Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Albert Einstein (By his quotes), Rousseau, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin (sometimes... he has been claimed to have been many things), and Ethan Allen were all Deists.

That is some pretty big names...

Oooh look it has some of that Illuminati, Masonic, New World Order symbolism... (chuckle)

So what happened?

Well, I can't tell you for certain why it is not famous. It is the opposite of famous. It is virtually obscured. I do have some speculations on why it might not be famous. I'll get to those in a bit.

What is Deism?

"Deism is a natural religion. Deists believe in the existence of God, on purely rational grounds, without any reliance on revealed religion, religious authority, or holy text." - www.religioustolerance.org or a lengthy definition from www.deism.com

Essentially they believe that there are hints of some plan around them whether it is the Golden Ratio and how it is found in nature, occurrences of the Fibonacci Sequence in nature, the mysterious infinity of fractals in math, or whatever other wonder might convince someone that maybe there was some thought behind this. Yet that is as far as a deist takes it. They do not seek to define this creator, God, or whatever you want to call it. They do not write down the secrets to the universe in English, or any other language and say "This is the answer". In fact they do not believe in REVEALED religions. They may still read such texts from a scholarly point of view for the potential historical significance, and possibly good ol' common sense morality examples. Yet ultimately they simply OBSERVE nature around them and use REASON.

Source: giphy.com

That's it. Pretty simple.

Some Deist quotes from famous people

Thomas Paine - A Founding Father of U.S. - Author of Common Sense, and Age of Reason.

Source: Wikipedia

• "God is the power of first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon."
• "... everything we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself."
• "... to the belief of a first cause eternally existing ... this first cause, man calls God."
• "Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel person."
• "It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible."
• "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
• "The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other and I trust I never shall."
• "The creation is the Bible of the Deist. He there reads, in the handwriting of the Creator himself, the certainty of His existence and the immutability of His power, and all other Bibles and Testaments are to him forgeries."

Thomas Jefferson - A Founder of the U.S. - 3rd President and 2nd Vice President of the United States - Author of Jefferson Bible.

Source: Wikipedia

• "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity."
• "But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
• "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
• "I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."

Albert Einstein - Discoverer of Relativity, E=MC^2 and many other things. I shouldn't need to tell you who he is.

Source: Wikipedia

• "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."
• "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in Nature."

There are many more. Let's not make this a blog purely full of quotations.

God gave us reason, not religion

That is the slogan of the World Union of Deists.

Source: giphy.com

This does bring me back to one of the questions I asked earlier. So what happened? Why isn't this form of non-religion famous?

I have a hypothesis/speculation:

I bet it has a lot to do with there being no priest, and no literature telling people how to behave. It really cannot be used to try to control people. It cannot be used to gain power and advantage over another person. It cannot be used to incite war against someone of a different religion.

It is not a useful tool for the status quo.

Both Deism and Atheism make useful tools for the would be Anarchist.

My perspective

I often throw a statement out there saying I am an atheist/deist. I chuckle every time I write that because I can clearly see the contradiction implied in that statement. I wait for people to challenge me and say that is a contradiction. That almost never happens sadly. If it did, it would open the door for me to tell you what I am going to tell you now.

If I view reality around us and try to break everything down into the simplest most basic concepts I can come up with I can view TWO ultimate possibilities.

1. There was no beginning. There has always been something.
2. There was some event that created the universe from an apparent nothingness.

If possibility number 1 is correct then I believe Atheism is a completely valid way to view reality. So as a human in such a situation what should I do? I will observe nature and use reason.

Source: giphy.com

If possibility number 2 is correct then that implies some catalyst. That catalyst could be called a creator, or by some a god. It need not be a super omniscient being, or perhaps it is. Regardless, as a human in such a situation what should I do? I will observe nature and use reason.

Source: giphy.com

Do you see? It actually is not as contradictory as it may seem. Which is true would require learning the answer to those two questions which is likely not going to happen. So with that being said, my behavior under either circumstance is the same. This makes them oddly compatible in my mind.

What about other religions?

Source: giphy.com

While I can respect other peoples' right to pursue their own beliefs, and I believe it is an important path for everyone there are simply certain things I cannot personally reconcile.

Nature and reality are ever unfolding and revealing new secrets and mysteries to us. As we answer one question we usually end up with more questions than before. Any written book is written in human languages that must evolve and acquire new words each time we learn something. I find it VERY difficult to believe a human language is capable of telling us what the secrets of the universe(s)/reality is/are. They can give us glimpses. This could be from Latin, Hebrew, English, or Mathematics. They give us an ever expanding glimpse.

So many things written in the books are very petty and immature. Some of them are downright impossible. I can only rectify these things by viewing them as the works of man, not some omniscient supreme being(s). I see the petty desires to control and manipulate others spread throughout every bible I have read. (I am a collector of bibles, religious texts and studies, and esoteric studies)

I completely respect your right to disagree with me. You should most definitely not view this as an Appeal to my Authority. I have no authority. This is simply me expressing MY personal reasons.

I am also very content. My desire to SAVE people is purely to share ideas and knowledge with people. To learn from them and they from me. I get great solace from this. I have no fear of heaven, I have no fear of hell, of ragnarok, of hades, of nirvana, etc. I view life as an adventure. When I die that will either be the end of my adventure OR a new facet of the adventure. I will find out then. :)

Source: giphy.com

EDIT: I forgot something.

Simulation

Elon Musk, and movies like The Matrix have represented reality as possibly being a simulation. This actually works very well with Deism. Like I said Deism does not mean superior being. In such a case whomever started the simulation would be the creator. Now look around yourself and use reason.