Deism

Historical and modern Deism are defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject organized religion and promote reason as the essential element in making moral decisions. This "rational" basis was usually founded upon the cosmological argument (first cause argument), the teleological argument (argument from design), and other aspects of what was called ''natural theology''. Deism has become identified with the classical belief that God created but does not intervene in the world, though this is not a necessary component of deism. ==Overview== Many deists hold different views on the nature of God, particularly on whether or not God intervenes in the world. The classical view is that the universe was created by a God who then makes no further intervention in its affairs. In this view, the reason God does not intervene in the world (via miracles) is ''not'' that he does not care, but rather that the best of all possible worlds has already been created and any intervention could not improve it. Historically, many deists adhered to this view; others hold a more Pantheism view that in creating the world, God became the world and does not exist as a separate entity from it; while some hold that God intervenes only as a subtle and persuasive force in the universe. The classical view of an impersonal and abstract God has caused many to claim that deism is "cold" and amounts to atheism. Deists maintain that the opposite is true and that this view leads to a feeling of awe and reverence based on the fact that personal growth and a constant search for knowledge is required. This knowledge can be acquired from many sources including historical and modern interpretations found in the many varied fields of science (biology, physics, etc.) and philosophy. While many religions have an adversarial opposition to modern views such as those found in science, this is not an issue for deism -- as reconcilation and unification are desired. There are other religions such as Roman Catholic Church that believe that the existence of God can be known via reason; they also believe that miracles and revelations occur and are required for man to truly understand God at the expense of reason (rather than exclusive application). Furthermore, these religions specifically define the nature of God with a belief that man's relationship is personal. The words ''deism'' and ''theism'' are closely related and this sometimes leads to controversy. The root of the word "deism" is from the Latin ''deus'', while the root of the word ''theism'' comes from the Greek language ''theos'', both meaning ''god'' in English language. However, theism can include faith or revelation as a basis for belief, while deism includes only belief which can be substantiated through reason. Deism is thus a form of theism in opposition to fideism. ==18th century popularity== Deistic thinking has existed since ancient times and can be inferred from Pre-Socratic philosophy philosophers such as Heraclitus. However, it was not until the Modern world, during the European The Age of Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, with their respective emphases on rigorous skepticism (logic/deduction) and empiricism (experience/induction), that ''deism'' came into its own as a subject of philosophical discourse, particularly in France (Ren� Descartes, the ''Philosophes''), Germany (Immanuel Kant,^† Gottfried Leibniz), Great Britain (Thomas Hobbes, David Hume), and the United States (Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin). [[Image:Thomas Jefferson.jpg|thumb|Thomas Jefferson, Edgehill Portrait of 1805 by Gilbert Stuart. National Portrait Gallery (United States), Washington, DC.]] Deism developed from the expanding influence of scientism in European and European colonial intellectual life. Newtonian physics, the intellectual basis and the aesthetic model for Enlightenment scientism spread the idea that matter behaves in a mathematically predictable manner that can be understood by postulating laws of nature. Objectivity, natural equality, the prescription to treat like cases similarly are central principles of the Enlightenment mentality, ideas borrowed from Newton's observational/experimental method and put to use in all domains the Enlightenment mind scrutinized; these principles informed the development of the philosophy of deism. Exasperation with the costs of centuries of European religious warfare was a powerful recommendation for the new, objective frame for spiritual matters, a perspective the most notable minds of the time found appealing. Deism was championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States of the United States. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are among the most well-known of the American founding deists. Thomas Paine published ''The Age of Reason'', a treatise that popularized deism throughout America and Europe. Paine wrote that deism represented the application of reason to religion, finally settling problems that formerly were thought to be permanently controversial. Deists hoped to also settle religious questions permanently and scientifically by reason alone, without revelation. The List of U.S. Presidential religious affiliations President of the United States had strong deistic or Unitarianism beliefs. ---- :^† Kant's identification with deism is controversial. An argument in favor of Kant as deist is Alan Wood's "Kant's Deism," in P. Rossi and M. Wreen (eds.) ''Kant's Philosophy of Religion Re-examined'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); an argument against Kant as deist is Stephen Palmquist's [http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/srp/arts/KTS.html "Kant's Theistic Solution"] ---- ==Appellations for divinity== The names used for the divinity by deists include the following: * Creator ''(used in the United States Declaration of Independence)'' * Divine Author * Divine Providence ''(used in the United States Declaration of Independence)'' * Divine Watchmaker * First Cause * Grand Architect * Nature's God ''(used in the United States Declaration of Independence)'' * Providence ==Decline in popularity== Several factors contributed to a general decline in the popularity of deism, including: * the writings of David Hume (and later, Charles Darwin) increased doubt about the first cause argument and the argument from design * several Christianity Great Awakenings in the USA, especially those that taught a more personal relationship with a deity, and that prayer could alter history * loss of confidence that reason and rationalism could solve all problems * criticisms of excesses of the French Revolution * criticisms that deism was not significantly distinct from pantheism, and then that pantheism was not significantly different from atheism * criticisms that freethought would lead inevitably to atheism * frustration with the determinism implicit in "This is the best of all possible worlds." * rise of Unitarianism, which adopted many of its ideas * it remained a personal philosophy and never became an organized movement * an anti-deist and anti-reason campaign by Christian clergymen to villify and equate deism with atheism in public opinion ==Current status== Newtonian physics is rather determinism, and so deism based on that, for many, left little room for hope. Of some relevance in response to this are newer theories in physics, most notably quantum mechanics, which has both a non-determinism interpretation (the Copenhagen interpretation), and deterministic interpretations (the transactional interpretation and many-worlds interpretation). Some modern revivals of deism resemble pantheism and panentheism. ==See also== * Agnosticism * Atheism * Cosmological argument * Freethought * List of deists * List of U.S. Presidential religious affiliations * Panendeism * Panentheism * Pantheism * Philosophical theism * Transcendentalism * Transtheism ===External informational links=== *[http://www.deism.org/ DEISM: The Union of Reason and Spirituality] *[http://www.sullivan-county.com/deism.htm Deism and Reason] *[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/paine-deism.html Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion] by Thomas Paine *[http://www.deism.org/aor1.htm The Age of Reason] by Thomas Paine *[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-77 Definition of deism] from ''The Dictionary of the History of Ideas'' at the University of Virginia *[http://www.gotquestions.org/deism.html Is deism Biblical? A Christian's view of Deism] *[http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/deismeng.htm English Deism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] *[http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/deismfre.htm French Deism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] === External organization links=== *[http://www.deism.com/ World Union of Deists] *[http://www.aldeism.org/ Aldeism] *[http://www.uniteddeistchurch.org/ United Deist Church] *[http://www.americanunitarian.org/ American Unitarian Conference] Deism

Deism

==Controversial== I'm not sure if this is the best thing to do, but I've added this to the list of controversial issues, simply as a warning to expect abuse from Andrew Zito if you try to make any changes to the article. User:Bkonrad ≠ User talk:Bkonrad 22:22, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) ==a removed sentence== The following sentence was removed: ''Relying on empirical evidence demonstrating a natural world obeying natural laws, Deists reject the idea of a theistic God actively involved in the universe beyond its creation''. While the idea of a Theistic God is rejected by Deists, the idea of God as a continuing entity is not universally rejected. A look at [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=deism Dictionary.com] indicates that while The American Heritage� Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition concurs with the idea of abandonment of the universe, both '''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, � 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. and WordNet � 1.6, � 1997 Princeton University''' allow for the continuing existence of God, provided that God's existence is based on reason alone and not on faith or revelation. User:Arevich 20:15, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC) Since this topic is tagged as controversial, I felt it best to remove a single controversial sentence and not replace it with anything equally controversial. For that reason I have left my comments about the alternative viewpoints only in the Talk forum. User:Arevich 20:21, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC) After doing a google for Deism and checking dictionary.com, I've gotten the impression that a large majority of Deists believe in a non-interfering (i.e., non-miraculous) God. While there may be some disagreement on Deists on this issue, I think that it is a significant enough part of Deism in general that it should be mentioned in the article. As such, I added this sentence: "Most Deists believe that God does not interfere with the world or create miracles." User:Modargo 12:56, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC) ==U.S. Founding Fathers== A quick [http://www.google.com/search?