Studying American history - what little there is of it, of course - one finds many people who claimed to be deists, including many of the so-called "founding fathers" of the United States.
"Accepting the existence of a creator on the basis of reason" - I assume this means they felt the universe around them was too complicated to have occurred without some sort of rational plan. This, of course was before the enlightened theories of Darwin and like-thinkers. Atheists, of course, do not believe in the theory of the universe coming into existence with some sort of intelligent design.
Darwinism, I should make sure I add, does not preclude the existence of a Prime Mover; he was more interested in making connections between the various species. I don't know how much he was concerned with following them back to the point of actual origin (the point where a "life force" existed where there was none a second before.) I don't see anything wrong with his reasoning as far as Natural Selection goes.
If there is life in the universe besides our own, and it would seem almost ludicrous to think there is not, given the astonishing number of possibilities, then one might assume there are also other ways those life forms could have arisen, other than by applying Mr. Darwin's assumptions to them.
Anyway, that is off the track. I only meant to define what a deist was because I was reading about Thomas Jefferson, supposedly a deist, saying all men were created equal, and pondering what he meant by that. Men are obviously NOT created equal, nor is equality (to a person who thinks like I do) any proper goal of humankind.
I am starting to like that word, "humankind."
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•Do you think Thomas Jefferson was a deist by his actions and writings?
•What do you think he meant by "All men are created equal?"
•What do you think the definition of "life" is? (i.e., something is "alive".)
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I find it odd that the reverse side of the "Great Seal of the United States", pictured above, shows the "eye of knowledge" or "eye of Divine Providence" or "God watching over mankind" if most of these intellectual folks did not believe in the sort of God who intervened. Or even cared, one assumes.
Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to speak German. Ich dien, and all that royal stuff.
ReplyDeleteAll men may be created equal, it does depend on what they do with themselves from that point on. But if you consider genetics, we can't be created equal.
Life? I am certain there are "life forms" we can't possibly start to imagine at this time.
Not equal at birth, not equal later. Equal opportunity? Hardly. Just rhetoric, then. Thank you for clearing that up. :)
DeleteBut what is your definition of "life"?
Deist, believes in an uncaring God.
ReplyDeleteDeity, a caring God.
Diet, a thin God.
Life forms, we haven't even counted all the insect types yet.
You are a poet. An insect poet, but a poet for sure. Right canny.
DeleteDeism is still alive and doing very well in the American Christian community. For most really like the idea that God set everything into motion and now expects them to finish the work. For that would leave a lot of glory for them to obtain for themselves. As for everyone being created equal, most of our political conservatives love to point to that phrase while ignoring the fact that black men only counted for 3/5 of a white man and women of any color didn't count at all back then.
ReplyDeleteyeah, no equality back then, that's for sure. What were they being counted 3/5 of a man for?
Delete"yeah, no equality back then, that's for sure. What were they being counted 3/5 of a man for?"
ReplyDeleteDetermining how many representatives you got. No votes, of course, for those "partial men." Or women.
I think you probably know the reason this was put in the constitution. My reply above was meant to be specifically to Jerry's comment which was in error, and I hate to see that error perpetuated. People will start to believe it, as the demagoguery of Jesse Jackson has proven. I was just trying to invite Jerry do some research so that he would realize the 3/5 clause was not meant to belittle black slaves, but to prevent their owners from abusing them even more with undue extra white-owner representation in congress. Obviously, the black slaves were not going to get congressional representation. I was hoping Jerry might investigate deeper and maybe even read my recent post condemning Jesse Jackson's lies and hate which he uses to stay in control of less informed black Americans. Many people understand the clause was about representation in congress, but don't realize it would have been better to count slaves as half a man or no man at all.
DeleteDeism is progressing into PanDeism.
ReplyDeleteBlessings!!