.Morticia. wrote:I will relate a little of my personal experience.
I'm currently interested in a really wonderful man, I'll call him Irish.
He is very intelligent and no one's fool. And he is a deist of sorts.
Listening to him speak about "Gahd" and his own relationship to the world I get the impression he is using the vocabulary of religion to express feelings within himself that he otherwise wouldn't be able to describe .
Some folks do that, which is why it is sometimes a good idea to clarify what kind of believer someone is. A true deist is not a "believer." He's a guy who makes at least one conclusion: that the universe could not come into being without a prime mover- a first cause- and that prime mover, whatever it is, is god, the deity, the creator, whatever. Beyond that, a deist makes no suppositions about god/deity/creator and that thing is not an interactive deity at all and does not do miracles. Other than flipping the light switch, a deist gives god no role whatsoever. Generally speaking, a deist might as well be an atheist.
Kinda like how dawkins puts it - pantheism is sexed up atheism, and deism is watered down theism. Pantheism, deism and atheism are very close together, and quite often pantheism and deism are vehicles for nonbelievers to openly be nonbelievers without using the nasty "a" word. They just say "of course I believe in god" and leave out the part about how the thing they "believe in" bears no relationship to any monotheistic or polytheistic god, does not intervene, does not do miracles, does not answer prayers and is not Christian, Muslim or Jewish, etc. It's almost like a cop out or a shell game.
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