&q=founding+fathers+deists Google search] shows passionate arguments on both sides of the claim that deism was popular among the :U.S. Founding Fathers. I plan to research this further. ''<>< User:tbc'' Thanks! When I get a chance I'll dig up my notes and see what I can add. – Anonymous#1 Please do not use searches on the Internet to try and research this claim. The 'net is full of websites written by Evangelical and otherwise right-wing Chrisitians who are not honest about this subject. I have seen, and on radio have heard, dishonest historical revisionism on this topic. The documentable historical truth is that many of the USA's founding fathers were Deists; many in fact found Christianity contemptible. Thomas Jefferson himself edited a radical version of New Testament to take out the miracles, and anything else imcompatible with Deism. All this talk about all of them them being Chrisitians is part of the Christian right's political agenda. user:RK You might even find a source, like, say, :Wikipedia via the Internet. :-) If you're going to discount the writings of Christians, then respond with your own evidence. I found a mix of :Atheists and Christians writing about the subject. When I have time to research it (yes, on the Internet) I'll say more. Until then (despite my Christian bias), I'll leave it at that. I suggest you do the same until you back it up with your own evidence. And be prepared to defend it. The :Founding Fathers' writings are available on the 'net. Use them. ''<>< User:tbc'' : By the way, I am not discounting the writings of all Christians! I only say that we shouuld discount those that are demonstratably dishonest and misleading on this topic. user:RK Look at User:tbc's page before you say this. For now, maybe we can say that some Founders were Deists and that Deism was an influential idea at this time. I certainly don''t think they were ALL Deists. Some of them were probably devout :Christians. – Anonymous#2 Thanks. The evidence shows that many of them indeed were devout Christians. And it's undisputable that virtually all were shaped by a Christian worldview—whether they believed in it or not. (There's plenty of evidence that Jefferson rejected Christian accounts of Biblical miracles, for instance.) ''<>< User:tbc'' The American Christian right-wing does have a political agenda, and it does involve deliberately lying about the origins of our nation. For years they have been slandering historians who objectively discuss the formation of our nation and its founding fathers. Historians get in the way of their attempt to turn the USA into an explicitly Christian nation. Do I have the authorship straight now? I apologize for mis-reading the diff. RK, you have twice declared that there is some deliberate spreading of misinformation going on. Just pony up with some evidence. Go ahead and put it here if it's not ready to incorporate into the article, but I see no reason for you to repeat yourself. I have nothing to "critcize" because you haven't produced any evidence. So far it's just been namecalling. ''<>< User:tbc'' Actually ultra conservative christians consider any thoughts of the US being created as a christian country comeplete propaganda, and wholeheartedly attack the founding fathers for their deism (believing instead that the US and all countries should be christian countries. ==eo:Diismo== What is this code that is buried in the main entry for? ---- looks like a link to the Esperanto article. user:Koyaanis Qatsi ==active God, miracles== ''Others share the theistic outlook that God is still active today. Deists do not believe in miracles or revelations.'' Is there a difference between believing in an active God and believing in miracles? User:Evercat 21:04, 26 Dec 2003 (UTC) : An active God could be one observing, answering small prayers, etc. etc, without ever actually doing a miracle. User:Lyellin ::Hmm. Isn't even a small miracle a miracle? What sort of things do you think the god could do and not count as miracles? User:Morwen 21:27, Dec 26, 2003 (UTC) ::: Now we are getting into theology, not my strong point. I guess what I was trying to say is that it is possible to imagine a belief in God, an active god who is observing and perhaps even intervening, without doing miracles. Miracles referring to things like curing the blind, the lame, etc out of the blue. Miracle in the sense that one must be proved before sainthood ( or is it 3? I'm not RC, I don't know for sure), in the Roman Catholic faith. User:Lyellin ::::As far as I am concerned, causing a lost sock to be found counts as a miracle. Would you not count that, then? User:Morwen 22:16, Dec 26, 2003 (UTC) :::::IMHO, that would depend on HOW the lost sock is found. If I pray for guidance, "God please help me find my sock," and then say, "Gee, I've just received guidance in the inwardness of my soul and now I remember where I left the sock!" -- no miracle. Believers will call that inspiration and secularists can call it the power of positive thinking. Neither side will call it a miracle. On the other hand, if the sock suddenly acquires the power of speech, and yells "HEY! I'm Under Your Pillow!" -- that would have to be a miracle. Deists must disbelieve in miracles but it is possible they can believe in divine inspiration in the inwardness of the soul, including inspirations that come in response to prayer. Just my thoughts, FWIW. --User:Christofurio 01:04, May 28, 2004 (UTC) ==The Mechanic vs. The Divine Watchmaker== A textbook (European History) I read used "The Mechanic" for the metaphor describing God as opposed to the "The Divine Watchmaker". Maybe this could be used to describe the theistic view as a Mechanic would be more likely to be active with his work after its completion (Maintenence, Repair, etc...). This is just an idea I want to throw out there. ==Andrew Zito's comment== NOW IF THE IGNORANT PEOPLE CREATING EDITING CONFLICTS WISH THEY CAN EITHER INACCURATELY ATTRIBUTE MY STATEMENT TO ALL DEISTS OR BE INCORRECT BY TRYING TO APPLY OTHERS COMMENTS (including Deists) TO ME either way you are ignorant. :Who are you? - User:Hephaestos|User talk:Hephaestos 05:34, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC) Plastering