knowledge is achievable in the social realm.

At least this is how I saw it.

All this makes me wonder if deists might not be more inclined think about social issues, while an agnostic is more concerned with natural issues. Perhaps, these motivational differences are what prompt the difference in their methods.