• Brendan Golledge
    121
    A little while ago I was watching a video on religion on youtube, and I commented that I don't believe in the supernatural historical claims of any mainstream religion, but I am a deist because I find cosmological arguments convincing. Someone replied that deism was a completely useless belief. I was rather annoyed, because I thought he doesn't know anything about my beliefs, but I didn't know how to answer. Sometime later, I was listening to an audio book by Aenga Besceawung (which I would recommend if you're interested in that kind of thing), and I realized that the commenter probably thought deism was not functional because it makes no claims about the divine dictates. But I think that if you really believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then that must mean that he made creation exactly the way he wanted it from the very beginning. Therefore, it makes sense to try to understand the world and accept it the way it is.

    I've written essays about God before, and it seems hard for most people to understand it. Maybe part of the reason is that I don't have friends and I think about this by myself, so that when I share it with other people, my thoughts are utterly outside their frame of reference. But maybe if I write a more focused essay in response to someone's criticism, it will be better understood.

    I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it. So, my "religious" belief does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation. It makes no material claims that could not also be discovered in a purely materialistic worldview.

    About cosmology: If you define logic as, "Rules of correct inference from assumed premises", and you think about ultimate causes, then you run into the problem of needing new premises in order to prove existing premises. Therefore, there are only 3 choices:

    1. There exists a cause without a cause
    2. There is an infinite regression of causes with no beginning
    3. Causality is circular (maybe like someone going back in a time machine to start the big bang)

    Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary logic. A thing without a premise cannot be acted upon by logic, you never get to the end of an infinite regression, and circular logic is ordinarily not considered valid. Therefore, SOMETHING definitely exists which is outside the scope of human reason.

    I choose option 1, although I know I have no way of proving it. It serves the purpose of morally orienting myself towards existence. This is perhaps a hack on my brain. Humans are hardwired to be social, so it's easy for us to attribute personhood to things that aren't really people. It could be perhaps that the first cause isn't even a person as we understand it (I suppose an unconscious creator god is indistinguishable from the universe simply existing according to indifferent laws of nature), but thinking of it as a person immediately makes existence seem purposeful and therefore meaningful. There is no way to introduce meaning into a worldview without some kind of arbitrary moral assertion, because morals cannot be observed in the sensory (this is called the is-ought dilemma).

    In physics, you use mathematical models to describe material objects (like F = ma). This gives the impression that matter is somehow subordinate to abstract logic, in that the logic can exist in the abstract without matter, but matter behaves only according to abstract principles. This can lead to the idea that math is somehow closely related go God. God is then, perhaps, an infinity of abstract potential, and he created the material universe in order to instantiate himself in particulars. From this train of thought, you'd predict a very big and very old universe, or possibly multiverses (you can't instantiate infinity with a small quantity of matter).

    In this view, everything exists for its own sake, and is good in and of itself.

    According to my understanding of science, I exist through an evolutionary process. If things exist for their own sake, then that means it's at least partially my purpose to play a part in the evolutionary game. It is good, therefore, that I am inclined to try to achieve success in life and try to spread my genes. But evolution works by weeding out the unfit, so God doesn't really care whether I succeed or not. Evolution can be thought of as a repeatedly instantiated proof by contradiction (where the unfit die because they are not good instantiations of whatever their species is in that particular environment). If I were lucky enough to become rich and famous and sire many children, that would be pleasing to God. If my life were cut short by cancer, or I were killed by a natural disaster, or by violence, or by my own folly, then apparently, those other phenomena would also be interesting and meaningful to God. This train of thought leads to the idea that it is noble and good for me to struggle in life, but that the outcome of my struggle ultimately doesn't matter. Everything is just a part of the great artwork.

    There are many other phenomena than just evolutionary phenomena. When a scientist studies the storms on Neptune, or the gravity in a black hole, or the fission in a star, those things exist, and so must seem good and beautiful to God. When we study math and science and see beauty in it, perhaps we are beginning to see existence in some small way similar to how God sees it. But since I don't believe there was ever a covenant made with God, and we have no ability to affect these things, perhaps it is somewhat vain for humans to spend too much time thinking on obscure abstractions and distant planets.

