Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Fear not!
It’s just your
imagination

Post 12. 01/29/2018 continued  . . .

Form & Function : Body & Soul

  Spirituality without Spooks

A lot of human behavior, that used to be metaphorically, and simplistically, attributed to movements of spirit or chakras, are now known, in technical detail, to be motivated by mundane hormones & neurotransmitters. For example, Love & Hate are not evidence of good or evil spirits, but of oxytocin & norepinephrin -- in combination with many other chemical & physical components of complex behavioral systems. Admittedly, those technical explanations for human actions are not as dramatic & sexy as the metaphysical myths. But they are more practical for making changes in the real world than the irrational resort to prayers & sacrifices that attempt to bypass the natural way of the world.

Some self-professed Deists still envision their austere deity as the Christian God minus all the rules & regulations. So they expect their prayers to be answered in some mysterious way, and they feel entitled to some kind of spiritual afterlife, as a reward for enduring the evils of a physical life in an imperfect world. Even so, various mystical traditions describe their life-after-life as a> resurrection in their own body, or b> reincarnation in a different body (human or animal), or c> ethereal existence in a heavenly spirit body, or even d> in a physical parallel world. In any case, the disparities in those expectations reflect the fact that spiritual Deists have no authoritative revelation of what to expect after death --- only hopes & dreams.

Consequently, for me, Deism does not meet any of the criteria for a viable religion. No hope for divine intervention, no saints to intercede with god, no traditional rituals & holidays, no visions or voices from god for guidance. So it seems that Deism is simply Secular Humanism with a cosmological worldview. It's Agnosticism with an appreciation for the creativity of Nature. It's Greek philosophy with knowledge of modern Physics. It's a moral code based on the universal Golden Rule, and the flexibility of situational ethics. It's not a belief system for those who prefer their romantic mysteries with a deus ex machina to bail them out of tough spots. But for those so inclined, Deism could be the shared worldview of a club or fellowship to provide some of the social functions of a religion.

The primary positive feature of the personal BothAnd principle, and its public expression in Deism, may be that it can combine some of the spiritual devotion-to-ideals of Religion, and the rational-search-for-meaning of Philosophy, with the pragmatic-approach-to-reality of Science. It can break down the traditional Trump walls for keeping out undesirable ideas from those other modes (magistera) of relating to our natural, cultural, and material environment. The result of such an integrated outlook may be a more comprehensive worldview for each of us, and a better life for all of us.

End of Post 12

Deist Non-religion :

1. No direct inspiration, or inner visions, or gnostic knowing; so we obtain knowledge the hard way, by real-world experience or by academic education .

2. No spirit possession, divine Enthusiasm; but ordinary emotional enthusiam is OK.

3. No mind-over-matter magical manipulations of natural phenomena; except by means of scientific understanding and technological applications.

4. No capital "I" Intuition in the sense of divine inspiration; but simply the ordinary insights of the subconscious mind jumping to plausible conclusions.

Deism
by any other name :

Greek Stoicism

Hindu Brahmanism

Buddhist Dharma

Chinese Confucianism

Chinese Taoism

Indian Sikhism

Spinoza’s Pandeism

compatible philosophies, conflicting religions

Spirituality
Without
Religion