Terminology
A theist believes
in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating
the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the
subsequent fate of his initial creation.
In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in
human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the
world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we
do them (or even think of doing them).
A deist, too,
believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined
to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist god never intervenes thereafter,
and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs.
Pantheists don’t
believe in a supernatural god at all, but use the word god as a
non-supernatural synonym for nature, or for the universe, or for the lawfulness
that governs its workings.
Deists differ from
theists in that their god does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or
confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious
miracles.
Deists differ from
pantheists in that the deist god is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather
than the pantheist’s metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe.
Pantheism is
sexed-up atheism.
Deism is
watered-down theism.
Quotes
from Einstein on the matter of religion
‘I am a deeply religious
nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind
of religion.’
‘Science without religion is
lame, religion without science is blind.’
‘I have never imputed to nature a
purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as
anthropomorphic. What I see in nature is
a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that
must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that
has nothing to do with mysticism.”
‘To sense that behind anything
that can be experienced there is something that our mind cannot grasp and whose
beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection,
this is religiousness. In this sense I
am religious.’
‘It was, of course, a lie what
you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically
repeated. I do not believe in a personal
god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called
religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so
far as our science can reveal it.”
Albert
Einstein
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