    This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment. But this religious belief also necessarily implies that there is a whole universe (or possibly multiverses) of beauty and goodness completely outside the scope of my own personal desires.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it.Brendan Golledge

    Does it imply that? I don't intuit that conclusion. A deistic god could be just another thing, with no particular need to give it and what it wants any more mind than anything else. Who says it cares about you, or wants you to care about it? Perhaps it has no moral content at all.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    Well, you can interpret the moral implications however you want. However, it seems intuitive that just as an engineer has a special right to say what his widget is for, or an artist has a special right to say what is painting represents, so likewise would a creator God have a special right to say what his creation is for. But I suppose if you want to say that you'll use the widget for whatever you like, or interpret the painting however you like, even quite contrary to the creator's intentions, then there is nothing stopping you.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    And perhaps the creator has no interest in determining how his creation is used. If I write a book and sell it, I don't give a shit if you wipe your ass with it - I accomplished what I wanted with it, do what you want with it.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    The fact that you are arguing about this makes me think that you didn't read past the paragraph that you quoted. The idea is that everything exists for it's own sake, which is the impression you get from nature, since it seems to exist without a known greater purpose. I suppose it's possible that it exists with a purpose utterly unknown to us, but in that case, the philosophy is pointless. The point of deism here is a foil for finding beauty and meaning in life. I suppose you could simply assert that every existing thing is beautiful without reference to God, but a creator God provides a plausible metaphysical explanation for why everything is intrinsically beautiful. I am wondering whether I'm wasting my time though, since it seems like you're just looking for the first thing you can mock without even trying to understand the whole idea. Yes, it's entirely true that the idea has unjustifiable premises, and if you reject the premises, then the whole idea makes no sense. But every idea is like that. I do think this idea has some merit though, in that it is at least consistent with observation, and it provides a metaphysical framework for a moral system.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    I don't think I mocked you at all. You presented an idea - that if a God created the world, that has various specific moral implications - and I'm presenting plausible alternatives. Perhaps a God created the world, and those moral implications are not true regardless. Does my suggestion that that's a plausible alternative feel mocking to you? Is it mocking that I think you might be incorrect about something?
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    I think this is where I got the idea of mocking from, "I don't give a shit if you wipe your ass with it"

    I am aware that I can't prove that it is the way I spelled out here. I did mention that I can't prove that there is a creator God (although that's a plausible possibility), and that finding utility in creation being personal might come merely from the fact that humans are hardwired to be social. So, pointing out that things might not be as I suppose doesn't seem to really be proving anything, it's just rejecting the premises. I suppose I have to concede that even if there is a creator God, then there is the possibility that the purpose of creation is utterly unknown to us.

    I suppose the only thing that is strictly implied by God creating the world is that God thought it was good (or else why would he create it?) I suppose it's technically a possibility that God thinking something is good has no bearing on whether we think it's good, but in this case, it's hard to imagine what possible basis for morality could exist at all. I don't even think that this idea of a possible conflict between God's desires and ours runs entirely counter to the train of thought in the original post, because I was talking near the end about how God sees beauty in things that are far outside the scope of my own personal desires. I suppose a moral presupposition here is that it is good to submit ourselves to God's way of valuing things, but the alternative would mean hating existence, which does not seem very pleasant.

    I suppose I think the utility of this worldview is that it is a minimalistic explanation for existence which is consistent with our experience that simultaneously provides a metaphysical framework for valuing existence for its own sake.

    All morality depends on arbitrary assertions, since we cannot directly observe values. I do not think you could come up with a moral system which did not take SOMETHING for granted. So, I did not find it very useful to point out that my assumptions might not be true. The only constructive thing that could come from that is forcing me to more concretely spell out my assumptions. I suppose I thought that the original assumptions were that there is a creator God and that we can learn how he values existence by observing existence, and you pointed out that this only makes sense if we care about what God thinks.
  • flannel jesus
    1.8k
    I think this is where I got the idea of mocking from, "I don't give a shit if you wipe your ass with it"Brendan Golledge

    Just giving my idea some color, wasn't aiming my ass at you.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Let's pretend ...

    All I want is all the life in me to be free. — Deus

    Freedom is the prerequisite for morality and immorality. All a bit Hegelian, but potentially explanatory.
  • T Clark
    13.9k

    An interesting, well written post. My thoughts.

