Nones=Deism?

More from Andrew Sullivan, quoted Steven Waldman on Beliefnet. Here is something more:

The rise of the Nones is usually decried by religious leaders as a sign of secularization or atheism's ascent but get this: 51% say they believe in God.

Again, I think organized religion is important within the context of pluralism. While Franklin and Jefferson could be unencumbered philosophers, I think most people require a structure to spiritual practice -- just as they require a structure for community service. (We are more likely to raise money for cancer treatment if there is a fundraiser, than to donate a check out of the blue to the local research center.)

Pluralism, although distinct from Deism, is dependent on it. What pluralism does that Deism does not is embrace divine revelation.

Nones?

Excerpts from Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish: "The Coming Age of the Nones"

But the intellectual collapse of Christianity under the leadership of Protestant fundamentalists and Catholic theocons is surely relevant. The well-deserved inability of literalists to win many converts among educated people is also surely salient. The emergence of the politicized Christianist right - and its assault on Christianity as a freely chosen spiritual process - will surely lead to a continued and accelerating flight from organized religion....

But the Nones are not Ditchkins atheists. They express their position primarily as a form of skepticism and Deism. They are agnostics who do not dismiss the religious life but remain at a cool distance from it....

61 percent of Nones find evolution convincing, compared with 38 percent of all Americans. And yet they do not dismiss the possibility of a God they do not understand; and refuse to call themselves atheists. This is the fertile ground on which a new Christianity will at some point grow.

I had never heard this term "Nones" before. It is presumably tied to the choice one is given on survey forms ... Catholic? Christian-other? Jewish? Buddhist? Muslim? None. But clearly "Nones" does not reflect the Deistic orientation described above. It appears a form of hopeful -- or at least ambivalent -- agnosticism. "There might be a god, perhaps there is a god, but I cannot accept a god defined by the religious choices given to me."

I think there is a more profound thing happening as well, at least for Americans. There is so much cultural pressure to define Christianity as the only acceptable religious choice, that one may feel better off rejecting all religion -- and God -- then to explore other avenues of religion. Is there less stigma in being agnostic in America than in being Buddhist or pagan or Islamic?

I, for one, believe that organized religion is a human construct, but an incredibly necessary one. After all, as humans we require organization and social networks in every aspect of our lives, whether sports, charity or faith. The problem occurs when one holds up religion as being itself divine and not an extension of human need.

On evolution ...

From Jim Manzi on The Daily Dish:

The theory of evolution, then, has not eliminated the problems of ultimate origins and ultimate purpose with respect to the development of organisms; it has ignored them. These problems are defined as non-scientific questions, not because we don’t care about the answers, but because attempting to solve them would impede practical progress. Accepting evolution, therefore, requires neither the denial of a Creator nor the loss of the idea of ultimate purpose. It resolves neither issue for us one way or the other.

The article is the ultimate in geek, combining philosophy with logic and mathematical theory, not an simple read, but if you can follow the details it is a fascinating support on why and how that the existence of science does not preclude the existence of the Divine, in particular a Universal Creator.

This is based on Robert Wright's book Evolution of God which I have yet to read, although I am compelled by. I suppose there is an extension to Manzi's application of Genetic Algorithms to how the human creature continues to refine its understanding and definition of God over the ages. Where the sciences may have Genetic Algorithms, in philosophy we may have the Socratic Method ... a narrowing down of possibilities through questioning, examination and evaluation.