your name all over an article is more than just tacky, it's vandalism. User:RickK | User talk:RickK 05:34, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC) If you really want to contribute-do it right. Looks like you have some good information so do it correctly and everyone will benefit. Do not put your name or all those bold statements in. Thanks. User:GrazingshipIV 05:36, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) Actually I am a theoretical authority if not the scholastic authority regarding deism having studied / pondered the questions and issues for over 20 years as a deist in a comparative and Deist specific manner as such my ideas on Deism are unique and relevant in being distinct from many calling themselves Deists but whom I recognize not as fellow deists (maybe they are agnostics). Rare references I consulted spoke of the Deist g-d as not mysterious but reasonable meaning not supernatural (and not just without miracles or revelations which would be found acceptable as the miracles of nature; not just christian mystics but Buddhist, Moslem, Hindu, Jewish etc., in that Atheists dont believe in the supernatural but can be equally evasive and metaphyical Berkley Kant they too are opposed as are Empirists for similar reasons; whence the reason why many if not most Deists evolved into one materialist school or another). None the less NON-SUPERNATURAL UNMYSTERIOUS was the used by the common organizations were referred to as the Temples of Reason. Many of the religious fathers having been the protectors during the revolutionary war made efforts so as to protect their parishes and parishioners. Herbert Aptheker Noted American Historian accurately spoke at length as to how the American Public was divided during the American Revolution. There is no doubt in my mind that the clergy of the official church establishments (yes state religion was sanctioned until so time later after the revolution [much later e.g. Papist Roman Catholics, and Jews etc who were burdened and precluded while he Protesant Elite who often maintained a pro-british loyalist position during the war on pretexts actually feigned support of the revolution after the war) often played a some what conservative modest if not questionable role as it was said that on supporting the revolution "One-third loyal, one-third patriot, one-third undecided." (John Adams (“2. Loyalists a. 100,000 left the colonies4. Declaring Independence (WAYCROSS COLLEGE DR. COREY LESSEIG http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/coless/Am1lec.htm) (inaccurately said to be 10-15% loyalist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_War_of_Independence) Considering that the clergy are more astute polititians tied to the bread and butter of the issues (than their flock it suggest) many of the establishment clergy are suspect as actually having often pro-British with the exception of Deists and Masons (the later distinguished by their acceptance of a esoteric aspect to enlightenment. Thomas Paine was a highly read author in that his pamplet “Common Sense” in the period in question out sold the bible and that a sizable proportion of the literate population read his best selling works (just to keep up with the gossip if not the issues). ( Thomas Paine and Common Sense (1) January 1776 // 120,000 copies by May (2) attack on all monarchy, but especially the "royal brute" George, Ibid.) “Loyalists, that sizeable pro-British element, perhaps a majority when open war began, who had stood by established law and imperial unity against revolutionary upheaval” (http://www.canadianheritage.org/books/canada4.htm) “New York City, which was at that time more pro-British than England itself.“ (The Tribes and the States W. J. Sidis chapter 23, http://www.sidis.net/TSChap23.htm) The question the colonial elite must have repeatedly asked each other is if the growing class hatred developing in the colonies could be focused against the pro-British elite, and be deflected from themselves, the national elite? (Lecture Notes 3 - The American Revolution African American History - Spring 1999 Department of History, St. John's University by Omar, Ali http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4275/StJohnsLec3.html ). "about 40% of the population was pro-British. (The Presbyterian Rebellion ( by Harry Seabrook (harry@littlegeneva.com" http://www.littlegeneva.com/docs/presbyterian.htm ) If and specific sources are desired they should be requested though at present these should suffice though the insulting demands placed upon me were unreasonable and in fact fashioned not based on facts but close minded impresssions for which appologies will not be accepted and remembered. By the way as most "Deists" will tell you all "Deists" don't agree as to what is "Deism" or "Deists" hence the need for proper placement of quotation marks, references and notes (just like a doctoral theses. Does spelling really count if the message is conveyed? Einstein couldn't spell.). It seems like some people enjoy changing this page without discussion here so two can play that game. == To Andrew Zito == Whatever sort of authority you claim to be on this subject, your style of writing is entirely inappropriate for Wikipedia. Please do note include self-references and self-citations in the body of the article. If you have published materials or websites, you can list them at the end of the article. Please refer to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style and the entire Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory. User:Bkonrad ≠ User talk:Bkonrad 19:35, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) == TO ALL YOU == ok I deleted all references to myself so you who don't know how to edit out personal referemces (eg user names) but hypocritical can discriminatorily and