    About cosmology: If you define logic as, "Rules of correct inference from assumed premises", and you think about ultimate causes, then you run into the problem of needing new premises in order to prove existing premises. Therefore, there are only 3 choices:

    1. There exists a cause without a cause
    2. There is an infinite regression of causes with no beginning
    3. Causality is circular (maybe like someone going back in a time machine to start the big bang)
    Brendan Golledge

    There are other possible choices.
    4. Causation is not a valid, or at least not the only valid, way of thinking about how the universe works. This is mainstream philosophical position.
    5. The universe is eternal. It's always been here and always will be. It never began and was never caused.

    Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary logic. A thing without a premise cannot be acted upon by logic, you never get to the end of an infinite regression, and circular logic is ordinarily not considered valid. Therefore, SOMETHING definitely exists which is outside the scope of human reason.Brendan Golledge

    What you say may be true for deductive logic, but not for inductive. Inductive logics job, if you want to look at it that way, is to generate premises for deductive logic to work on.

    Humans are hardwired to be social, so it's easy for us to attribute personhood to things that aren't really people.Brendan Golledge

    I think this is important. I have been thinking about a metaphysical argument for God that is similar to your understanding of deism. I just have not put my arguments together well enough to bring it out on the forum yet. Speaking personally, when I see, live in, the world, I often want to express my gratitude for something so wonderful. That is the heart of my understanding of God, although there's more to it than that. To be clear, when I say "metaphysical" I mean that it is not something that can be determined empirically. It is not true or false. That seems similar to how you are describing your attitude toward deism.

    This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment. But this religious belief also necessarily implies that there is a whole universe (or possibly multiverses) of beauty and goodness completely outside the scope of my own personal desires.Brendan Golledge

    I love the world. I can't believe how wonderful it is. Seems like you feel something similar. There are many people here on the forum and in the world who have a much sourer take. They are unlikely to find your approach useful.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    I forgive you. I may have been overly emotional to criticism because this idea is important to me.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    Thanks for your kind words.

    There are other possible choices.
    4. Causation is not a valid, or at least not the only valid, way of thinking about how the universe works. This is mainstream philosophical position.
    5. The universe is eternal. It's always been here and always will be. It never began and was never caused.
    T Clark

    4 is a valid alternative, although it does mean that logic/science would not work to describe uncausal things.

    5 seems to me to be the same as 2. If the universe is infinitely old and one thing causes another, then that is an infinite regression of causes. Although an infinite regression of causes isn't necessarily limited by time. For instance, if there were an infinitely old universe with fixed laws of physics, you could still ask, "Where did the laws of physics come from?" If the laws of physics don't come from anything, then I guess they would be God (the uncaused cause).

    What you say may be true for deductive logic, but not for inductive. Inductive logics job, if you want to look at it that way, is to generate premises for deductive logic to work on.T Clark

    I think inductive logic can argue for plausibility, but it can't prove unique truth.

    I love the world. I can't believe how wonderful it is. Seems like you feel something similar. There are many people here on the forum and in the world who have a much sourer take. They are unlikely to find your approach useful.T Clark

    Actually, I developed this philosophy to counter my natural sourness. I think it has helped. Changing one's thoughts really can change one's emotional state. I can tell myself (and believe it) that even if I don't feel grateful right now, there is cause to be grateful, so that not feeling it is a problem with me and not with the world .
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    I was imagining that Flannel Jesus was going to keep attacking my premises, and realized that my reasons for coming up with this philosophy were very subjective.

    At one time I was really trying to be a Christian, but was frustrated by a couple things. One frustration was that there didn't seem to be any evidence to me that I was actually in a relationship with God. Another was that adhering to one tradition or another opened one's self up to having literal interpretations of Bible passages being disproven by science. And a general life frustration was that many things did not seem to be going my way. So, this philosophy answers these problems by not requiring for there to be any covenant with God, not being offensive to my intellect (such as by asking me to believe something that seemed contrary to scientific evidence), and by helping me find meaning even when my personal goals were failing.

