Deism...I don't really get it

[Helm]

To me it's though someone believes in a very specific kind of God but that the same time they don't know what the specific God they're believing in really is nor does that God have any interest at all in ourselves which seems like defeating the object to me. You may as well just not believe in any specific God and be an atheist.

[empr guy]

my understanding is that you believe that there was a god and he created the universe, but now he takes no part wich means prayer, miracles, devine intervention are all out. it seems to be the most reasonable of religions

[Arch-hereticK]

It's the lazy man's way of not having to admit ignorance of the unknowable.
If you're too insecure to admit ignorance go theist, if prefer reality go atheist.

Deism is just boring really, there's no internal dialogue with it.

[Helm]

To me the God of Deism is essentially just the God of the Gaps.

[Arch-hereticK]

To me the God of Deism is essentially just the God of the Gaps.

But so is the theist and polytheist gods.

[Helm]

But so is the theist and polytheist gods.

They do a bit more than just fill gaps at least, there something to gain from believing in them, if they did in fact exist.

[Arch-hereticK]

They do a bit more than just fill gaps at least, there something to gain from believing in them, if they did in fact exist.

There's just as much in deism. Unless you mean morality that we learn whether we're religious or not, but we all know morality has nothing to do with religion. Maybe the stories? the stories, they're derivitave. Meaning of existence? That's subjective anyway.

What else does theism have that deism doesn't?

[Helm]

What else does theism have that deism doesn't?

Ever lasting life for a start. And you have all your various cultural traditions and rituals as well, and a general philosophy on how to lead a good life, which generally involves pleasing a god of some description for the reward of a good eternal afterlife or divine assistance/healing/spiritual strength or whatever in this life. Deists are essentially atheists who believe in God from what I can tell.

[Bovril]

It should be noted, and noted well, that deism is not a religious position. It says nothing about faith in any given religion, including Christianity. The whole realm of thought is radically different. Deism is the result of certain philosophical moves popular in the 18th and 19th century in Europe that were derived from misunderstood Medieval meditations on God, but fused with a crude enlightenment spirit to posit some sort of God that is discovered by inquirers. Deism posited god a some sort of logical necesity. Even Hume can be thought of as a desit at points. So Deism largely exists within a stange now, but prescient then, philosophical morass that really has no relationship with either religion, or modern humanism. It is an interesting and important historical position, but no serious thinkers today assosiate with the tradition.

[Helm]

According to one Deist on another site there had to be an sentient force that created the universe, but that force need not have been any more intelligent than a rabbit. So the "Cosmic Bunny". Apparently the idea is that only something sentient be an orginal cause because only sentient beings have a will independent from nature.