biasedly figure out how to delete everything thing including Thomas Paine's Photo and the extrenal links to groups you dont like . :You're intemperate response does not inspire any confidence in your contributions and you do yourself a disservice with such outbursts. If your contributions have merit, then they'll stay, and if not, they'll be edited. Speaking for myself only, I saw no easy way to separate the bogus self-serving parts of what you write from anything that might be of value. I'm not an authority on Deism and so did not want to try to edit the article, but I could very easily spot the self-serving and inappropriate nature of your contributions. Hence the revert. Sorry if that offended you, but you might want to learn how things work around here before you get all huffy and start calling people names. User:Bkonrad ≠ User talk:Bkonrad == OH SO YOU ADMIT == YOU ARE NOT SPEAKING BASED ON MY MENTION AS AN AUTHORITY? THEN AREN't YOU THE IGNORANT PARTISAN SINCE YOU CAN"T DISTINGUISH ONE FROM THE OTHER? Doesn't that show how faulty your belief that every thing should be objective? But you wouldn't admit that? By the way my foul mouth and Fin temper and mood has nothing to do with it as John Lennon said you learned to "smile as you kill" and are as phony as they come. BY THE WAY THIS IS THE FOURTH OR FIFTH ATTACK ON MY PERSON WITHOUT YOU ADDRESSING THE SUBSTANCES OF ISSUES AS YOU ADMIT YOUR IGNORANCE SO YOU ARE MOSTLY DECEITFUL . AND AS I HAVE BETTER THINGS TO WASTE TIME WITH.user:Andrew Zito :Then please, by all means, go and do better things with your time and leave us alone. User:Bkonrad ≠ User talk:Bkonrad 20:25, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC) BY THE WAY THIS Bkonrad very much admited he has no basis to revert the text he did so he can Since this page doesn't accurately reflect the topic and since people wish to make arbitrary changes without discussion and mere accuse me wrongfully for the sake of accuracy it is better to have nothing insteand of the biased one sided inaccurate domatic views which are finding prominence in Wikipedia to which I OBJECT. == Blatantly non-NPOV == I edited the end of line 1, which read, " Most Deists believe that God does not interfere with the world or create miracles, but of course this is wrong". I took out the 'but of course this is wrong' because if Wikipedia is to remain a viable and neutral source of information, then obviously biased comments like this one need to be kept out. Let the reader make their own decisions as to whether or not something is 'wrong'. That was a clear case of vandalism anyway. Just look at the edit summary of the (anonymous) person who edited the "but of course this is wrong" bit in: "Be abusive". I would've reverted it myself, if it hadn't already been taken care of by the time I noticed. User:Modargo 17:29, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Anonymous user adding "Deist Alliance" links == An anonymous user, coming from the IP ranges of 140.254.114.* and 140.254.93.*, has been repeatedly adding back the links to the Deist Alliance. These links have been removed multiple times, because nobody else has seen the need for a whole link section for one small webring. In his most recent re-addition of the links, he even called my last edit (in which I cut the Deist Alliance links from six or so to one) "vandalism" in his edit summary. I am currently reverting the changes to the last version by me, and if he does it again I plan to address his actions as Wikipedia:Vandalism. Just making this post as a sort of record and explanation of my thought process. User:Modargo 05:08, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC) -- The reason that my IP changes is because I use a university account. The Deist Alliance is not one organization with one link. If you would bother to actually look at the links, then you would see that. They are several different sites on different servers maintained by different individuals: PONDER is maintained by Jay Boswell Deist.info was created by Stephen Zinn Positive Deism is a discussion group started by Steve Dowell The United Deist Church should be back online soon (after being hacked). UDC Galveston and UDC Asheville are sites for the ministries of David Pyle and Keith Wright, respectively. SOCAL Deists is an organization focused on meetups in Southern California. These separate sites decided to open communications between them in order to help each other out. Each of the above sites has a representative to the Deist Alliance whose page is temporarily hosted by David Pyle on UDCgalveston. The DA is sort of like a UN of sorts. Listing simply one link to the DA in place of the above links is neither appropriate nor sufficient. == Article protected == I have – for the time being – protected the article on Deism due to a revert war between User:140.254.93.124 (using various IPs) and User:Modargo and invited them to hash out their differences here. User:Lupo 14:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) :All that needs to be said is that the Deist Alliance is a small group that does not need six or seven links all for itself and its members. It warrants one link to the main Deist Alliance page, but no more. Any more is simply external link spam. User:Modargo 14:46, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) -- Except that the Deist Alliance is not a "small group". It is composed of several groups, both large and small, who send representatives to the DA The history of the Deism article clearly shows that I compromised by placing all the links in one group rather than separating the DA links. :I have checked out the Deist Alliance homepage. That's why I removed all the excess links. None of the sites are notable on their own, or worthy of inclusion in an article about all of Deism. Furthermore, the