This is the foundation for beliefs such as deism that accept that a god created the Universe, but then ceased to have any further interaction with it, and even pandeism, which proposes that the creator of the universe actually became the universe, and so ceased to exist as a separate and conscious entity.

Palmer published what became " the bible of American deism ", The Principles of Nature, established deistic societies from Maine to Georgia, built Temples of Reason throughout the nation, and founded two deistic newspapers for which Paine eventually wrote seventeen essays.

One recent convert to deism was philosopher and professor Antony Flew, who became a deist in December 2004.

The writings of David Hume are sometimes credited with causing or contributing to the decline of deism.

Kant's identification with deism is controversial.

Contemporary deism attempts to integrate classical deism with modern philosophy and the current state of scientific knowledge.

Classical deism held that a human's relationship with God was impersonal: God created the world and set it in motion but does not actively intervene in individual human affairs but rather through Divine Providence.

If this were generalized to the US population as a whole, it would make deism the fastest-growing religious classification in the US for that period, with the reported total of 49, 000 self-identified adherents representing about 0. 02 % of the US population at the time.

1996 saw the first Web site dedicated to deism with the WUD site Deism. com.

This site's social network has since migrated to The Center for Reasoned Spirituality, which retains a focus on deism but is also meant to also be inclusive to members who do not necessarily identify with deism.

Pandeism combines elements of deism with elements of pantheism, the belief that the universe is identical to God.

Panendeism combines deism with panentheism, the belief that the universe is part of God, but not all of God.

As a replacement for organized religion, he espoused a mixture of deism, Spinoza's naturalist views, and precursors of Transcendentalism, with man acting as a free agent within the natural world.

The entire apology for Christianity formed by the three volumes of the Traité, which combated severally the heresies of atheism, deism, and Socinianism, was received with praise.

As with claims of deism, these identifications are not without controversy.

:* Panendeism combines deism with panentheism, believing the universe is a part ( but not the whole ) of deity

Foner also maintains that with The Age of Reason Paine " gave deism a new, aggressive, explicitly anti-Christian tone ".

Paine's deism was simply too radical for these more moderate reformers and they feared being tarred with the brush of extremism.

On the other hand, several advocates of Enlightenment, deism and anti-Church positions saw him as an early forerunner of their own ethical and religious ideas, a proponent of a universal, non-denominational religion compatible with Reason.

It covers a wide range of beliefs about the extent of any intervention by God, with some approaching deism in rejecting continued intervention.

Sometimes used synonymously with the term atheism, it can also include positions of belief in a non-personal deity, such as deism and pantheism.

He proposes beginning with a review of the morals of the ancient philosophers, moving on to the " deism and ethics of the Jews ", and concluding with the " principles of a pure deism " taught by Jesus, " omitting the question of his deity ".

In the 1960s, theologian Charles Hartshorne scrupulously examined and rejected both deism and pandeism ( as well as pantheism ) in favor of a conception of God whose characteristics included " absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others " or " AR ", writing that this theory " is able consistently to embrace all that is positive in either deism or pandeism ", concluding that " panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations ".

Pandeism is another word derived from pantheism and is characterized as a combination of reconcilable elements of pantheism and deism.

He reviewed and discarded pantheism, deism, and pandeism in favor of panentheism, finding that such a " doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations.

Rejection of the narrower sense of theism can take forms such as deism, pantheism, and polytheism.

The 1998 Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics states, " In the strict sense, all forms of nontheisms are naturalistic, including atheism, pantheism, deism, and agnosticism.

* In " The God Delusion ", Richard Dawkins states that pantheism is " sexed up atheism " while " deism is watered-down theism ".

Nature worship can be found in panentheism, pantheism, deism, polytheism, animism, totemism, shamanism and paganism where deities are viewed as the embodiment of natural forces.

Carrière identified himself with the school of the younger Fichte as one who held the theistic view of the world which aimed at reconciling deism with pantheism, and Christianity with science, art, and history, and who were opposed to ultramontanism.

On 7 June Robespierre, who favoured deism over Hébert's atheism and had previously condemned the Cult of Reason, recommended that the Convention acknowledge the existence of God.

In 1802 he preached in the Albany region of New York, " against atheism, deism, Calvinism and Universalism.

William Godwin, " the author of the Enquiry Concerning Political Justice ( 1793 ), the first systematic text of libertarian politics, was a Calvinist minister who began by rejecting Christianity, and passed through deism to atheism and then what was later called agnosticism .".

For the same reasons the movement also adopted a neutral position on religious beliefs, advocating neither atheism nor theism, agnosticism nor deism.

The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late eighteenth-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism.

Since that time Rubenstein has begun to move away from this view ; his later works affirm a form of deism in which one may believe that God may exist as the basis for reality and some also include Kabbalistic notions of the nature of God.

Thus the ceremony held at the site of the demolished Bastille, organized by the foremost artistic director of the Revolution, Jacques-Louis David, in August 1793 to mark the inauguration of the new republican constitution, an event coming shortly after the final abolition of all forms of feudal privilege, featured a cantata based on Rousseau's democratic pantheistic deism as expounded in the celebrated " Profession de foi d ' un vicaire savoyard " in Book Four of Émile.

He attached himself to the Girondists, whose vague deism, sentimental humanitarianism and ardent republicanism he fully shared, and from March to November 1792 he published, at Jean Marie Roland's expense, a bi-weekly journal-affiche, of which the title, La Sentinelle, proclaimed its mission to open all of Europe to the Enlightenment at a time when, after the Habsburg declaration of war on France and the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, a schism between the king and his subjects had become obvious.

But his famous Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion were not published until 1779, by which time deism had almost vanished in England.

The use of the word theism to indicate this classical form of monotheism began during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century in order to distinguish it from the then-emerging deism which contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.

In England this essay, which was regarded and treated as a plea for deism, caused a great sensation, eliciting several replies, from among others William Whiston, Bishop Hare, Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, and Richard Bentley, who, under the signature of " Phileleutherus Lipsiensis ", roughly handles certain arguments carelessly expressed by Collins, but triumphs chiefly by an attack on the trivial points of scholarship, his own pamphlet being by no means faultless in this very respect.

He believes himself holy and he sets about establishing various sins in a book of brass that serves as a combination of various laws as discovered by Newton, given to Moses, and the general concept of deism, which force uniformity upon mankind.

John Lindell, a former Methodist and Unitarian Universalist pastor, advocates Christian deism, which does not include the Old Testament as part of its theology.

The Temple of the Great Clockmaker, in the novel The Case Of The Dead Certainty by Kel Richards, is a temple which represents deism.

The term, polydeism, has occasionally been used as a direct substitute for polytheism – a usage which does not consider certain distinctions which have arisen between the respective root words, deism and theism.

This category of " ceremonial deism " most clearly encompasses such things as the national motto (" In God We Trust "), religious references in traditional patriotic songs such as The Star-Spangled Banner, and the words with which the Marshal of this Court opens each of its sessions (" God save the United States and this honorable Court ").