Deism On Other Planets?

Do you believe that deism exists on other planets and is universal? If so, do you believe that to be a good argument to prove that deism is the true religion/philosophy?

Anything is possible but I doubt they call it Deism.

Well, when I talk about deism to my Christian friends I explain to them that if Christianity existed on other planets Jesus would have to die over and over again to save every planet. Also, I explain that it makes no sense that Adam and Eve's sin could cause life everywhere to be sinners. Life on other planets isn't even compatible with Christianity. I try to make a point that other religions on other planets would have similarities to ours but you wont find our religions on other planets. The only religions/philosophies you would find is deism, agnosticism, and atheism. If there is a god then that proves to me that deism is the true religion.

Oh I'm sure other worlds would probably have their own mythic type gods as well.

That's what I mean by they would have similarities but you wouldn't find the Bible on other planets. You would find revealed religions with different gods and different books. There would be beings that don't believe in gods that would be the same as atheist, there would be those that don't know like agnostics, and there will be those who believe in god based on reason like deist. All planets exist in the same creation and have that creation as the true word of God.

Makes sense.

Schizophretard wrote:

Well, when I talk about deism to my Christian friends I explain to them that if Christianity existed on other planets Jesus would have to die over and over again to save every planet. Also, I explain that it makes no sense that Adam and Eve's sin could cause life everywhere to be sinners. Life on other planets isn't even compatible with Christianity. I try to make a point that other religions on other planets would have similarities to ours but you wont find our religions on other planets. The only religions/philosophies you would find is deism, agnosticism, and atheism. If there is a god then that proves to me that deism is the true religion.

That is one among a long list of problems with revealed religions. But if someone wants to be irrational, there's little you can say that will get through their indoctrination into blind faith. But you can't not try. I was there once and was converted from Christianithy to deism by an atheist.

I don't consider agnosticism a philosophy. Rather it is a statement that what you believe, and what others believe about God and the supernatural, is merely belief, and not knowledge. In that regard, every rational position would come under the agnostic umbrella.

What arguments did the atheist use? Why didn't you become an atheist when it happened?

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What arguments did the atheist use? Why didn't you become an atheist when it happened?

Arguments that were almost as valid as those for deism. The differences were the (what I consider) slight arguments from design--and hope that we are here for a purpose.

Interestingly, Schiz, I think somewhere in this forum me and Aaron have had an argument about whether truth is universal. And he argues that, no, it's not universal, and is subjective to the human race.

If you use Painful's equaltion that God is Truth. Then by Paineful's criteria, Aaron would be arguing that truth or God can only exist for human.

And yet I argued that, no, truth would have to universal affecting all sentient life aware of itself.

What that means in a nutshell is that a cat is not guilty of torturing a mouse if it's caused by instinct, but that a human is guilty if caused by free will.

Just to make it more confusing, of course, Uriah would say there is no free will!

Gotta love the diversity of deism.

Paineful,

That's kinda how it went for me. I was scared to loss my faith and when it happened it felt different than I expected. I thought I would live my life feeling damned but for some strange reason it was the first time I truly felt saved. All my fear of God was gone. I was real confused though. I expected to become an atheist because I was convinced that all other religions I heard of were false, that they would all have very close similarities, and they were my only options. That didn't happen though. I agreed with most of the things atheist said but where they saw chaos I saw order and where they saw accidents I saw purpose. The laws of nature seem to work in a finely tuned beautiful way. It's so perfect that it seems like someone wants us to learn them. I had this feeling of peace for the first time in my life. I felt one with the universe, with God, with life, and with myself. When I got baptized I expected to feel like this but it wasn't until I lost my faith that I did because I felt like I discovered a brand new god. A god greater than the god of the bible or any other god I've heard of. A God that doesn't demand worship (which makes him more worthy of it) and that doesn't act as a tyrant but loves freedom. I couldn't figure it out. It was so amazing and strange to me. I knew I wasn't an atheist, I knew I wasn't an agnostic, and I knew I wasn't a theist. I didn't even know what to call myself. The best thing I could come up with was an atheist that believes in a god. I thought am I the first to discover this god or are there others. I felt like a man without a country. Then about a month later I found the promise land. I found DEISM.

