I know that deism is about non-intervention God and whatever but what would you realistically do and what would the world do if God suddenly appeared and started doing omnipotent shit... arbitrarily?

What if he manifested as either gender or what if he said Morality is subjective?
and also said all religions are crap and pretty offensive since they assumed his character.
Many questions could be asked.
If you use your perspective of imagination.

I have investigated deism in the past; in all honesty it appeals to me because it doesn’t require me to believe in things that I can’t rationally explain. The issue I have is that I come from a religious background that includes Christian fundamentalism and a failed conversion to Catholicism (I am divorced and remarried, and I was unable to obtain an annulment due to a lack of witnesses, so I couldn’t convert). I am afraid that, if I abandon Christianity, I may be eternally dooming myself, but this religion has had a toxic impact on my life, and I am reaching my wit’s end with this. I believe in God, a creator of all that is, and I still have great affinity for the moral teachings of Jesus, but I am sick of the church, and I am sick of a book being elevated to the level of a deity. Has anyone on this Reddit been in a similar position, and if so, how are you managing?

Hi again everyone. Cross-posting another discussion topic from the Classical Deist Discord here. What do y'all think about the possibility of IRL Deist Communities? Could we create Deist philosophical societies and would they be beneficial? Would you all personally attend any such communities if your local area had a critical mass of Deists?

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I think one of the most important changes to our world is our beliefs.

Today, religions still have a considerable impact, and it is possible that in a few generations, non-religious people will find themselves reluctantly forced to follow a faith in order to follow a group.

Born into a believing family, it is very difficult to express yourself with those close to you without being taken for crazy. In addition, we are attached to the community. So we remain “religious” so as not to be abandoned

Many Jewish or Christian Muslims continue to pretend because they fear being judged or finding themselves alone.

Community has many advantages for a Man. Only someone who has lived in a community can understand.

However I have the impression that deists, agnostics and atheists often seem scattered and lack a common voice.

Today a person who becomes an atheist or other does not have a community and a space to share these ideas these values...

Living in France, for example you are very criticized when you say you do not believe in religion or in D, just look at the comments on social networks

I would like us too to have a common voice, a community that would also give us strength.

What do you think?

He is just not accepting any of it. There was a lot of crying and yelling, but to summarize: he told me to go reflect on the belief again and if by then I still am not convinced... He told me to sever my familial ties with him.

Not sure how to think about this. I'm still left shocked and confused ig and it still haven't completely dawned on me. I'm not sure either why I'm writing this post, but I just want to let this off my chest. I guess some encouragement would help a lot hahah.

Hey, can everyone here share everything about their understanding of panendeism and what is God doing in respective of... well you know? I wanna see what your view of it will be...

I just started put as a panendeist, soo share your knowledge, if you can?

I'm evaluating the validity of the claim that Jesus was the Son of God. I don't think so. I think he was just a very virtuous man. Same as The Buddha, for example. But if he was just a man, that wouldn't easily explain the devotion of 12 different people who witnessed him and were willing to die for him.

I was a Christian for my entire life until last week when I finally gave in to my doubts about my faith and realized that deism now describes my worldview.

I am 26 and recently began to re-examine questions about my faith after discussing heaven and hell during a church Bible study.

I have always been intellectually engaged with my faith and got into apologetics as a teenager which is why I thought I had answered these questions and many others years ago. I realize now that I just accepted whatever answer an apologist provided without thinking much about it as long as it confirmed what I already believed. I distinctly remember being 18 and watching Frank Turek answer questions about hell by saying things like “God doesn’t send people to hell, people choose to go to hell.” I am now embarrassed that I ever thought this was a good answer. But I guess that’s why he goes around to college campuses: young people are ignorant.

I told a church leader I was having doubts and discussed these issues with him but he just encouraged me to stick with it and told me that my doubts were actually a good thing.

I was planning to stick with Christianity until I read “The Age of Reason” a few days ago. Thomas Paine acknowledged many of my doubts yet still argued passionately for the existence of a Creator God. This is not a worldview that I have ever been exposed to so it was fascinating to read it.

Anyway, I’m just hoping to find people who can relate I guess.

The truth is that I don’t really know what to do with my life. Should I remain nominally a Christian for my family? Anyway, maybe some encouragement would be helpful.

I told some online Christian friends that I am now a deist and one of them said I was “damned,” so that’s unfortunate.

That’s about it.

