Deists

As Peter Gay notes: All Deists were in fact both critical and constructive Deists.

Yet some Deists claimed to be Christian, and as Leslie Stephen argued in retrospect, the Deists shared so many fundamental rational suppositions with their orthodox opponents..

The Founding Fathers, who were primarily Deists, would be horrified to see what is happening to the US by religious fanatics who want to dominant this entire country with their beliefs, their philosophy, their religion—-everything!

And the history of religion was not, as the deists had implied, retrograde; the widespread phenomenon of superstition was caused less by priestly malice than by man's unreason as he confronted his experience.

As has been stated above, historically and to the present day, Deists have been very critical of the revealed religions as well as trying to be constructive.

Because of their high regard for natural law and for the idea of a universe without miracles, deists were especially susceptible to the temptations of determinism.

By convincing people that they required a priest's help to overcome their innate sinfulness, deists argued, religious leaders had enslaved the human population.

Contemporary deist opinions on prayer Many classical deists were critical of some types of prayer.

Deists also rejected the claim that there was only one revealed religious Truth or "one true faith"; religion could only be "simple, apparent, ordinary, and universal" if it was to be the logical product of a benevolent God.

Deists were stigmatized often as atheists by their Christian opponents.

In 2010, the Church of Deism was formed in an effort to extend the legal rights and privileges of more traditional religions to Deists while maintaining an absence of established dogma and ritual.

Individual deists varied in the set of critical and constructive elements for which they argued.

It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.

It was the early Deists of the middling ranks, and not the educated elite, who initiated the kind of ridicule Paine would make famous.

Other Deists were to follow his lead." citation Deism in Britain John Locke The publication of John Locke 's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689, but dated 1690) marks a major turning point in the history of deism.

Positive Deists focus their efforts solely on being constructive and avoid criticism of other faiths.

Reflecting the intellectual climate of the time, there were differences among deists about freedom and determinism.

Subcategories of contemporary deism Modern deists hold a wide range of views on the nature of God and God's relationship to the world.

The most important position that united the early deists was their call for "free rational inquiry" into all subjects, especially religion.

Though deists rejected atheism, citation they often were called "atheists" by more traditional theists. citation There were a number of different forms in the 17th and 18th Centuries.