I am not trying to teach anyone anything about the universe. This seems to be a major source of contention here, but I do not understand why you think I am trying to elighten anyone. We aren't all out on a mission to convert people to think like us. No, not necessarily equally. But considering that we cannot come up with any real way to measure the likelihood (other than saying there are a million possibilities, a god is just one, which is flawed because there is no way to measure the plausability of the possibilities), any guess at a figure would be just that - a guess. And when you deal with discussions of whether or not there is a god, babbling is all you are going to get. I'm not sure what else you expected.
i didnt expect nonsensical babbling to be submitted as a reason for believing something. right, you are doing quite the opposite. you are not trying to enlighten anyone, you are attempting to delude yourself.
Maybe you didn't expect it from me, but you know you would consider anyone's reasoning for believing in god as nonsensical babbling... haha, martin I think you are taking me a little too seriously on this deist stuff. It's not like I actively persue it as a religion. I think there might be a god, and I like the fact that deism has reasoning as their main philosophy. I also find it cool that the founding fathers were deist and that people have no idea what it means when I say I'm deist.
true that, double true! that would be very cool if was true, which it certainly isnt. i know, almost nobody knows what it means. the dictionary says it means you believe in a god of unknown description, and you claim you dont even necessarily believe that. it is like a contest to see who can be the most vague. first diests are into reason, then you believe based on emotion and intuition or "wild ass guesses". desim is the grown up equivalent of wiccan. it is less apparently nonsense than witchcraft such that a smaller percentage of people of people are able to accurately dismiss it as pure garbage philosophy.
I don't mean that their belief in a god that doesn't interfere is based on reasoning (although they do believe that). I mean that because they believe god is uninteracting, they believe that we must use reasoning as our guide through life. This is really the only thing that draws me towards deism other than the other 2 irrelevent cool things I mentioned about it. I meant that short of science or facts, reasoning is atleast partially based on intuition.
if you like using reason to decide what is true and what isnt, then i dunno why you favor deism, because it specifically opposes reason in its only premise. short of science and facts, you have nothing. everything else is wishful thinking.
You are straying way off base here. Science and facts are highly important in reaching conclusions of course. But the theoretical, the intuitive, the abstract, the conjectural and the deductive all have their proper place. To ignore this is to be dogmatic and inflexible.
with you so far.. right, theories are an important part of science. but not untestable theories based on zero evidence. i dunno in what sense you mean the word intuitive. there is the intuitive things we know because they so apparent that we do not have to use much explicit cognitive effort to know them, and then there is intuition like "there must be a god, i can feel it", which is a meaningless statement. how are the things you listed not forms of reason/science based on observation?
You really should buy a dictionary, amigo. How often do I have to explain the basic? intuition noun 1. The act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition. 2. Knowledge gained by the use of this faculty; a perceptive insight. 3. A sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression. Intuition, though not scientific, is neither magical nor artificial and often turns out to be correct. abstract adj. 1. thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances: an abstract idea. 2. expressing a quality or characteristic apart from any specific object or instance. By definition, abstract reasoning can seek answers that are not based upon observations or even reality as we know it. It enables one to go beyond what can be currently proved. We still haven't scientifically proved much of the theories of relativity or of quantum mechanics, yet they are important tools in the advanacement of science. conjecture noun 1. the formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof. 2. an opinion or theory so formed or expressed; guess; speculation. 3. to conclude or suppose from grounds or evidence insufficient to ensure reliability. By definition, conjecture is opinion that is not based upon evidence. It is guesswork, but much guesswork is involved in the determination of the nature of things. deduction noun The process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows necessarily from the stated premises; inference by reasoning from the general to the specific. By definition, deduction requires assumed premises (not neccesarily facts) and the process of inference (the process of arriving at some conclusion that, though it is not logically derivable from the assumed premises, possesses some degree of probability relative to the premises). So, yes, deduction is a part of the scientific process, but it can operate in the absence of proven facts.
this is what you are saying: "yunno martin i hear you saying A, but i think you have to also consider the opposite of A, which of course is A" i say there is nothing except science and reason, and you disagree, and offer up types of scientific inquiry, as if that is somehow opposed. i am not sure you are really comprehending what cparso and i are disagreeing about. he is saying there is some sort of ephemeral intuition, (presumably this leads him to believe in a deity which he has described) which is not based on reason and observation, and i am saying that is called "making stuff up".
