Belief in God based on reason rather than revelation or the teaching of any specific religion. A form of natural religion, Deism originated in England in the early 17th century as a rejection of orthodox Christianity. Deists asserted that reason could find evidence of God in nature and that God had created the world and then left it to operate under the natural laws he had devised. The philosopher Edward Herbert (1583 – 1648) developed this view in On Truth (1624). By the late 18th century Deism was the dominant religious attitude among Europe's educated classes; it was accepted by many upper-class Americans of the same era, including the first three U.S. presidents.
The following two videos explain some of the concepts of Deism.
Below find a list of famous people whose writings are consistant with Deism occording to this source:
Akhenaton; Heraclitus; Aristotle; Epicurus; Marcus Tullius Cicero; Titus Lucretius Carus; Lucius Annaeus Seneca [the Younger]; Epictetus; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; Plotinus; Pelagius; John Duns Scotus; Netzahualcoyotl; Nicolaus Copernicus; Michael Servetus; Michel de Montaigne; Faustus Socinus; Giordano Bruno; Richard Hooker; Francis Bacon; Galileo Galilei; Lord [Edward] Herbert of Cherbury; Thomas Hobbes; Rene Descartes; Thomas Browne; Charles de Marguetel St. Evermond; Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury; Alrernon Sidney; Blaise Pascal; Robert Boyle; Baruch Spinoza; John Locke; Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux; Nicholas Malebranche; Henry Dodwell; Isaac Newton; Gottried Wilhelm Leibniz; Pierre Bayle; Charles Blount; Matthew Tindal; William Wollaston; Giovanni Battista Vico; John Toland; Bernard Mandeville; Thomas Woolston; Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury; Peter the Great, Czar of Russia; Samuel Clark; Anthony Collins; Robert Walpole, First Earl of Oxford; Henry St. John Bolingbroke; Thomas Chubb; Queen Caroline of England; Johann Sebastian Bach; George Berkeley; Alexander Pope; Charles de Secondat Montesquieu; Lady Mary Wortly Montagu; Joseph Butler; Peter Annet; George Earl Marischal Keith; Hermann Reimarus; Voltaire [Francois Marie Arouet]; Lord John Hervey; Marc Pierre de Voyer de Paulmy D' Argenson; Henry Home, Lord Kames; Gabrielle Emilie de Chatelet; Benjamin Franklin; William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; Charles de Brosses; David Hume; Francesco Aleieri; Frederick the Great, King of Prussia; Jean-Jacques Rousseau; Denis Diderot; Marquis Luc de Clapoers de Vauvenargues; Etienne Bonnet de Mably de Condillac; Horace Walpole, Second Earl of Oxford,; Pedro Pablo Abaraca Y Bolea D' Aranda; Mark Akenside; Samuel Adams; Adam Smith; Immanuel Kant; James Hutton; Anne Robert Jacques Turgot; Robert Carter, III; Gotthold Ephraim Lessing; Moses Mendelssohn; Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia; Louis Antoine de Bougainville; Charles Lee; Erasmus Darwin; George Washington; Joseph Priestley; Christoph Martin Wieland; Jean Marie Roland de La Platiere; Paul Revere; Hugh Williamson; John Adams; John Horne Tooke; James Watt; John Hancock; Edward Gibbon; Thomas Paine; Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre; Ethan Allen; Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours; James Wilson; William Paley; Thomas Jefferson; Chevalier de Lamarck; Benjamin Rush; Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; Adam Weishaupt; Gabriel Victor Riquetti Mirabeau; Pierre Simon Laplace; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; Stephen Girard; Henry Dearborn; James Madison; Gouverneur Morris; Jean Jacques Regis de Cambaceres; Joel Barlow; Wolfgang
Mozart; Bernard Germain Etienne de La Ville Lacepede; Alexander Hamilton; Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis; Constantin Francios Chasseboeuf de Volney; Marquis de Lafayette; Robespierre; James Monroe; Mary Wollstonecraft; Albert Gallatin; Theobald Wolfe Tone; Jean Paul Friedrich Richter; Elihu Palmer; Karl Wilhelm; John Quincy Adams; Napoleon Bonaparte; George Ensor; Alexander von Humboldt; William Wordsworth; Saint-Hilaire Etienne Geoffroy; Thomas Young; Robert Emmet; William Ellery Channing; George Gordon Lord Byron; Richard Carlile; John Tyler; Gerrit Smith; Giacono Leopardi; Miliard Fillmore; Victor Hugo; Ralph Waldo Emerson; William Lloyd Garrison; Lysander Spooner; Abraham Lincoln; Alfred Lord Tennyson; Jose De Espronceda; Theodore Parker; Jean Louis Armande Quatrefages de Breau; Horace Greeley; Robert Browning; Soren Kierkegaard; Joseph Arthue Gobineau; Henry David Thoreau; Theodor Mommsen; Walt Whitman; Richard Francis Burton; Alexandre [the Younger]; Hubert Howe Bancroft; John Lubbock Avebury; Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens]; Thomas Hardy; Thomas Edison; Wilde; William Howard Taft; Arthur Conan Doyle; Joseph Wheless; Mohandas [Mahatma] Gandhi; Stephen Crane; Albert Einstein; Gibran Khalil Gibran; Joseph Campbell; Robert Heinlein; Alan Watts; Richard P. Feynman; Freeman Dyson; Antony Flew; John Shelby Spong; Carl Sagan; Vaclav Havel; Harrison Ford; Stephen Hawking; Martin Rees; Neil Young; Paul Davies; Christopher Reeve; Carl Safina; Bill Maher; D. L. Hughley; Lance Armstrong; Michael Behe; Michael Corey; Thomas Crum; John Fugelsang; Bill O'Reilly
I am not a part of a larger group or body. Keep in mind that I live in an area that there are very few democrats let alone people who believe differently as far as religion. In my corner of the world my surroundings are painted very conservative and very fundamentalist Christian. But since I am asked by people what I believe I wanted to answer some of their questions.
