Deism was a reasonable position for enlightenment figures like Voltaire and Paine to take in the 18th century because the natural world of animals and plants and their complex ecology seemed to be designed and thus to need a designer, though even then there were some independent thinkers like D'Holbach, Laplace and Erasmus Darwin who were able to do without that hypothesis. However since the work of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace who were able to provide a natural explanation for biological order, it is no longer needed for that purpose. Indeed, as Richard Dawkins argues, the evolutionary principle questions where such a necessarily complex being as a creator god could have come from, other than by some form of prior evolution from something simpler. - The cosmological discoveries of the 20th century now make even the idea that there was a coming into being of the universe from out of something previously existing a questionable proposition, although a lot of thinkers in the field still seem to find it difficult to get there minds around this concept. - So we now know that there is no need for the postulation of any god or creator of any kind. Trying to base ethics on the postulation of a good creator can therefore now be seen to be a pointless exercise. The evidence of physics and biology is that Nature (the way the universe works) is not guided by moral or ethical principles. The rain it rains equally upon the just as on the unjust, though the unjust steals the just's umbrella.

Cary asks if "you guys have any rational objections" to deism. "Is such a scenario possible? If so, is it likely? Likely or not, would such a God be just? Are there any circumstances under which such a God would be definitely just or unjust?" - Although by your own definition George 'knows definitely and objectively that there is no God', I take it that you don't agree (which proves that this is a matter of belief and not knowledge). I'll therefore offer answers to your new questions rather than go over the old ones with George. - In the "brief guide" I speculate that if there is/was a designer, it may have set the whole process in motion and then sat back to see what would evolve, or it didn't know what it wanted, carried on experimenting (occasionally destroying whole swathes of its creation, having got fed up with those particular species), and eventually came up with us; it may have lost interest or disappeared, leaving the process to look after itself, or it may still be watching. - If there is/was a designer, the great advantage of these concepts (which I would regard as facets of deism) is that they do away with the need to explain certain anomalies: how could an all-good God create evil? Why does God allow natural disasters? Which is the true religion? Why the millions of years of mindless organisms and other forms of life before God produced us? The spectacle would be dull if it was predictable; hence the conflict, the unforeseeable, the impossibility of knowing ... all integral to the show. Cary asks if it's possible. Well, the designer must have had some purpose for creating life, and entertainment seems as likely as any. Would such a God be just? I'd say justice doesn't come into the equation. Part of the interest would lie in the endless round of generations, developments and events. No need for justice, an afterlife, punishment or reward, though it's feasible that he might step in occasionally if he feels like it. - One objection would be that this is an anthropomorphization of God ... but why should we suppose that designers create things totally alien to themselves? Another is that the concept goes against the teachings of most religions, but since these religions cannot give a convincing answer to the above questions, it has clear explicatory advantages. A third is that it does not hold out the hope of future happiness or just reward ... but our aim is to look for truth, not for comfort. On the other hand (agnostics have lots of other hands), the above questions can be covered by George's theory that life came about by chance. And on a third hand, do we have George's faith in the creative genius of chance (that will raise his hackles), and if not, can we dismiss completely every single testimony by every single witness down through thousands of years and in countless societies as to the existence of a personal and caring deity and a life beyond the grave?