    Since we cannot observe values with our eyes, in a certain sense, all of our moral systems are just made-up. This is probably why it can be nigh impossible to bring another person around to your way of thinking in the religious/moral sphere. A person with different experiences or temperament could not be influenced by my philosophy the same way I am. I think it is a good thing to explicitly spell our one's moral assumptions as I have done, because at least this is honest. It think the new atheist types that just attack everything are unaware of what the foundation of their values is. They can poke holes in other people's beliefs, but they are not self-aware enough to even know that they have moral beliefs of their own which others could theoretically poke holes in, if they were to formulate their beliefs.
  • Gnomon
    3.8k
    I've written essays about God before, and it seems hard for most people to understand it.Brendan Golledge
    Thanks for the essay. I too have an unconventional understanding of The Universe, Nature, Evolution, and my role in it. But as soon as you use the word "God" you may encounter harsh push-back prejudice from those who are disappointed in the imperfections of our pale "Blue Dot" in the blackness. And even "Deism" may be viewed as faith in a do-nothing-deity. Years ago, I spelled it "G*D" to subtly indicate that it's not your grandfather's deity. For Atheists though, it's all the same old fairytale BS. And for those who follow traditional religions, its basically the same old materialistic Atheism with a veneer of deity. So I now use a variety of labels to indicate a generic loosely-defined god-concept. For example, ancient functional philosophical terms, such as "First Cause", "Prime Mover" and "Potential" sound more like scientific terminology than religious doctrines.

    I was raised as a fundamentalist non-catholic Christian. But I began my non-religious sojourn as an Agnostic. Eventually I found Deism to be somewhat more positive, in that it acknowledges that something important is going on, that is beyond the Reductive scope of empirical Science. However, the dominant mono-theistic religions seem to "believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then that must mean that he made creation exactly the way he wanted it from the very beginning". And yet, they all have to make doctrinal compromises to accommodate the obvious imperfections of the "creation" as we humans experience it. For example, a secondary evil god is presumed to have spoiled God's perfect paradise by introducing FreeWill into robotic animal behavior. But that pragmatic storyline adjustment undermines the ideal Omnipotent doctrine, with Duality, and Trinity.

    Your admission that, "my "religious 'belief' does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation", may simply mean that you rely on rational Philosophy, instead of doctrinal Religion, for your moral compass. I agree that, "there are only 3 choices: 1. There exists a cause without a cause." Modern Cosmology is built upon the open-ended assumption of a sudden Big Bang emergence without a prior Cause. And philosophers, without empirical or biblical evidence can infer the logical necessity for an abstract First Cause of some indefinite kind, to fill the causal gap at the beginning of the ongoing chain of causation that we now refer to as Evolution. As you say, "Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary [scientific] logic". So, we fall back onto old-fashioned philosophical inference and hypothesis to add a few dots . . . . to the ellipsis at the beginning of space-time.

    Since we Deists have no scriptural "word of god" to rely on, our revelation can only be the "Creation" that we can study using scientific methods. Having no direct communication with the First Cause, we can't even know for sure if it is a Person with a human-like mind. So, I agree that "the first cause isn't even a person". However, from the perspective of the Creation's thinking creatures, the world is both Physical/Material and Metaphysical/Spiritual*1, both Mechanical and Animated. Yet, by "spiritual" I only mean "philosophical".

    Obviously, the pre-Bang First Cause cannot be a space-time physical object. So I agree with the "idea that math is somehow closely related to God". And, "God is then, perhaps, an infinity of abstract potential". However, as atheist physicist Steven Hawking wrote, "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God.". So, until then, we will have to be content with un-provable speculations, such as "he created the material universe in order to instantiate himself in particulars". In which case it might be, "my purpose to play a part in the evolutionary game".

    You lamented that, "This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment". The only "covenant with God" we humans have may be the innate urge to explore and understand the "artwork", in order to know the artist through the art. In that case, the only "personal fulfillment" may be to set our own goals and to produce our own "works of art". Like Virtue, Art may be its own reward. If the lack of a promise of Paradise is "bleak", then at least we can take some pride in our little "work of art", by which we individuals create a "good" Person, and as collectives create better Societies. I'll reserve the question of Progress for later posts, only if the thread tends in that direction. :smile:



    *1. What does it mean to be spiritual? :
    Spirituality means knowing that our lives have significance in a context beyond a mundane everyday existence at the level of biological needs that drive selfishness and aggression. It means knowing that we are a significant part of a purposeful unfolding of Life in our universe.
    https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/sigs/spirituality-spsig/what-is-spirituality-maya-spencer-x.pdf?sfvrsn=f28df052_2

    PALE BLUE DOT
    Sagen-Pale-Dot-1.jpg
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Have you considered pandeism? Here is my summary:

    (2022)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054

    What about Spinoza's acosmism?

