While being held by the French he was taken to France and there he became aware of Deism.

It split from Deism. com to promote more traditional and historical Deist beliefs and history.

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.

The revolutionaries were also inspired by Rousseau to introduce Deism as the new official civil religion of France, scandalizing traditionalists: Ceremonial and symbolic occurrences of the more radical phases of the Revolution invoked Rousseau and his core ideas.

Deism was a religious philosophy in common currency in colonial times, and some Founding Fathers ( most notably Thomas Paine, who was an explicit proponent of it, and Benjamin Franklin, who spoke of it in his Autobiography ) are identified more or less with this system.

Deism typically rejects supernatural events ( such as prophecies, miracles, and divine revelations ) prominent in organized religion.

Philosophical theism has parallels with the 18th century philosophical view called Deism.

Thomas Paine wrote the definitive book on the natural religion of Deism, The Age of Reason ( 1794 – 1807 ).

* Smylie, James H. " Clerical Perspectives on Deism: Paine's The Age of Reason in Virginia.

Though lacking an official scripture, the practice of Deism is described by Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason: " The true Deist has but one Deity, and his religion consists in contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate him in everything moral, scientifical, and mechanical.

* Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment.

Hermann Samuel Reimarus ( December 22, 1694, Hamburg – March 1, 1768, Hamburg ), was a German philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment who is remembered for his Deism, the doctrine that human reason can arrive at a knowledge of God and ethics from a study of nature and our own internal reality, thus eliminating the need for religions based on revelation.

Haskalah differed from Deism of the European Enlightenment by seeking modernised philosophical and critical revision within Jewish belief, and lifestyle acceptable for emancipation rights.

* Deists — see Deism

The novel's scope takes in aspects of established Colonial American history including the call of the West, the often ignored histories of women, Native Americans, and slaves, plus excursions into geomancy, Deism, a hollow Earth, and — perhaps — alien abduction.

Despite the efforts of Calvinists to maintain the dominance of their system, some Congregational churches, especially in the older settlements of New England, gradually developed leanings toward Arminianism, Unitarianism, Deism, and transcendentalism.

Deism greatly influenced the thought of intellectuals and Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, perhaps George Washington and, especially, Thomas Jefferson.

This new historical consciousness was presaged in the seventeenth century controversies of Deism where Biblical miracles, and especially Christ's resurrection, were called into doubt.

... As Deism waned in England, it waxed in France and the German states.

* Early Deism in France: From the so-called ' deistes ' of Lyon ( 1564 ) to Voltaire's ' Lettres philosophiques ' ( 1734 ) by C. J. Betts ( Martinus Nijhoff, 1984 )

Deism also influenced the development of Unitarianism in America.

The most relevant among these last are Yiguandao ( and other sects within the Xiantiandao category ), Deism, Tiendery-Tientism, Yaochidao and Zailiism ; among the very new ones the most notable are the various Qigong-inspired groups, such as Falun Gong, Zhong Gong, Yuanji Gong and Wang Gong, and Christian-inspired Taiping-style sects such as Zhushenism, Linglingism, Fuhuodao, Mentuhui and Lightning from the East.

Various connecting threads among these varied uprisings include a concern for the " Rights of Man " and freedom of the individual ; an idea ( often predicated on John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau ) of popular sovereignty ; belief in a " social contract ", which in turn was often codified in written constitutions ; a certain complex of religious convictions often associated with Deism or Voltairean agnosticism, and characterized by veneration of reason ; abhorrence of feudalism and often of monarchy itself.

As a devout Anglican and believer in scriptural authority, part of Jennens's intention was to challenge advocates of Deism, who rejected the doctrine of divine intervention in human affairs.

They also hoped their organization would be of interest to non-Christians who embrace generic or philosophical theism and Deism.

He went on daily walks with his close friend, the older student John Herbert who he dubbed " Cherbury " after Herbert of Cherbury, the father of English Deism.

In Deism, it is believed that there is a God, but presumed that there are no divinely caused revelations or miracles at all, leaving reports of such to have natural explanations.

The Modern Deism web site includes one list of the unofficial tenets of modern deism.

Deism is the belief in the existence of one supreme being or God while denying revealed religion, basing belief on the light of nature and reason accepting the design found throughout the known universe as pointing to a Designer or God.

Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature that he configured when he created all things.

Deism may also include a spiritual element, involving experiences of God and nature.

The ultimate view of a non-interventionist God is depicted in Deism, where God is a philosophical abstraction, far removed from the traditional Hebrew " God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ".

Hermeticism transcends both Monotheism and Polytheism as well as Deism and Pantheism within its belief system, which teaches that there is a transcendent God, The All, or The One, of which we, and the entire universe, participate.

Deism is belief in a God or first cause based on reason, rather than on faith or revelation.

* Deism – The general doctrine that no faith is necessary for justified belief in God's existence and / or the doctrine that God does not intervene in earthly affairs ( contrasts with Fideism ).

* Fideism – The doctrine that faith is irrational, that God's existence transcends logic, and that all knowledge of God is on the basis of faith ( contrasts with Deism ).

However, a closer reading of the text reveals that Locke relies on Biblical analysis at several key points in his argument, as does study of his spiritual life, mainly influenced by Deism, a belief in which God does not intervene in human affairs.

* A phrase, associated with Deism, that is used in the United States Declaration of Independence: "... the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them ..."

Polydeism ( from Greek πολύς ( ' poly ' ), meaning ' many ', and Latin deus meaning God ) is a polytheistic form of Deism encompassing the belief that the universe was the collective creation of multiple Gods, each of whom created a piece of the universe and then ceased to interact with the universe.

This concept addresses an apparent contradiction in Deism – that a monotheistic God created the universe, but now expresses no apparent interest in it – by supposing that if the universe is the construct of many gods, none of them would have an interest in the universe as a whole.

Professor Martha Nussbaum at the University of Chicago Law school stated, "' Ceremonial Deism ' is an odd name for a ritual affirmation that a Deist would be very reluctant to endorse, since Deists think of God as a rational causal principle but not as a personal judge and father.