Talk:Deism

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Calvinism deserves a mention here

And not just Christian viewpoints, but others if they could be added...

-edit- nevermind... determinism is mentioned and that links to Calvinism. I believe there should be more religions related but this is the wrong place to discuss...

Does the article under massive expanding and or editing right now?

thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.65.163.26 (talk) 00:56, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Definition Problems

This article's definition confuses Deism with Pantheism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1:9480:2E:5808:FCB4:B50D:5D5C (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

If you are referring to the definition in the lead section of the article, it does not confuse deism and pantheism. Or are you referring to a later section of the article?Dulcimer music 02:31, 18 December 2012 (UTC)JDefauw — Preceding unsigned comment added by JDefauw (talk • contribs)

"Panendeism combines deism with panentheism, the belief that the universe is part of God, but not all of God. A component of panendeism is 'experiential metaphysics' – the idea that a mystical component exists within the framework of panendeism, allowing the seeker to experience a relationship to Deity through meditation, prayer or some other type of communion.[75] This is a major departure from classical deism."

This entire definition of 'panendeism' is indentical to some strains of panentheism; if you can experience the 'Deity' through "meditation, prayer, or some other kind of communion", then deism - a belief premised on lack of revelation - is dispelled. Is there then anything that really differentiates those strains of panentheism from 'panendeism'? 70.138.217.107 (talk) 08:28, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Contemporary deism?

I note that Examiner.com has over 500 articles relating to the general topic of deism. That source, however, has been blacklisted, and I can honestly say that few if any of the pieces it contains could even remotely be considered independent. Having checked various reference books on philosophy and religion, including both those that deal with religion in general and Melton's guide to American religions, which seems to list virtually every denomination which has achieved notability, and at least a few, like a church for worshippers of JFK in Los Angeles and a "group" called "A Candle" which seems to have been, basically, just one person. Of the general sources , I find that many say, in their articles on "deism", that deism as is described in their books basically ceased to exist in the 18th century, and none make any sort of reference whatsoever to any sort of modern deism. The Melton book also lists no deist groups. I have also checked the various databanks available to me and found, basically, only three individuals in recent times who are identified as "deists." One is Anthony Flew, who is indicated in numerous sources as having converted to believing in a prime mover of some sort late in life, and described as a "deist" on that basis. Other than that, the only clearly reliable sources I can find which use the word "deism" in contemporary context are references to one Colorado newspaper columnist who converted from Catholicism to what he calls deism, and a "deist" minister in Alabama who raised a lawsuit of some sort. Having looked, however, I have not seen any independent reliable sources that give me any reason to believe that either of the latter two qualify as notable, or that the statements they make can reasonably be seen as reflecting the views of contemporary "deism," although I could be wrong.

At least one of the Examiner.com lists 10 favorite websites for "deist" organizations, but having looked the various databanks available to me, I find no reference in any independent reliable sources to any of them, and, honestly, it is hard to really say that any of them necessarily speak for the broader "deist" community, which raises questions about whether they as individual groups are in a position to speak for contemporary "deism" in any sort of authoritative way, or whether they just speak for themselves. I also find a few books on the topic of modern deism, including Deist: So That's What I Am, Religion For the 21st Century - The Age of New Deism, and Deism: A Revolution in Religion - A Revolution in You, although I am in no way certain that any of them are not self-published, or that they reflect notability. However, based on this information that I have been able to gather, I very much doubt that any sort of contemporary deism meets either individual notability guidelines, or that it deserves much attention in this article as per WP:WEIGHT.

I do however note, somewhat to my own distress, that there is a very closely related term, Moralistic therapeutic deism, which so far as I can determine, based on what I have seen about the modern non-notable deist groups, seems to more or less have similar principles and description to those of at least some of these contemporary deism movements, although I have no doubt that the term is objected to by modern self-described deists.

So, where if anywhere should content relating to this new deism be placed, and what should the nature of that content be? John Carter (talk) 16:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Difference of opinion non-academic?

I want to call to attention the comparison of edits at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deism&diff=566935331&oldid=565598171 --- assuming both of these are in the Age of Reason, there is a small debate here, but from an academic perspective Thomas Paine's agnosticism is pretty much universally accepted. I'm not sure if that is notable to include on an article on Deism though. I wanted to get others' opinions before starting a revert war. BranSul (talk) 21:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Lead date changes of book

With this edit a contributor has changed the dates of the first dictionary that contained the word "deism". That has been reverted and returned to status quo, because the facts are not clear on this. The Roman numeral date cited may or may not be MDCCLXXV (1775), because the actual date in the cited book is MDCLXXV (1675). There is a gap between the "C" and the "L" that may be due to a faded "C", or it may just be due to the early printer's setting faults. Also, it was cited that the 1721 version contained "deism", but I don't see how this can known with certainty, since there is no preview of its pages available. It would be a good idea to receive other opinions about this before major changes are made to the "facts" in the lead of this article. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 08:53, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
PS. It may also be of value to note that the accessdate parameters were entered incorrectly in the above edit. The month and day format was reversed, which caused CS1 errors to be generated. PS added by – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX!