I was into christianity and I loved God. I didn't understand why they wanted me to worship Jesus. I thought I would go to hell if I didn't.

I stopped once I read the cannibalism verses in the bible once I read that and knew for a fact that's not God. and after stopping Christianity I do not feel like God left me, in fact I feel closer to Him. I feel like he is helping me find the real me. Anybody here leave religion, but instead of leaving God behind, realizing that the religions were wrong about him? I love God even more after leaving religion and wondered if anyone here feels the same.

Hello all. I was just curious, for people who consider themselves Pandeists and Panendeists, do you align more with Deism, or Pantheism/Panentheism?

Even though they have "Deist" in the title, I feel Pandeism and Panendeism have much more in common philosophically with Pantheism and Panentheism.

Some things that happened in my life a long time ago made me wonder. Always thought if there was a god I’d tell them f you for getting me into a car accident that almost ended my life. But then I remembered I felt this outside force tell me to stay home, but I left anyways and got in the accident shortly after. I got extremely lucky to be alive. Family said it was the prayers of believers that healed me, but I don’t believe that nonsense. I’ve read the entire Christian bible and that depiction of a god is an evil entity. If there was a truly good force in this world, it would be nothing like the demented god of the bible, and the devil in the bible gets blamed for everything like a scapegoat but they didn’t do anything wrong. The entire premise of Jesus that everyone is born messed up and he needed to end his own son as a sacrifice. That’s an evil narcissist. I do believe there is good and evil in this world. I was raised by someone who is pure evil. I just refuse to believe that the god of the bible is real. It’s an f’d up deity.

Came across the deism beliefs and find it interesting. Not sure what I believe. There are some things in my life where it seemed like some force was looking out for me. Just don’t know what that is. I’ve been an atheist most of my life. When I was 6 I thought prayer was pointless because there’s nothing there, but I had those thoughts while at church with my parents.

Sorry for the long post, just curious how do you personally define this god cosmic force whatever it is?

In all seriousness, is it pronounced dee-ism or day-ism?

I was culturally raised Catholic, but I just can't believe that God, a being oh so powerful and great and mighty, would allow for being gay to even be a thought at all if it were to be a sin. I'm still to grieve losing merit in Catholic teachings, yet I will still most definitely miss Catholic devotional practices and the way that a church space allows for a gathering of a community. I've settled that I'm an agnostic deist.

Do you ever feel lone? How do you reconcile with having your own idea of God? What does your practice look like if you have any? How do you fulfill that craving for that community gathering in honor of the God? How do you keep your trust and faith in God without religion and dogma strong?

I've recently just begun getting into Zen Buddhist practice and I find that it may help mediate with all these complicated feelings as it seems they allow for more abstract agnostic thinkings of higher powers, albeit obviously Buddhist related... I'm lowkey lonely and lost! Lol.

So basically I think I'm both a Deist and a Universalist. Idk if anyone else here feels the same way. Maybe Perennialist is really the right word. I see that there are universal concepts in religion as a whole. There's definitely differences in the various religions. But they all have this idea that living a good life is about thinking of, caring about, and doing things for other people. Being selfless really. And the feeling we get from this is universally considered a good feeling. and having that feeling most of the time means you are saved, I mean according to any religion. Where the Deism comes into play is I think this feeling can be explained rationally and we can rationally see that it has a proper purpose for us in the world. This feeling is how we are able to come to ideas of morality rationally. Does this make sense? Or is it totally out of left-field? Idk I'm new to this whole religion topic.

Also another part of this post is about how I really would like to attend a church regularly for the sense of community but also whether or not you think it's honestly possible to do this without being bogged down by some sort of cognitive dissonance. I think I'd fit in well with a sort of liberal denomination tho. I'm honestly thinking Episcopalian would be the best for me.

A recent Philosophy Question of the Day on the Classical Deism discord got a bunch of varied responses today, and I wanted to ask over here too: What are your opinions on an uncreated universe or a universe with an infinite past? Similarly, what do you think about a "First Cause" of the Universe?

• a deist not an

I have been into Deistic ideas for over 11 years now, and dug into PanDeism after researching ideas, and have come to a crossroads. Firstly, I reject that the humans are apart of the Universe. I believe that we merely inhabit it. I believe firmly that every thing in the Universe is not an apart of it, but just an inhabitant of it. That said, I believe in a Non-Interventionist Universe, and believe that this is our deity. Essentially, I believe that we occupy God, but aren’t God themself, and that a Universal moral code does not exist. I’ve been trying to see if there is a name for this, but the best I could do is get undefined possible terminology from ChatGPT. Am I the only one with these views? Or did I (non-facetiously) create a new strain of Deism?

