[dlspence_58]

Thanks John D. Always appreciate your insight. I, too, wondered what a Spinozan Deist is? As I understand Deism it too believes in an immaterial god who, after creating, left things to their own “devices”. Is that a fair assumption?

Further: Even if the overall point of the ‘laws’ of nature is descriptive rather than prescriptive, one is still describing what is. This, of course, does not answer the question of why ‘what is’ is that way and not another, or from whence it has come. Why is there something (that can be described to some level of satisfaction) rather than nothing? Why, (so far) has it only occurred on one planet in one galaxy out of millions and millions of planets and galaxies? These are not questions a merely descriptive view can answer.