    (8 months ago)
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/876609
  • Janus
    16.3k
    If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication.Brendan Golledge

    Morality does not issue from anything as arcane as cosmogony but rather from the pragmatic necessities of harmonious social life.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    It's very rare that I meet someone who seems to understand everything I say and mostly agree on everything. When you mostly agree, it's hard to find things to talk about though.

    I think in principle, it's probably impossible for us to find a theory of everything. This is because of Geodel's theorem, which if I understand correctly, says that a mathematical system cannot be both complete and consistent. That means for any consistent theory, there will be things that are true but can't be proven. Anything based on logic or math (including science) ought to also be affected by Geodel's theorem.

    I think in the case of science, we probably err on the side of inconsistency. This is because for any given phenomena, we can come up for an explanation for it. But we might not have worked out all the implications of our explanations. An example of a historical inconsistency was that in Maxwell's equations, you can derive the speed of light irrespective of reference frame, but according to the physics of the time, the speed of anything ought to depend on reference frame. A current possible contradiction could be relativity and quantum mechanics (relativity is smooth and deterministic, and quantum mechanics is not). I'm not saying that science is all wrong and I'm smarter than all the physicists in the world. I can't point at exactly where the contradiction is, but based off Goedel's theorem, it's probably there somewhere.

    Going back to God, if there is such a thing as a necessary premise or a first premise which is complete in itself and from which we can derive everything else, then it breaks Geodel's theorem (or is altogether outside the bounds of human logic). But if there is no such thing, and Geodel's theorem holds for all things whatsoever, then does that indicate that reality itself is incomplete or inconsistent? It is rather unsettling. It is another indication that it is beyond our power to know the ultimate truths.
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    You asked me to reply to comments that you had previously made.

    I don't think I entirely understood the comment about pandeism. It looks like you were arguing that we are all a dream in the mind of God, and it was somehow connected to physics. I suppose I already liked to imagine that God was something like a programmer and that we are the programmed world. I suppose that's very similar to being in the mind of God.

    If you define God as the unmoved mover, however, then it does not make sense to say that "everything" is God, in the same way that it would be wrong to say that the world of Minecraft "is" the developer(s) who made it.

    I've looked into Spinoza briefly before and it seemed to me that his ideas on God were similar to mine. But it made more sense to me to think using my own brain than to copy what someone else thought.
  • T Clark
    13.9k
    4 is a valid alternative, although it does mean that logic/science would not work to describe uncausal things.Brendan Golledge

    Logic and science do not require the concept of causation. Whether or not the idea of causation is needed is a very big subject. We've discussed it quite a few times here on the forum.

    5 seems to me to be the same as 2. If the universe is infinitely old and one thing causes another, then that is an infinite regression of causes.Brendan Golledge

    They seem different to me. Or maybe 5 is a combination of 2 and 4.

    I think inductive logic can argue for plausibility, but it can't prove unique truth.Brendan Golledge

    Ultimately, premises in deductive logic are generated either by assumption or by inductive logic.

    I developed this philosophy to counter my natural sourness.Brendan Golledge

    I consider myself the Polyanna of the forum.
  • Gnomon
    3.8k
    I don't think I entirely understood the comment about pandeism. It looks like you were arguing that we are all a dream in the mind of God, and it was somehow connected to physics. I suppose I already liked to imagine that God was something like a programmer and that we are the programmed world. I suppose that's very similar to being in the mind of God.Brendan Golledge
    All of the god-models you mentioned are merely frustrated attempts to answer the "why are we here" and "where is here" questions with non-religious (philosophical or scientific) representations of "things unseen". PanDeism and PanEnDeism merely mean that "G*D" is the whole of which we humans are like single-cells trying to imagine the whole body. The "we are dreamers within a dream" concept is suggestive, but we can't pinch ourselves to wake up. The cosmic "programmer" model is a plausible notion, that makes some sense to modern people, but is not much different in essence from ancient concepts of a gigantic invisible puppeteer pulling our invisible strings. After all, the model is not the deity, and we are shooting at a black cat in the dark. So all our attempts to understand something that is not observable with our physical senses is "mere Philosophy", and all moot, since we have no empirical evidence to support our mythical models.