The World needs many more people like you, Mary who are courageous enough to speak up their minds against the general flow that never even thinks but follows the leader like blind sheep.
ReplyDeleteThank you but I have been told I must have been a salmon in a prior life as I seem to have the need to swim upstream.
ReplyDeleteMary this was very good thanks-:)
ReplyDeleteVery learned video. Thanks Mary Ellen.
ReplyDeleteThank you Doug and Heidi for your kind comments.
ReplyDeleteTo me this is the most prominent defining belief in Deism.
ReplyDeleteI like learning what other peoples' worldviews are, and why they believe them, and how they got to that point. I am a christian, and I see the world much as this statement describes. When something happens outside the natural laws, it is a miracle by definition. Very few of us have witnessed miracles, and the only ones I know of are in ancient scripture, so they are not something to worry about in my opinion.
One of the best things about Christianity or Deism is that we see the world as created by a single being, so that everyone we meet is part of that, and therefore a potential source for knowledge, inspiration, revelation, etc. This is regardless of our opinion of them.
The Deist beliefs of the founders was also important in that it is a supporting source for the concept that we are all created equal, and should all be equal under the law.
There is an "Irish" Toast which says, "The life of tte salmon to you. A strong heart, a long life and a wet mouth! Slainte!"
ReplyDeleteJust be careful, there may be some of those "Tea Party" Conservatives up there who aren't much interested in people having different beliefs thfrin theirs!
Down in this part of the Hew Hess Hay, the term "Tea Party" hasn't caught on. They still go by their original name, whose initials are K K K.
Sweet Mary;
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, it's no ones business how you believe or even if you do not. The only reason to ask is to put you in a category. That category, of their choosing, and by their judgment.
I am thinking that you and my friend Polly would get along just fine- She lives out in bf Wyoming, and those are the beliefs and the politics she is surrounded with too.
When you have time, maybe do a few clicks if you want. I think you will like it.
Go here: (20 question quiz). http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx
Then go here too and let me know how you did. http://flintville.multiply.com/links/item/204/Beliefs_QUIZ
Pretty please?
XOXO
Me
ReplyDeleteAwesome list by the way!
Hmmm... A wet mouth.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that what teabaggers like?
(Sorry Mary, I couldn't resist).
Welcome John. I think this is an excellent statement. Although a hard one to live by.
ReplyDeleteThere might be no doubt. But I think there is a silent moderate majority in this country that needs to be encouraged to make some waves.
ReplyDeleteDid so and it was a shocker.
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ReplyDeleteYou are correct.
But how to motivate them?
When I'd taken it, I even had to google a few... hehehe
ReplyDeleteXOXO
Me
I question that perhaps some of the answers that might have thrown me into the first catagory it threw me in were not taking into account that other beliefs of the particular group I would not endorse. But that Liberal Quaker group was interesting. I had not realized there was such a thing.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping they will recoil from the behavior of the far right and therefore jump into the democratic camp. Even if they jump into the independent camp and select their votes from individuals apart from party lines but rather on each issue that would be good.
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ReplyDeleteWe can only hope that people can motivate themselves enough.
I thought that was most of them. You never see a person of color at one of their rallies.
ReplyDeleteYou have some thoughtful insight here. I consider myself a deist in a lot of ways. Out of all the religions in the world, I think Baha'i faith is the most interesting.
ReplyDeleteI tried that beliefomatic quiz. It was funny when I came to one of the lists that said to check all that apply, I chose none of them. I find that a lot of polls and quizes have wording to their questions that I don't like. Oh well, it was fun anyway.
ReplyDeleteAgree, And often they trigger a result from an answer that might be more accurately assigned to a different result if the total meaning of a persons answer could be determined. But you are right in that it was a fun quiz. Even if it was not quite me with the results.
ReplyDeleteHi Stephen. Glad to see you check in on this one. Have missed your input.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting... I get the same question a lot... When I say I was raised as a Christian, have been studying the Ancient Wisdoms since the 70's and mix it in with Buddists thoughts and the Kabbalistic thinking and then have read and studied many other doctrines and beliefs and cults, etc etc - and then "finally just came to a place of understanding and meaning and peace within myself" people just go "Oh." There can never be any argument because I don't let one come forth. Well maybe one -- I have always been aggravated that it is very unpopular for women to be a Mason so that started me on another journey - on and on we travel... Now seriously -- I know all I need to know. After all, I read all of Dan Brown's books! ;)
ReplyDeleteThey don't quite know how to proceed from there.
I'll go take the quiz one of these evenings ;) And read up on Deists.
Have a good day! Sandy
Hi Sandy - glad to see you stop by and comment too. I think the reason I got some of the odd results I did on the quiz is that I have not given up on the idea of reincarnation. That threw me in with some groups that otherwise I would not fit in at all.
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