Talk:List of deists

message: This reference used to claim that Franklin was a Deist is taken out of context. Mr. Franklin refers to himself in the very autobiography cited above as "scarce fifteen" when he reads several book that convince him he is a deist convert. At this young age he speaks of the doubts he has about religion/"Revelation". But in the next paragraph he speaks of this doubting in the past tense: "Revelation had indeed no weight with me, as such;". He even speaks of this time of doubt as "this dangerous time of youth" which he is only able to survive due to "the kind hand of Providence, or some guardian angel, or accidental favorable circumstances and situations, or all together".
Obviously Franklin believes in a Deity that is active in the affairs of men after surviving his youthful dalliance with Deism. He says so directly on June 28, 1787 when addressing the Constitutional Convention: "I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service." [14]
Since "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." , and Franklin States at the first Constitutional Convention that he believes, as cited previously, that "God governs in the affairs of men", it is obvious that Franklin was NOT a Deist and should be removed from this list.
AirborneLt (talk) 07:23, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Remove the entry if you think it's wrong. Don't discuss it in the article itself. New talk sections should be added to the bottom of the page. Bahati (talk) 17:14, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Benjamin Franklin: Clearly not a Deist

message: Why is Hume here, when he is also in List of atheists?
Hume was not actually an atheist. Many have made this mistake.
*Hume is a mystery. I am not aware of his saying anywhere that he believed in any kind of god, but he is (iirc) quite quiet on that, but not on his criticisms of Christian god concepts. Since he never iirc clearly said he was either an atheist or a deist, and atheists and deists were often grouped together anyway, he is often grouped in both. I'd be very interested in any source that could settle this. His arguments, particularly when coupled with Darwinism, had a great effect on the downturn in deism though. I think it's quite interesting that this has never been resolved afaik.
*He presented a lot of the same arguments as Deists did against miracles. It was quite dangerous to be an atheist, and perhaps that is why he did not in his lifetime publish his criticisms of the proofs for god.--JimWae 02:14, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC)
* If it is controversial within the scholars and other experts, then he ought not to be listed as either.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deleet (talk • contribs) 20:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: David Hume: atheist or deist?

message: Why on earth was Bishop Berkeley on this list (I've removed him)?  Berkeley was a Catholic clergyman, and fiercely opposed to deism, as it says in the George Berkeley article. Chick Bowen 02:14, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Berkeley? 

message: If this is all of your evidence that Lincoln was a deist, I move to remove him from the list. The burden of proof is severely lacking. Furthermore, I also move to remove any others that have not been supported with proof. We cannot assume that the other 7 are deists without proof, so they should not be listed in this entry, either. --Jason Gastrich 20:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Conclusion

message: What is the proof that users such as User:Jason Gastrich and User:JJstroker require to attribute deism to an historical figure? If the burdon of proof is so high why are they happy to leave all the other so called deists on this list but feel that the founding fathers need to be removed? David D. (Talk) 23:10, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Burden of Proof

message: Sourcing the list should resolve things.  Durova 03:39, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes User:Silence started this off leading by example. We should do this for all those on the list. David D. (Talk) 03:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I second the notion. It may be wise to create a criteria, though. We're going to get all sorts of quotes and not all of them will support the notion that each person is a deist.--Jason Gastrich 04:10, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: RfC

message: 25 of the names are now sourced.  I've removed the cleanup tag.  BTW someone with a conservative Christian agenda has been using this page on another site for a critique.  Regards, Durova 04:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Added links and removed tag

message: Why is Jefferson as deist disputed? Coleca 21:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I'm removing the disputed tag.  His article seems to indicate clearly that he was a deist.  If I'm in error, then I certainly will appreciate an explanation and correction. Coleca 17:44, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Jefferson

message: Was Einstein a deist? No. Einstein has never said that he was a deist. Many writers have identified Einstein as a pantheist. The deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence. And, Einstein has never clearly said that he believed in such God. Thus, it would be wrong to call Einstein a deist. RS
This is correct. "I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings." -Albert Einstein  -- Spinoza, and thus Einstein, was a Pantheist
: I would suggest that even calling Einstein a "pantheist" suggests too much of a spiritual bent.  Many pantheists actually believe in an active spiritual agency, which Einstein does not seem to share.  He repeatedly described his "beliefs", such as they were, more in terms of "scientific pantheism", which is to say nothing more supernatural than a sense of profound wonderment about the complexity and function of the physical world.  He certainly wasn't a deist, and I would advocate for his name being removed from this list. Bricology (talk) 21:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Einstein was not a deist 

message: List looks kinda crappy without images, and seeing as most of the people listed are long dead, it should be easy. I just can't be arsed at the moment. Use the format in List of atheists (film, radio, television and theatre) --Closedmouth (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Images 

message: It seems it is in alphabetical order by first name, but then not ALL of them are. Zeek Aran (talk) 23:03, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order 

message: I've noticed that quite a lot of people categorize Charles Darwin as leaning (or, indeed, fluctuating) towards deism, though he never actually used the word himself. Between 1851 (the year his daughter Annie died) and 1879 (when he said an Agnostic would be the correct description of his state of mind) he no longer believed in the Christian God or in any revelation, but he accepted some kind of a cosmic intelligece as the First Cause and the designer of the laws of nature (nowadays known as the "fine-tuning" argument), which left the individual events indeterministic. Doesn't this actually fit into most definitions of deism?
:If you can find a reliable source calling Darwin a deist, that would be enough for inclusion (provided he did not later move away from deism). Interpreting statements can be dicey, and often ends up being original research, which isn't allowed here. Nick Graves (talk) 02:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Darwin? 

message: Is there any source in English proving that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a deist?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.253.26 (talk) 15:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTvpy96eY0w This video is from Mustafa, a Can Dündar documentary. Bekiroflaz (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atatürk, a deist? 

message: Lessing denied he was a Diest. See: . Tstrobaugh (talk) 17:41, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I scanned the section you linked and found no such denial. I searched for "deist" in the book, and found several instances where Lessing is so identified. Nick Graves (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 

message: I find that pretty ironic on a page about people dedicated to rationality.  Obviously, alphabetizing by last name would be much more useful for reference purposes.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsquire3 (talk • contribs) 05:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are the people in the list alphabetized by FIRST name? 

message: The recently created account  changed the entry for Jefferson to read:
* Thomas Jefferson has been removed from this list due to the fact that, despite controversy, he is not a deist.
72.244.204.123 (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thomas Jefferson

message: I know Lincoln never called himself a Deist and that the greek philosopher predates the term.
There for neither should be on this list. 107.199.68.228 (talk) 04:43, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lincoln and the greek 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Victor Hugo and Mark Twain use this source, but the source states that it was copied from this Wikipedia page. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:44, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self referential source 

message: I suggest adding Elihu Palmer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Palmer
-Caleb 184.153.244.70 (talk) 20:09, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elihu Palmer 

message: If no one objects I am going to make this list chronological. Since Deism had one period of relevance and is rather obscure outside of that, readers might be interested to know how many and what kind of followers it had in different time periods. Right now it is a mess but alphabetization (like it used to be) is only helpful if someone wants to know if a specific person was Deist, which can be done with ctrl-f, on their article, or elsewhere. mossypiglet (talk) Go blue! 18:58, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I just did but feel free to discuss here if anyone disagrees. mossypiglet (talk) Go blue! 20:30, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order of list