The god of the deists? Maybe. There can’t really be evidence either way.

Skeptics don’t believe in stuff unless there’s a god reason to believe. This applies to everything, not only religion. Politics, art, gossip, whatever.

Now, is there a good reason why skeptics should believe in the God of the deists?

Is it not possible that Yahweh is the author of the way things work and relate to each other – and that our observation of these systems and the way they repeat themselves don’t actually discover anything other than the processes created by Yahweh?

I think a skeptic can assess the information presented about Jesus – and if convinced by the Biblical account – can reasonably believe in an interventionist God.

To the extent that a religious belief system contains claims about the supernatural, it is unfalsifiable and is not subject to the scientific method, though. You can make up whatever metaphysical world you want, but just don’t get your metaphysical chocolate in my physical peanut butter.

Most religious beliefs don’t maintain the NOMA-like distinction I’ve described above, because they essentially posit a god(s) that has effects on the natural world. To that extent, I don’t think a “good skeptic” can believe in an interventionist god, like Zeus or Yahweh. The god of the deists? Maybe. There can’t really be evidence either way.

Thanks for your response…

“The natural explanation for the universe is not randomness, you are setting up a false dichotomy.”

Perhaps my choice of words was inaccurate.

I believe, based on observations of the universe, and the nature of mankind, that the case for a creator is greater than the case for chance.

I think it is more likely that everything originated with something big and powerful than with something small accidentally colliding and creating a sequence of improbable events over a long period of time.

I’m not picking fights with the science of evolution here. I’m more concerned with the logical notion that we are a natural product of an infinite universe over infinite time with the paradoxical rejection of an all powerful God who acts the way the Christian God does… Why can’t you apply the same logic to the creation or origin of God that you do to the creation or origin of the universe?

I don’t see how choosing this philosophy as pertaining to the origin of life, the universe and everything rules me out of skeptically assessing claims about the nature of God(s) or about any other claim.

The word “skeptic” should not be synonymous with non believer but with reasoned believer. You can, despite what the atheist propaganda says, be a rational believer in the supernatural.

I believe the accounts of Jesus life to be evidence for his deity

The point raised here is that there is no convincing corroboration for the biblical accounts of Jesus’ life. There is no evidence to support it, and reason to suspect that none of the accounts were written by contemporaries, much less by eyewitnesses.

and I believe that the complexity of the universe lends itself to a creator not to randomness.

The natural explanation for the universe is not randomness, you are setting up a false dichotomy.

You don’t, as other commenters have mentioned, need to throw out every idea you can’t personally test in order to be a skeptic.

Agreed. A deistic creator of the universe who established the physical laws of the universe and has since ceased to interfere in the affairs of the creation, is not testable. However, the claims made by Christianity regarding the natural world (such as the effect of intercessory prayer) can be tested. Each of these tests has failed to support the claims of Christianity. The proposition that invisible pink unicorns exist is also not testable; that does not mean it is reasonable to believe in it.

As I have said, I don’t advocate preventing theists from being a part of the skeptical movement, nor do I believe it is necessary for skeptics to advocate atheism; however, I have yet to see an argument for theism which passes a reasonable assessment from skeptical inquiry.

Any skeptic who holds on to a belief despite convincing evidence to the contrary is an idiot.

While many Christians make leaps of faith because they’re brought up believing in God I would say there’s a reasonable amount of evidence for theism – assuming one does not find the arguments for atheism from naturalism particularly convincing.

I am skeptical of all other religious claims and most supernatural claims – and yet I believe the accounts of Jesus life to be evidence for his deity, and I believe that the complexity of the universe lends itself to a creator not to randomness.

Both these claims are possible to skeptically justify depending on your approach to the “evidence”… skepticism is a subjective thing.

You don’t, as other commenters have mentioned, need to throw out every idea you can’t personally test in order to be a skeptic.

…it’s clear that saying a person is a skeptic is just a shorthand way of saying that they agree with my position on every single issue…

Nobody is arguing that theists should not be allowed in skeptic meetings. They are arguing that to accept any currently practiced world religion, is to not treat it with the same level of skeptical inquiry which skeptics generally approach other issues.

I also agree with you entirely in regards to the term agnostic. My point was not that agnostic, as you and several others have defined it (and I agree with) is a logical or defensible position. It was that even those who say skepticism does not lead to atheism seem to think it should lead to agnosticism as they define it (definitions which I don’t agree with).

Again, I have yet to see an argument that there is potentially sufficient evidence for theism. The only arguments seems to be that skeptics shouldn’t exclude anyone and about the definition of the term “atheist.”

But that said, I’d say that being a theist requires one to be forcefully ignorant towards a certain subject. Would you consider someone a true skeptic if they said that alternative medicine is out of bounds for them, and that they believe in faith healing and homeopathy and angel energy and they’re not willing to discuss it?

What if they said that alternative medicine should altogether be left outside skepticism because it’s such a personal subject to so many people? Isn’t this exactly what happened recently in some skeptic meeting, TAM or whatever, when someone said the same thing about religion?

Or maybe I’m mixing to separate things here. I guess there’s no trouble with being a skeptic if you simply say that you’re not interested in certain subjects and will probably not be keen to discuss about them, but you cannot take the position in which you proclaim certain things but then refuse to discuss them as Bill Maher has infamously done.

Those scientific minded people who are also religious make one leap of logic. They assume their clergy are experts.

I doubt this. Most would appeal to some form of personal revelation or just call it faith. I doubt one in a hundred would say that their religious beliefs stem from the expert status of their particular clergy.

It is that leap of logic that must be shown false

Logical steps can be valid or invalid. Only propositions can be true or false.

I have yet to see a convincing argument (either here or in the original comments) that skepticism should at least lead to agnosticism.

At least? I personally don’t think that skepticism must lead to atheism, but I do think that that claim is much more reasonable than saying that skepticism must lead to agnosticism. While the term is often misused, note that agnosticism (or, strong agnosticism) literally means that one believes that the existence of a god could never be proven either way. But if a god existed, the god itself could easily prove its existence, so one can only believe that the existence of a god can’t even in theory be decided one way or the other if one also believes that a god doesn’t exist. (And even that is just a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.) Anything which leads to agnosticism but not to atheism is unworthy of the name ‘skepticism.’

As an evidence-based philosophy, skepticism can’t logically require a person to hold any specific belief. If a god descends in a cloud car tomorrow and performs suitable miracles under scientifically-controlled conditions broadcast on every television channel, then those that remain atheists would be the opposite of skeptics. (Even if we acknowledge the god’s existence, we still wouldn’t necessarily have to begin worshiping the deity or think that it was good, of course.)

Those who want skepticism to imply atheism would do better to introduce a new word that means both skepticism and atheism (I suggest skepatheicism). Then they can freely state that skepatheicism implies atheism. As a bonus, they can also state that skepatheicism implies skepticism.

This kind of taxonomic classification isn’t really so important. The argument “You’re a skeptic, so you should be an atheist” is going to convince absolutely no one. It may be that the best reasons to be a skeptic are also good reasons to be an atheist, but in that case one should appeal to those reasons rather than appealing to skepticism per se.