Re: Deism
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2022 4:15 am
So the FREE MAN still needs a god-daddyhenry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 3:49 am Bubba, in another thread, posed these questions...
...I'll answer 'em here.iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:52 am 1] a demonstrable proof of the existence of your God or religious/spiritual path
2] addressing the fact that down through the ages hundreds of Gods and religious/spiritual paths to immortality and salvation were/are championed...but only one of which [if any] can be the true path. So why yours?
3] addressing the profoundly problematic role that dasein plays in any particular individual's belief in Gods and religious/spiritual faiths
4] the questions that revolve around theodicy and your own particular God or religious/spiritual path
1. Man is the proof. In a determined universe, he's the wildcard. As a free will, he starts, ends, and bends causal chains. He is a point of creative power. He does what no other matter, or life, can: he self-directs, self-relies, and is self-responsible. He reasons, chooses, and considers consequence. There's nuthin' about a blind, deterministic interplay of forces that could have brought him into existence.
2. I'm a deist. Best I can tell The Creator created. He left behind no religion. Man has a conscience and certain inherent rights. Man, however, is also a free will. He's not bound to recognize or respect conscience or natural rights. God, it seems, gave man the tools (reason, conscience, free will) but leaves him to his own devices. Does He care for man? I'd like to think so, but I can't say for certain. That man is, as I say, the wildcard in a determined universe, that he recognizes he belongs to himself, that he can consider consequence, seems to indicate he has a purpose. Perhaps discovering that purpose (or purposes) on his own is part of the deal. Perhaps being told what his purpose is nullifies that purpose.
As I say elsewhere: an afterlife -- Valhalla-like, with drinkin' and wenchin' -- would be nice, but I have no reason to believe that, or any other, afterlife exists. This life may very well be our only shot, so we better make the best if it. As for salvation: I don't think man fell. I think man falls or rises in the here & now.
Alexis Jacobi, in that other thread, wrote: the world in which we are incarnate, exists between two poles: the world of God and 'angelic being' and Satan and 'demonic being'. Both of these *beings* are categories of spirits that are angelical. That means: non-physical, without material bodies, and yet with intelligence and also (importantly) will, that in terms of intentionality and purpose do not coincide. These purposes oppose one another.
I think this is, in some way, true. I believe this position of the world, of man, between these poles is related to man's ultimate or overarchin' purpose. Man may be the soldier, the battlefield, and the prize, but he can't be drafted, he has to choose.
None of this stuff about man sittin' between & betwixt Light & Darkness is addressed by a vanilla deism, by the way.
3. I don't believe Datsun is a real thing.
4. Man is a free will. He can choose good; he can choose evil. God, as I see Him, appears to highly value that capacity to choose in man (so much so, man can willfully, knowingly, ignore conscience and violate natural law/rights willy-nilly [though not without consequence]). Evil, then, may be the necessary price for free will just as free will is the necessary precursor to authentic good.