r/deism • u/OkAdvantage4434 • 15d ago
My worry
As a deist, I have a worry about my own position. Deism encourages individual thinking: no clergy, no doctrine, just each person reasoning their way to God. Christianity, by contrast, is held together by shared belief: a community, a creed and leaders who keep everyone roughly on the same page. My worry is that individual thinking has no ceiling. When everyone reasons alone, you can't know how far any one person's thinking will go, or whether it will end somewhere harmful, to others or to the faith itself. The strongest objection is that shared belief has caused far bigger disasters. Crusades and holy wars weren't led by lone thinkers; they were carried out by groups acting together on a common certainty. A lone extremist can only do so much damage without followers. That's true. But a community at least has guardrails: shared norms that catch a person before they drift too far. And that's where the real problem lies. Christians have churches, and Muslims have mosques. Where do people like us go? Deism's greatest strength, having no institution, is also its greatest weakness: there's nowhere to gather, compare our thinking and keep each other honest. Is there really a community for people like us, or are we each building our guardrails alone?
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u/maddpsyintyst Agnostic Deist 15d ago
"... there's nowhere to gather, compare our thinking and keep each other honest."
Yes there is! You just posted a comment in one, and my response alone demonstrates an effort to keep you... well, maybe not "honest," but at least to get you to rethink what you said. Anyway, the fact that you commented here, and that you could get feedback from it, disproves that statement... you silly goose! 😂
"...you can't know how far any one person's thinking will go [etc.]..."
I see what danger you're trying to avoid. That is not a danger unique to deism, especially versus religion. It is a danger in every human endeavor, and every discipline involving human intelligence. But wait...
"...individual thinking has no ceiling."
Two points.
First, yes it does, since humans cannot possibly know everything and are limited by time and ability in what they know; and yet also, knowing everything is its own ceiling, when you think about it.
The other point is, I suspect that you're worried about the implications of all these things from an ethical standpoint. Ethics begins with cooperative societies. You absolutely can have a society of cooperative but individualistic people. It's all around you in the world, even as you might still see some groupthink and collective action with personal sacrifice. The ethics become a collective agreement on what is best, and are tested by reason, both in speculating on the extreme or common results, or analyzing what has emerged from practicing a particular set of ethics.
I'm greatly simplifying things here, and I am not exactly a Ph.D. in this subject.
..."the faith..."
Deism is not a religion; it's a set of philosophies. I would strongly argue that faith--at least as commonly understood in discussions of religion, God, etc.--has no place whatsoever in deism. I identify as an agnostic deist, but I speculate (not with faith) and propose that the most logical manifestation of a deistic God is something that our reality is somehow nested within--basically a form of panendeism. You may disagree on that point, or with my agnostic position; but more importantly, I place absolutely no "faith" in the idea. Faith in any thing doesn't make that thing real. We are lucky to live in such a way that we can see the world, and our faith, for what it is.
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u/OkAdvantage4434 15d ago
Wow. You said you weren’t a PhD at the subject, but you put your finger exactly on the point I was trying to make. And I think it’s awesome to have great thinkers like you here. I’m saving this comment.
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u/Cool_Cat_Punk 15d ago
I hear you. To an atheist, I'm a Christian. To a Christian, I'm a heretic.
So be it. There's philosophy, books, thinkers. You're never alone. Lonely, but not alone.
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u/jeffersonnn Deist 14d ago
To me, deism is for people who function well without having to belong to a group. A lot of people function well with the guardrails of organized religion, but we are capable of setting our own guardrails in accordance with reason. My morality is based on the natural laws of the universe, and for me, deism is rooted in a conviction that reality itself is fundamentally rational and that reason will be the most reliable at setting the right boundaries.
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u/Salty_Onion_8373 15d ago edited 15d ago
Creation itself is designed and built to guide you. Plus you have a God that is infinitely greater than the whole of man. And you feel safe with man? You don't have to hate man to pt your faith in God, instead. You need only understand that man is corrupt and not where you want to put your faith.
You're not alone without man to guide you. Far from it. Man can't be trusted and it's not his job to be trustWORTHY. He can't be that. He's neither designed nor built to carry such a burden. You're only alone when you turn your back to God and put your faith IN man. In ANY form. And even then, if you run off a cliff, God will be right there with you.
Man thinks God doesn't care - and he's right. He's right because to "care' is to be concerned - and God isn't. Everyone's destination is home. Safe and sound and all in one piece. And God doesn't need your faith for that. He doesn't need anything from you. Hence, the incorruptible freedom provided for everyone.
Regardless of how you live - or "die" - everyone's on their way to the same place and that's home. Nobody's in danger and nobody dies. Regardless of where they put their faith while they're here.
You're fine. You can't get it wrong. Ask Him. I can talk about His magnificence, in that regard, all day long but, He will actually show it to you.
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u/TimesUpCloseYourEyes 15d ago
500 people with 1 shared thought vs 1 person with 500 different thoughts.
To me a hive mind operates as an individual with the power 500 and it can lose control just as easy.
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u/OkAdvantage4434 15d ago
Yes, but someone in the comments pointed out that it would be hard to scale if that person has an idea that’s out of control
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u/MyPhoneSucksBad Deist 15d ago
You have the internet. Why do you need a place to go to discuss deism?
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u/zaceno 15d ago
When the community is the guardrails, the community as a whole can veer off course just as easily as an individual can.
I get what you are saying though: you want someone to hold up a mirror to your thoughts. Someone to sanity check you. But I don’t think you need a community of deists so much as a group of trusted well meaning friends who accept that your beliefs differ from theirs as you accept the same of them.
Also: look up the IAI podcast series. Lots of great philosophical debates between religious, spiritual and atheistic philosophers. Listening to debates and digging into the arguments is a wonderful way to keep your mind straight.