In response to my last Blog 'Andy' gave a very considered and reassuring reply to my angst over the faith vs. reason struggle I highlighted in my last posting. His suggestion was that a Deist belief might provide a means of reconciling these two parts of my personality/psyche.
I have considered this and will consider it further, but the trouble with Deism takes me back to a comment Dan made last year when I was contemplating 'Why Terrible Things Happen'..
In that he (an ardent atheist) mused:
"you might consider what kind of deity you (want to) believe in. Can we presume that the existence of torture, famine, etc. rules out an interventionist deity (or at least a non-sadistic interventionist deity)? We must surely reject the "mysterious ways" argument: there's no mystery in being tortured to death. So you are left with Old King Log, the ultimate cosmic observer, who winds up the universe and lets it run until heat death or big crunch, perhaps taking notes or writing an amusing commentary on his blog. And what is the point of that?"
And that is the problem in a nutshell -- if God is simply the spark, the source of the 'Big Bang' then is that it? And if that is it, then again it leave the questions about purpose and contingency unanswered... that is unless Deism is more complex and nuanced (which it probably is).
More to follow...
1 comment:
Interesting.
I'll always argue for philosophical agnosticism because some gods are consistent with what we see, no matter how perverse they may seem.'Old King Log' is one of these, but not the only one.
I don't see any moral consequences that can be acted on from this, however, so practically I'm atheist, and hold some of those dull non-theistic moral values that can make a void less void.
Purpose is assembled from these. It's often ugly and lopsided and doesn't have the glamour of gold tablets, but it's all we have.
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