    Some philosophers, for whom traditional religious myths are passé, attempt to create theories that sound more like scientific models. For example, the notion of a "non-planck" universe sounds sciency, but only reduces G*D to an imaginary negative-dimension speck of matter, smaller than the smallest possible particle, hence deliciously mysterious. Likewise, "Acosmism" is a sort of negation of the knowable world, which denies its mundane reality in favor of a titillating paradox like the infinite unmanifest absolute. Ultimately, all our attempts to visualize something inherently invisible are going to be infinitely debatable. Consequently, we can't be dogmatic about any of our hypothetical god-models. But the alternative to such philosophical speculation is to smugly accept the absurdity of a world with no known reason for being.

    For thousands of years, philosophers have been looking for clues at the scene of the crime : the physical universe. But the perpetrator is cleverly hidden behind an invisibility cloak. Is that inaccessibility a deliberate attempt to deceive us, or is it a logical necessity of a physical world created by a metaphysical deity? Deism has no final answer to the big "Why?" question. But we can amuse ourselves by exploring all possible solutions in a chat room. It's your turn to play detective. :cool:
  • Gnomon
    3.8k
    I think in principle, it's probably impossible for us to find a theory of everything. This is because of Geodel's theorem,Brendan Golledge
    Ha! That Incompleteness Theorem may be G*D's invisibility cloak. But it's true only for "formal systems of logic", and chat room Philosophy is an informal system. So, we can prove our informal language theories-of-everything to our heart's content. Which may be why Faith is such a powerful mental attribute. For example, Materialism is more of an Axiom than a formal theory*1. As is Deism. Both propose to explain everything by reference to an assumed universal fact.

    Pandeism (all is spirit) and Materialism (all is matter) postulate a universal substance within the universe, that explains everything else in the world. But PanEnDeism assumes that G*D is not so much a Substance, but a Cause*2. And the prevailing materialistic TOE, the Big Bang, assumes implicitly that Cause & Laws (e.g. Energy & Gravity ; Change & Organization)) existed eternally prior to the beginning of the material empirical world. Likewise, for Deism, Causation and Control are necessary attributes of any meaningful G*D. Hence the Deist logic : no G*D, no Energy or Order to make the plethora of material things. No G*D, no organized evolving world. QED. :halo:


    *1. Is Materialism true? :
    In general, materialism isn't 'empirically robust'. Indeed, it's empirically uncorroborable, because it doesn't make testable predictions.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1opsr8/is_materialism_really_as_empirically_robust_as/

    *2. Acquinas' Cosmological Argument :
    The cause is God, the effect is the world :
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zv2fgwx/revision/2
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Pandeism (all is spirit) and Materialism (all is matter)Gnomon
    :rofl: Stunning ignorance. :lol:

    You asked me to reply to comments that you had previously made.Brendan Golledge
    No I didn't. I asked you to philosophically consider (my proposed summaries of monist-immanent) pandeism & acosmism as alternatives to (dualist-transcendent) deism.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication.Brendan Golledge
    Well, you can interpret the moral implications however you want.Brendan Golledge
    This is because of Geodel's theorem,Brendan Golledge
    "...and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe."
  • Gnomon
    3.8k
    I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it. So, my "religious" belief does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation. It makes no material claims that could not also be discovered in a purely materialistic worldview.Brendan Golledge
    I sometimes refer to my philosophical worldview as "Deism", or more specifically as PanEnDeism. Yet the "moral implication" of our world derives not from some divine Ideal that we are supposed to fulfill. but from its inherent opposing forces (positive vs negative ; good vs evil) that force us to make moral choices.

    There may be a reason why the creation was not an all good paradise from the beginning. But as we know it --- from our perspective somewhere in the middle of the evolutionary process --- that duality of causes is perhaps its dominant feature, for both scientific and philosophical purposes. Nevertheless, we imagine that the Cause of the Creation was something like a single purposeful Mind. However, I must assume that the purpose of the Creation was not to create an all-good perfect paradise by divine fiat, but to allow the cosmic system to work-out its own destiny.