Deist Alliance homepage ''has direct links to all of them''. When the choice is being one link to a mildly notable page that has other links to a bunch of lesser pages, there is absolutely no need to include the links to all the lesser pages in the article too. You are obviously quite ignorant of the organizations in question, and therefore have earned no right to judge them. The sites are notable. Visit them yourself. PONDER has been on the net longer than most Deist sites. Moreover, the various organizations are not "lesser". They are in fact "greater". They are larger and more detailed than the DA. The DA itself is quite new; the other sites have been around for awhile. The DA is a new council created to sare ideas among them. The other sites are not subservient to DA, nor are they supported by DA. Online, the DA is basically just a webring to join them. :The Deist Alliance itself being included as a link in the article is somewhat questionable, but I'm willing to keep the one link to the homepage. Anybody interested in the Deist Alliance can use that single link to go to all the other pages. Including more than that one link in the article is just spam and trying to get the Deist Alliance more notice than it deserves. User:Modargo 15:02, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Who the hell are you to determine that the DA deserves less exposure than the United Deist Community which is a trojan horse owned by Ford Vox, a NON DEIST, and aldeism which used to tell its members to smoke pot to know God?!!! * NOTE: Aldeism no longer has any references to marijuanna. The entire spiritual philosophy of Aldeism is on the first page of the Aldeism site. Anonymous poster needs to set up a Wikipedia ID (look at the top right of your browser window which will have a small log in icon). Posting derogatory comments about other websites is also not likely to be a productive method of making your point. User:Arevich 02:42, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC) Oh, and I'll also note that this has been noticed before by other people than me: see Special:Contributions/138.26.155.47. Just look at that edit summary -- "Regarding the "International Deist Alliance" This does not need a special identification in the links section. And if they are all one group they should only have one link." I ''invite'' other comments on this. Does anybody else think that one group needs six links when one link can be made that goes to a list of all the other sites in the group? User:Modargo 15:15, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) That person is Ford Vox. Ford is the former host of the United Deist Church. His relationship with the church ended when he changed the website to a universist site and dissolved the UDC Charter Board without their consent. Since then, Ford has been discharged by the UDC board and the UDC set up its own website. Ford continues to host United Deist Community, but he has admitted to no longer being a Deist and uses the site to recruit people to Universism, not Deism. I have no desire to bring that feud over here, otherwise I would have deleted Ford's links repeatedly as spam. Instead, I now place links to other organizations side by side with his links and let people decide for themselves. The fact that you do not wish DA links to be displayed, but wish to keep Ford's universist links , does not represent you well. Let people see all the links. The ones I added are links to different pages and organizations set up by different people INDEPENDENTLY. :Um, I really have no clue what you're talking about here. First, how do you know that that's this Ford Vox guy just because of the IP? And second, uh, I really don't care about your internal feuds, the Deist Alliance still doesn't deserve six links. User:Modargo 15:44, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Please do not separate my comments. That makes it very hard to read this page. Reply in one block. User:Modargo 15:47, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) Oh, and lastly -- as for "Who the hell are you to determine" -- I'm somebody who isn't involved with any of your organizations and internal feuds, and who doesn't have a stake in any of the sites linked, and who wants to have a balanced external links section without lots of links to one group. Whereas you, apparently, seem to have quite a stake in the Deist Alliance and some sort of vendetta against some of the other groups. User:Modargo 15:51, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC) :You are also a very dishonest individual. There was only ONE (1) link to the Deist Alliance. Click on this link: http://www.deist.info It is NOT a link to the Deist Alliance. Click on this link: http://www.deistnet.com It is NOT a link to the Deist Alliance. And so on. If you keep up this BS, I will create a webpage that links to the non DA sites and use your poor reasoning against you. As far as links are concerned, the DA is little more than a webring. :It is not in debate whether or not the sites are made by different individuals or belong to different organisations. The point is that since all of the organisations are subgroups of one larger organisation there is no need to have a link to every distinct subgroup of the larger organisation. Suppose we were to do this with some large corporations - the external links section would grow to hunders, perhaps thousands of URLs. This is simply not feasible, IMO. -- User:Grunt User_talk:Grunt 16:06, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC) But these organizations ARE NOT subgroups of a larger organization. If I create a webpage that links to aldeism, deism.com, and the other sites, can we delete them, too? The DA is a freaking webring. It is not an organization. :The point stands. We cannot link to every page