Considering that the essence of this world is about God's hiddenness. The whole play for humanity is to solve this puzzle. Then why would God choose to send a text or a messenger to a small group of people. Doesn’t that contradict the very cycle of curiosity that God Himself created?

While Kant isn't usually described of a Deist, I do think that his philosophy does lend to Deism a bit. I think he could be described as "Deist-adjacent" philosopher, and maybe perhaps even interpreted in that light. Thoughts?

Personally the thing I hated about all religions is I could not be a playboy and sleep around. Also I approve of the sex industry, drugs, gambling, hot young slim woman walking about naked. Thoughts?

I know that you can’t comprehend the nature of god in deism, but based on your understanding and experiences in the world, how do you think god would be like? Would he be good? Wise?

What are your common axioms?

As a Deist what are your opinions on this, for me yes and very similar to life on our planet

Hi everyone.

I've made a discord server for Classical/Enlightenment Deists. The server is still pretty new but we hope to have a significant community once we can get the word out around various channels. Thanks!

Feel free to join at: https://discord.gg/kNWZZTSpNB

For an example I am a Pagan Deist, I believe the "Chaos" in Hesiod's Theogony, God took the Chaos and in turn made the Gods and Goddesses who are like Archangels who maintain and preserve Creation on behalf of The Great Architect.

(I’m going to start this post off by giving some backstory on how I ended up here, but if you don’t feel like reading then just scroll to the bottom.)

This year has been the biggest rollercoaster of my life. I completed high school, became an adult, met my girlfriend irl for the first time, and have moved to a different country for an extended period of time.

I spent the bulk of my life before this year under the reign of a horrible father, and spent all my time thinking, “Once I’m an adult, everything will be okay.” Initially this was true, all my dreams were becoming a reality, and I was the happiest I have ever been in my entire life.

But then, one quiet moment, seemingly out of nowhere, I thought, “Why? Why any of this? What’s the point?” And in that instant, everything came crashing down around me, I was supposed to be so elated, but all I felt was hollow.

I felt like I was ruining everything I had dreamed of. I was spending all of my time wallowing in sorrow, I had no desire for anything, I had panic attacks daily, often multiple times. I was living in a state of constant, 24 hour torment.

I spent a month or two trying so hard to just accept that this little insignificant life is all there would ever be. All of existence just happens for no reason and there is nothing you can do but accept that you were put here pointlessly. I tried so hard to just be happy simply for the sake of it, but it was impossible.

I have spent just about the entirety of my life as a 100%, absolutely devout, “If god is real then why doesn’t he bring me ten million dollars personally and tickle my nips,” atheist. But after my breakdown I began scrambling for some sort of purpose to this reality. every single day I wept to my girlfriend, it was always the same thing, “How could anything ever possibly exist with no purpose?”

My mind is extremely picky, and extremely disinterested in anything that isn’t based on evidence, science, and logical thinking. So I always figured that because the book gods make no sense, atheism is the only real answer. But as of recently, I had been doing extensive searching to find anything that would bring me peace of mind, and end my suffering.

I googled something like, “Prove to me god exists with science.” And I stumbled upon a Quora post from a man who gave extensive scientific reasoning for the overwhelming likelihood that a god exists and created our universe in some way. He was a firm believer in deism.

Given the way my brain works, it has thrown every argument possible at me to try and disprove deism. But for the first time, it truly has failed to accomplish it, I genuinely feel that every piece of scientific evidence for atheism, is just even better evidence for deism. I think that this discovery has truly saved my life.

 Through deism I have found purpose and meaning for my life, and a reason to strive for happiness and have any sense of morality. I am realizing more and more every day how incredible deism is. 

So anyway, I suppose the point of this post is in part to help cement to myself that this is something I ascribe to, and to help further my path to peace. But also just to hopefully generate some response from other likeminded people, just having more conversations about the idea of a god really existing with others who share this view would be incredibly substantial to me.

So yeah, not really any questions per se, beyond maybe, “why do you believe?” And “How can I help myself transition to this way of thinking coming from an intensely anti-god state of mind?” But if anyone is willing to share their experience with deism, that would be immensely useful to me, Thank you. :)

I personally believe in destiny, and a think the truth is somewhere in the middle with free will and determinism