Paine, like many other non-atheists, seems to assume that everyone believes in a God of some kind.
"Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is a DEIST in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first article of every man's creed. ... When we see a watch, we have as positive evidence of the existence of a watchmaker, as if we saw him; and in like manner the creation is evidence to our reason and our senses of the existence of a Creator. "
That assumption of belief in a God is faulty. I do not have any inherent belief in a God. I do not have an inherent assumption that because something exists, that something else must have created it. If one were to believe that everything that exists must have been created by a Creator, then how would one explain how the Creator was created?
For me, believing in a God/Creator makes no more sense than believing that everything that exists has always existed in some form or another, or that everything just poofed into existance for no reason at some point in time, etc. I don't actually believe in any of those (although any could be true), and none of them seems inherently more believable to me than the others.
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chiming
Re: Interesting reading
Date: 2011-08-16 12:47 am (UTC)From:"Every person, of whatever religious denomination he may be, is a DEIST in the first article of his Creed. Deism, from the Latin word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first article of every man's creed. ...
When we see a watch, we have as positive evidence of the existence of a watchmaker, as if we saw him; and in like manner the creation is evidence to our reason and our senses of the existence of a Creator. "
That assumption of belief in a God is faulty. I do not have any inherent belief in a God. I do not have an inherent assumption that because something exists, that something else must have created it. If one were to believe that everything that exists must have been created by a Creator, then how would one explain how the Creator was created?
For me, believing in a God/Creator makes no more sense than believing that everything that exists has always existed in some form or another, or that everything just poofed into existance for no reason at some point in time, etc. I don't actually believe in any of those (although any could be true), and none of them seems inherently more believable to me than the others.