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Ehsan has argued that Deism is simple, and I agree, but Deism can also be as complex as you choose. We prefer a positive form of Deism here. How simply can we state our beliefs?
We believe in God based on reason, nature and experience, and we believe we should respect the beliefs of others.
Everything else is just elaboration.
We understand that many people rationalize while calling it reasoning. Reasoning means examining the facts and then reaching a conclusion. Rationalization is reaching a conclusion and then arranging the facts to support the decision. True reasoning requires us to keep adjusting our hypotheses as we examine new evidence. Reasoning should become an ingrained process that becomes so much a part of us that our reasoned responses become automatic. This is intuition. We learn to trust our intuition when we take the time to examine our responses and reactions. But we are human, and we have our inherent weaknesses and failings. We must learn to adjust our thinking accordingly when we find that our intuitive responses are not reasonable. As we know that we are far from perfect, we see flaws in the actions and thoughts of others. We listen to what other people say, and we observe what other people do. We use our human powers of inference to read other people, because we know that what people say, and what they intend can often be different.
Inference is an adaptive trait in humans. People who can read people and figure out their intentions by picking up on body language and other non-verbal and verbal clues are better survivors than those who cannot. Most of us can read emotions and intentions. Those who cannot suffer from an affliction called autism. All of us understand human nature to a greater or lesser extent. When we look for evidence of God in nature, it is in our human nature that we must first look. Science looks at the natural laws. We can learn much about God's intent from studying these laws. Theories are not laws, but they offer the best explanations of nature until a better theory comes along. The more we learn, the more we benefit from the knowledge and experience of others. But we must be careful about accepting anything as absolute truth. The only absolute truth is probably God, and God is probably beyond our ability to know.
Our lives are short. We do not have time to learn everything for ourselves. We must benefit from the learning and experience of others. But from our reasoning and knowledge of human nature we know that we cannot accept all of what some people say, because not everyone has our best interests in mind. People have flaws: ignorance, selfishness, lust for power and control. And some people are downright evil. These are not adaptive traits, but they have survived. So we must weigh the experience of others carefully to discover what we will accept, and what we will reject. Reason and our understanding of nature will guide us as we select what we will trust outside our own individual experience. We are most likely to accept as true the experience of those we trust and respect.
Without respect, we treat with fear or contempt those with whom we disagree, and so we invite contempt in return. Respect does not require that we bow down or accept wrongdoing by others. But an honest disagreement that does us no harm is not a cause for us to attack. People with common sense know right from wrong. We do not have to keep beating them over the head with negativity. We should try to win over those with whom we disagree using our reason and understanding of human nature. We should understand that our experience is not the experience of everyone. Reason has not always prevailed, but that only means that we must redouble our efforts to use common sense and seek common ground with those with whom we disagree. And when we cannot, we should try to simply agree to disagree. But if we are not accorded respect, we can and should vigorously defend our rights, rights which come from nature. We must be free, and we are always entitled to self-defense.
So after all these words of elaboration, just four are needed: reason, nature, experience and respect. These are the four cornerstones of our faith. Deism can be as simple as that. And we know how complex we can make it.
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Inspired by Nature, Based on Reason. The Journey, Not the Destination.
http://naturesgod.org/ - http://naturesgod.org/phpbb/index.php
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