in a webring because the links section would quickly spiral out of control. -- User:Grunt User_talk:Grunt 16:10, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC) If the point stands, then it had better stand universally. I will now create a webpage that links to the others. Then, if the point truly stands, the others (deism.com, aldeism, etc) will no longer deserve a link, right? :We do not need a webpage that links to the others because the links are already here on this webpage and your page would not be notable. -- User:Grunt User_talk:Grunt 16:17, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC) Suit yourself. As soon as the page is no longer protected, I will be constantly reverting it back to a state that includes the links. So much for discussion. :If you continue to abuse the page, we do have the power to Wikipedia:Blocking policy and will do so if it is absolutely necessary. Therefore, for your sake, I suggest you do not do that. -- User:Grunt User_talk:Grunt 16:21, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC) It is not abuse of the page, nor is it vandalism, so you have no grounds on which to block me. None of the links I added are inappropriate. Moreover, most of them are more notable than the others you keep. So have fun. I will maintain the links. :Reversion to the same material more than three consecutive times Wikipedia:Three revert rule. -- User:Grunt User_talk:Grunt 18:06, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC) Then be prepared to apply that rule to Modargo, that is if you actually intend to be nonpartial. : Dear user editing from IPs 140.254.* at the Ohio State University, : let me quote from one of the extlink you've given above ([http://www.deist.info/]): :: ''Know that you are not perfect, and that is okay!'' :: ''Be respectful and tolerant of others. They too are imperfect.'' : Note especially the "respectful and tolerant" bit, good advice for anybody, not just Deists! :-) : You said yourself that the DA was a webring. But then that's perfect for including in the article! It gives access to all these other sites. Note that Wikipedia is ''not'' a web directory. It is irrelevant whether these sites see themselves as part of a larger organization or not, the point is that somebody has already nicely organized these links in a webring, making it easy for people to find the sites. Listing all the sites individually is thus far inferior and a maintenance nightmare, for our list would quickly become obsolete: new members of the webring would not be added, and sites that disappeared would still be listed. Far better, therefore, to link to the webring. It's more practical, avoids cluttering the article with an excessive number of links, and still maintains accessibility of these sites from the wikipedia article. :I hope you can accept this viewpoint, which has also been voiced by others here on this page, and by many others in similar discussions on other pages. :How about the following: we'll revert to the version having one link (to the DA) only, but we'll change that link to http://deistalliance.udcgalveston.org/whoaretheda.htm - a web page giving both the webring's "next" and "previous" links ''and'' also listing all the participating sites. :Hopefully that will be a solution acceptable to anyone. :User:Lupo 08:38, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC) You remind me to be respectful and tolerant, but I have been neither disrespectful nor intolerant. In fact, it has been disrespect and intolerance that I have been fighting. Please note that Modargo insists that even the DA webring deserves no link. I have not displayed intolerance of the other links. I have suggested that we leave them side by side. And it is not disrespectful to defend that which has been deleted. If you expressed anger at someone who chopped off your arm, are you being disrespectful? What you have failed to realize throughout this discussion, is that you are allowing Wikipedia to lose what it stands for. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia. Users are cautioned not to post unless they accept that their posts will face changes. I am willing to accept that. I did not complain when changes were made. I simply corrected them. Now, I do not own Wikipedia, and I recognize that Wikipedia has the right to censor contributions, even if that runs contrary to its reputation. But if the moderators refuse to even visit the sites in question, then they are advocating uninformed censorship. Your censorship should either be informed or nonexistent. So, I will accept your proposal on one condition: you delete the external link to the United Deist Community (not to be confused with United Deist Church). This site, whose domain is unfortunately deism.org, is not a deist site, but a universist site. The owner of the site is a universist, not a deist, and also maintains universist.org. Visit the site yourself and witness that it is labeled a "universist project". Click on the link to the forum, and see where it leads you (universist.org) The purpose of the site is to advertise Universism by inviting Deists and "converting" them. As such, it is an inappropriate link and spam. There is already a link to universism as a related topic, and readers will find a link to universist pages in that article. The owner of deism.org can place his external link on that page. If you would like me to agree to the deletion of actual independent deist links from this article, then I implore you to at least delete nondeist links, too. :Conditions, shmonditions... :-) No seriously, whether the deist.org link belongs into this article is a completely different matter. :I have taken the time to research your claim (had nothing better to do), and lo and behold, you seem to be correct that this Ford Vox guy founded Universism and has