Quote from traderNik:
Hi Hansel
1) Well.... although I'm sure Deists are capable of effective reasoning, that faculty gets somehow shut down when considering the existence of a Creator God.
2) It is interesting to me that lately, Deists have started this crusade (crusade!! 
) to get Christianity bumped up the level of science. I have yet to see one iota of evidence (that is, evidence derived by modern methods) for the existence of God.
3) I see statements like 'It is not unreasonable to assume that the complexity of life on earth could only be explained by invoking an Intelligent Creator God as Designer'. However, when asked to provide evidence for this theory, proponents of ID/Creation simply say 'Can you prove otherwise?' or 'It seems reasonable to me' (Teleologist, are you following along?).
4) Can reason be underpinned by a false set of assumptions? Can the result of 'reasoning' be false? Of course it can!! What about witches? What about Ahmedinejad? What about Hitler? What about genital mutilation of young girls? What about the flat earth theory? What about bloodletting as a cure? All invoked or invoked by an appeal to reason, right?
5) That's why we have experimentation.
6) In fact, religious belief does not require a reasonable basis. It is faith, right? Faith.
7) I think I know what you mean when you say that the religious are unfairly labelled 'unreasoning'. I hope what you mean is that because of their belief in God, they are assumed to be unable to reason their way through non-religious problems. At least, I hope this is what you mean.
8) If you are saying that there is an argument for the existence of God that is underpinned by an empirically testable theory (which is what we mean by 'reasonable' in this context), you'll have to incur the continued wrath of the Men of Reason, who will say 'Sorry, brother... but that's total bullshit. Belief in God is Faith, and the Faithful do not need our petty reasonings to hold their beliefs tight'.
9) Is the scientific method the be-all and end-all? Of course not, and it's scientists who have shown us this. However, it's the best thing we've got, and is responsible for many of the good things we have, right? I am warm right now, and I live in a cold country.
1) Some Deists may experience lapses in logic but not all. We should focus on the essentials of the debate independent of the fallibility of those involved in the debate.
2) It is interesting that modern believers feel a need to legitimize their beliefs by way of science, given that science has no way of addressing the issues involved. This is evidence of the disproportionate status science has achieved in our value system due to its enormous success in providing us with ways to deal with the physical world. I say disproportionate because material success is overrated as a means to satisfaction and the scientific method is overrated as a means to truth.
3) Yes, the "It is so because you can't prove it isn't so." argument is worthless, but "It
may be so because it can't be be proved that it isn't so." merits consideration, especially if it's intelligently placed in context.
4) Good one. Of course, if you start with erroneous premises you can build as mighty a tower of logic as you wish on those premises only to see it all crumble eventulally. It's amazing, though, how long it can take for edifices of reason built on bogus premises to collapse, especially in the fields of politics, religion, and economics.
5) When we're outside the realm of pure science the results of experiments can often be easily rigged.
6) True, faith comes in there sooner or later, but I believe it's not impossible to reason your way into religion. It depends on what premises you start with, and how well you can maintain the integrity of the logic built on those premises.
7) We know from history that faith and science can inhabit the same mind. Newton was obsessed with alchemy and a determination to develop a new religion no less mystical than the Christianity of his times. I don't believe that logic can't be applied to religion; again, the validity of the results of your reasoning depend on the validity of your premises.
8) I doubt that an argument for God can be construed from scientific methodology but I don't think that an argument for God need necessarily be scientifically supportable to be plausible. Believers in science as the sole logical route to truth overlook the fact that logic is not only a prerequisite for philosophy, it's even one of the main branches of philosophy. It may be a personal bias, but I'd say many of the greatest Men of Reason have been philosophers rather than scientists. Theosophy is philosophy.
Science is excellent as a way to hack through an endless jungle of challenges from the physical world, but as a means to an overview of the means and meaning of being it's probably useless.
9) I'd say it's the the best thing we've got for addressing certain issues; we're in agreemant that science is a wonderful means of asserting our will on our quality of life. I think what we need now, though, is an updating of philosophy so that we have some sort of ability to place ourselves and our science in context before the relentless development of science and technology overwhelms every dimension of our human existence.