Helium,

I'm going to have to say with absolute certainty that truth is absolute and universal. It's the same everywhere. I think it was Obrien that said in 1984,"Gravity doesn't exist. If you think I float and I think I float then it happens." Obrien is wrong. Even if no one believed in gravity, never even heard of it, and believed they float, there would still be gravity. People can believe in lies or have a misunderstanding of the truth but that doesn't effect the truth one iota. Our ancestors use to believe the Earth was flat, that the heavens revolved around the Earth daily, and that God did all kinds of magic tricks. As you all know this kind of stuff you can find in the Bible. The Earth, the heavens, and God exists. They just had a misunderstanding about the truth of these things. Even though they thought this way the Earth was round, the Earth rotated on it's axis daily, and God only did things through natural law. Our knowledge of the truth has evolved since then and it's still evolving but the truth is always the same. If the truth wasn't then there is no reason to use our God given gift of reason or to even be deists in the first place because truth would be out of our reach. Truth is the same everywhere. Some day when we walk on another world we will find science books with the same natural laws and subjects in them as ours but we wont find the Bible. While Christians are teaching the inhabitants of that planet the Bible trying to convert them we will be shaking hands with deists who are already there.

Truth is not an actually thing. It's a word, a symbol, a concept that points to real "things". This was my argument about the subjectivity of "truth" (and all concepts for that matter).

Helium wrote:

given that there is truth beyond humans, as evidenced by the fact that prior to humans being on this planet we see organized patterns that we can equate with truth, for instance, the laws of motion.

Truth is not a thing in itself anymore than false is a thing in itself. Truth is simply a fact that can be verified. It's a subjective concept. It is believed to be truthful that "things" or "facts" existed before humanity, but that doesn't mean that "facts that could be verified" existed before humanity. Afterall, who would be there to verify them?

Helium wrote:

How then can "truth" be born with the human race, be born with an individual?

Truth was born with the ability for a subject(s) to verify the facts of another subject(s) or object(s).

Helium wrote:

Must not truth lay outside the human condition?

Reality lays outside the human condition. Truth is dependent on both the human condition and what lays beyond it.

Helium wrote:

Or is truth a growing thing, as panendeists who believe that God and the universe are evolving together might conjecture. So back when life first got its foothold then truth was still mostly physical and not moral, since there were few if any conscious decisions that could be made.

Truth is dependent upon our ability to understand and verify reality. It's not reality in itself. Therefore as our understanding of reality changes and grows so does truth.

Helium wrote:

If you use Painful's equaltion that God is Truth. Then by Paineful's criteria, Aaron would be arguing that truth or God can only exist for human.

And that's why I don't agree with Painful's criteria.

Helium wrote:

And yet I argued that, no, truth would have to universal affecting all sentient life aware of itself.

Truth doesn't affect anything. Reality is what affects things. Truth is just a quality of reality... just as false is.

Schizophretard,

I felt the same fear followed by freedom. Freedom from fear, boredom and above all mindless regimentation. I think I should add that the atheist I mentioned argued more against Christianity and little for atheism--and even used deism to make a point. I learned then that people increase their credibility exponentially by giving you pertinent information from both sides, not just the facts that, alone, can favor their side. It was my first, very early experience with the power of Truth and how to recognize it, but it was years later before I began to build on what he gave me.

And what I regret terribly is that he never saw the effect he had on me since my transition was a slow one. That taught me something as well.

You also said:

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I'm going to have to say with absolute certainty that truth is absolute and universal.

I've learned to qualify that by saying that objective Truth, natural law, is absolute, immutable and universal (at least since the Big Bang), but there does exist a subjective, individual shareable Truth, also known as beauty and art. The two overlap in justice and love (long story). Many here have heard this perhaps more than enough, but I feel compelled to tell everyone new that will listen. Perhaps there will be those, maybe years later, will come to agree with it.

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Truth is not an actually thing. It's a word, a symbol, a concept that points to real "things". This was my argument about the subjectivity of "truth" (and all concepts for that matter).

Ah I don't know Aaron, I'm not going to figure it out tonight. One thing that I would like to stress, is that I kinda view these things as metaphors. The beauty of this, is that you don't necessarily have to be wrong for me to be right. And I should clarify that. That I don't view it as a contest between my world view and yours. So I could say something and it would be wrong in your anology but right in mine.

Ultimately, however, I do believe that with greater focus and definitions and semantics that comparisons should be able to be made between any metaphor or system of thought.

Yes god is another subjective concept. Not that it doesn't point to something real, it's just that our understanding of it is purely subjective (as with everything else for that matter).

So in other words, if you want to say that God=Truth, I don't have a problem with it. You can believe what you want to believe. (Even though I happen to disagree with the analogy and/or metaphor.)

I do have a problem with the statement that "truth" exists outside of humanity however. Like I said, "truth" is a human concept and it's a quality of reality. So it may be true that reality exists outside of humanity but not "truth". Truth is a codependent quality. I depends on facts and someone or something to verify those facts.