left Deism behind himself. Both deism.org and universism.org in fact resolve to the same IP. However, his Universism apparently grew out of Deism, a fact which would deserve mention in ''this'' article, too. :Seems you've found an error in Wikipedia. You could have just explained this and removed the deist.org link instead of trying to rectify the unjustice you perceived by adding a lot of links. :Allright, I'll unprotect the article now. We'll see how it evolves... :User:Lupo 13:34, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC) Once again, you show how uninformed you are. Look at the history of the article. I was not the first to add Deist Alliance links. I merely added to the list and maintained them. The addition of the links had absolutely nothing to do with my opinion of other sites. The links that I added or maintained are simply sites that are extremely active in Deism today. Your suggestion that my actions are reactionary is unwarranted, and in fact ludicrous considering it was not me who added the DA in the beginning. Even this older version http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Deism&oldid=2980151 has a couple of links that I tried to maintain, such as Positive Deism and United Deist Church. You didn't even check the history of your own site before making assertions. Some of these links you deleted may be even a year old. Current version is fine with me. Also, I looked over the deism.org site, and while it is linked with universist.org, it still focuses on Deism and has a good [http://www.deism.org/library.htm library]. So I think the one link to it should stay. More than that really isn't needed. The external links just need to provide a good start, after which people can navigate around for themselves. User:Modargo 15:54, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC) ==Isaac Newton's influence== The article gives the impression that determinism, as inspired by Newton's physics, was the major motive for deism. I'd have thought that basing religion on ''reason'' was inspired by Newton's demonstration that problems long thought to be philsophical problems that resisted reason in fact are not impervious to reason. Was I wrong to think that that was the connection? User:Michael Hardy 00:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) Newton's laws didn't so much ''solve'' philosophical problems as put them on a shelf. For example, WHY do masses attract one another according to the formula that Newton inferred? He doesn't try to answer that one -- he says, in effect, that they just ''do'', and that is enough for him as a scientist. "I make no hypothesis" about the why of it, was I believe what he said. But the result was deterministic, because the mathematics seems to make prediction and retrodiction possible without limit -- into zillions of years in the future and back to zillions in the past. :This does not appear to address the question. That failure is of no importance but for what it says next: In other words, I believe the emphasis in the article was right. --User:Christofurio 01:02, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC) :This seems a non sequitur. OK, he showed there was no need to address certain philosophical problems if one is satisfied with his solution to certain scientific problems. But the article suggests that Newton's theories' seeming support of ''determinism'' gave rise to deism as a ''deterministic'' worldview in which there is no divine intervention. But it seems plausible to me that the point was not ''determinism'' but ''reason'': Newton showed that reason can handle problems formerly thought to be intractable; the deists, inspired by his example, attempted to settle religious questions by reason rather than faith. The "emphasis in the article" neglects that point. User:Michael Hardy 15:56, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC) ::I'm not sure what you're getting at here. But I'd be perfectly happy to have you edit the article in a way that would show me! --User:Christofurio 12:17, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC) Here's another problem that involves determinism. According to the article in its present form, one of the reasons for the decline of deism was frustration with the determinism implicit in "This is the best of all possible worlds." But that phrase was famously mocked by the man who may be the paradigm of deism, Voltaire, so how is that panglossian phrase supposed to reflect deism itself? --User:Christofurio 04:22, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC) == This Article is a Mess! == The article needs a complete overhaul! First, it sounds like it was written by advocates. (If you wish to expound, do it here and not in the article.) Second, it's so rambling as to be practically incoherent. For example, "...but a modern but small movement exists that is steadily growing in size" and "One common such view is the classical view..." How did the author of this, er, charming prose make it past "O" Levels or high school English Comp? He obviously spent more time learning deconstruction than in learning how to write a sentence. (Not his fault, just the sad state of teaching today.) The definition of deism merely as the rationalist approach to religion is not helpful at all. What distinguishes deism, namely the belief that God exists but does not intervene in the world, should be at the center of the article, and I have made it so. Come on, Folks, let's make a ''helpful'' article! — User:J M Rice 16:19, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Deism

Religious faiths, traditions, and movements

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D

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Words begining with Deism:

Deism
Deism
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