    The "moral implication" of our ever-changing world is not for its Creator, but for its sentient creatures. :smile:


    The Case for Deism :
    Consequently, my proposed alternative deity is neither the all-good God of obsequious flattery, nor the evil incarnate of various Satanic fables; neither the bestower of blessings upon the faithful, nor the author of eternal damnation on those of other faiths. But merely the awesome enigmatic creative force behind all aspects of reality. The hypothetical G*D of the real world is not Good or Evil, but the Potential for all possible states.
    https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page25.html

    Deism vs Atheism :
    Atheists & Humanists agree with Deists that most traditional religions, while useful for melding groups of unruly individuals into cohesive societies with standardized ethical systems, have gone astray from practical real-world truth in their search for idealistic other-worldly certainty. They observe that the social bonds of racial & religious tribalism also create rifts between tribes that are rife with strife. But more specifically, Atheists part ways with all forms of Theism on the touchy subject of supernatural deities that are imagined to rule the world, and whose existence must be taken on faith. While Neo-Deism has no use for a pantheon of cloud-dwelling Olympian deities or hordes of dirt-dwelling demons, it still has a role for a single ultimate principle of causation that created the universe, and governs its evolution. That abstract principle may or may not be personal, and may or may not be self-conscious; but it is essential to the existence & evolution of the natural world; hence must logically be a priori, in the sense of First Cause.
    https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page39.html
  • Brendan Golledge
    121
    wow it sounds like you had almost the exact same idea as me years ago
  • Gnomon
    3.8k
    ↪Gnomon
    wow it sounds like you had almost the exact same idea as me years ago
    Brendan Golledge
    Like any philosophical worldview, Deism is subject to personal idiosyncrasies and interpretations. For example 's Monist Immanent Pandeism is generally compatible with my own Monist Transcendent PanEnDeism. Yet, for some unarticulated reason (emotion), he finds my view distasteful, and responds to my amateur scientific & cosmological arguments with sophistic ad hominems, plus rude trolling gibes and supercilious taunts. Go figure! :cool:

    Monist Immanent Pantheism :
    Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God, or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god, but believe that interpretations of the term differ.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism

    Immanent vs Transcendent :
    PanEnDeism is inclusive in that the hypothetical deity is both immanent and transcendent. Immanent as the ongoing Cause of Evolution, and Transcendent as the First Cause of our contingent space-time world.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    :rofl: e.g. "PanEnDeism" .... "Intelligent Design" ... "Enformationism" ... Res ipsa loquitur, dude.
  • Philosophim
    2.6k
    Nice post. You may be interested in reading my posts here:

    In any objective morality, existence is good
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1

    And while it is one of my earlier works and not as clear, this is a proof that leads to your conclusion here.

    A first cause is logically necessary
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary/p1
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    A first cause is logically necessaryPhilosophim
    Because it is presupposed. And a good and useful presupposition it is, too. And of course because presupposed, logically necessary for any system in which it is presupposed. But is that the way the world works? And it seems to be for our local ordinary world. But if we stretch into into areas governed by either quantum mechanics or gen. relativity, it's all not quite so simple.

    An early problem is to say with some rigor exactly what a cause is, if we're goin to talk about causes - and that not-so-easy. Next, there are descriptions of the very small of what seem to be effects happening before their causes. And in general relativity, what comes first and what comes after can depend on the speed and direction of the observer.

    What's left is simply the effort to make sense of perceptions, to have a template, or a model, or a description that works, and the idea of cause-effect is a good model. But the idea breaks down at the extreme - or the language or both.

    Which leads otherwise sensible people to talk nonsense. But we shouldn't here in a setting, a philosophy site, where participants presumably abjure nonsense and self-contradictory ideas. Like unmoved movers and uncaused causes. Better to say we don't know. And that at least leaves the door open to what will no doubt be an account far more interesting and compelling than just mere nonsense.

    So, yes. Logically necessary, which given the subject is just no necessity at all.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    A first cause is logically necessaryPhilosophim
    Maybe in metaphyasics but not for modern fundamental physics (or mathematics re: real numbers)..

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/617855
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