The Roman Numerals that give the publication date for the source cited has a faded second "C", thus resulting in an incorrect transcription. The correct date is 1775, not 1675. Nathan Bailey, the author of source cited, died in 1742. While no date of birth is confirmed, if we assume he was 20 at the age of an alleged publication date of 1675, then he would have died at age 87... quite old for that period. More concretely, it has been confirmed that Bailey first published his An Universal Etymological English Dictionary in 1721, nowhere close to 1675. We for certain know that this entry is found in the 1775 edition, though we can reasonably presume that it was also in the first, 1721 edition. This could be confirmed by reviewing the hard copy of it. Simply put, the date cited to this specific source was incorrectly transcribed. It has been corrected to 1775 and should remain. BJ Swearer (talk) 07:43, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Notice also a date written of 1775 written in on the first page of the introduction, which appears to be an annotation. BJ Swearer (talk) 08:37, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the section on first occurrences of the words "deist" and "deism", since it was based on primary sources, and thus constituted original research. The Wikipedia policy of relying on secondary sources for these kind of claims was instituted mainly to prevent this sort of disputes based on individual editors interpretation of sources (in this case the reading of a date). So if no reliable secondary source can be found for the claim of this term first appearing in either 1675 or 1775 or some other year, this stays out of the article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I've been able to do a bit more digging into Bailey's work. Numerous sources indicate that the first publishing was in 1721, though I couldn't find any digital source for this version. AbeBooks is currently listing an original 1721 edition for $764.62, if anyone wants to buy it to see if it contains an entry for "deism". There are several free ebooks available online including the one from 1775 originally cited on this page (which has been noted by at least two other reviewers as having been incorrectly cited to 1675), as well as from the years 1773 1763, 1755, 1731 and 1726 being the earliest. I also found this version from 1731 that does not have an entry for "deism", but does have an entry for "deists" and gives a similar though I think, a more interesting definition: "Deists: a sect among the Christians of most or all denominations, who believe there is one God, a providence, the immortality of the soul, virtue and vice, rewards and punishments; but reject revelation, and believe no more than what natural light discovers to them, and believe no other article of the Christian religion or any other." BJ Swearer (talk) 19:52, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

p.s. I've yet to figure out how to link the citations... obviously, I'm new to Wikipedia editing. If anyone can fix the references I attempted, I'd much appreciate it. BJ Swearer (talk) 20:16, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

As a lover of antiquarian books myself I can sympathise with your quest. However your research is unfortunately not acceptable in Wikipedia in that form. The information is pertinent, but we do require the statement from some published scholar regarding this. A Google search for the earliest listing of this word is simply not acceptable, and I am sure you would agree with me that it wouldn't be in a scholarly publication either. I would be surprised if some scholar hasn't covered the earliest use of the term already, so please take your time to uncover that citation, anything else would be a waste of your time. Thanks. --Saddhiyama (talk) 01:59, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

This is really quite simple - the linked resources are primary sources, just in digitized form. It doesn't matter that the sources were found via a Google search... that would be like saying that one cannot cite a digital copy of the Declaration of Independence unless they've gone to the Library of Congress and read the original document in person. While not yet published by a 3rd party, I'm not just a mere "lover" of the topic, but rather a formally trained historian (soon to have a Masters in the field). I really don't care whether or not anyone wants to add the info about the historical occurrences of the term "deism" in dictionaries, but factually incorrect information should not be on here. Thus, I'm just glad that the incorrect citation (1675) has been removed as there is no doubt that the source the citation linked to revealed a work published in 1775... whoever first put the citation in there should have actually read the publication info with the text rather than just trust the Google "book info summary" attached to it. To note, I actually have done some in depth research on the matter and self-published an article regarding the topic. Granted, since adding this little bit of extra research, I'm going to have to update that article... BJ Swearer (talk) 08:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I do have a Masters degree in history as well, however since we rely on secondary sources and not the personal achievements of individual editors it is of little relevance here. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:27, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

The establishing of historical facts relies solely on primary source documentation. You, an advanced degree holder in the science, should know that. If we are attempting to establish the first occurrence of the term "deism" in an English dictionary, all available evidence indicates that the first usage can be confirmed in Nathan Bailey's 1726 publication. Until any further revealing evidence is presented, this should be stated as "fact". I will edit the article to reflect this. BJ Swearer (talk) 21:25, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I found a bit more info regarding Edward Phillip's earlier work. The changes have been reflected in the main article. BJ Swearer (talk) 04:38, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

As a fellow degree holder you should be able to read and understand basic policy. We don't do original research based on primary sources on Wikipedia, that is something for secondary reliable sources, and we in turn use those secondary sources. So again, please refrain from adding your original research to this article. Thanks. --Saddhiyama (talk) 00:13, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Hobbes a deist?

Can we get a source on that? I've never read this Orr book, but I have done a fair amount of graduate work on Hobbes. I've also read Rogow's biography of Hobbes. I've never read the claim that Hobbes was a deist. Much more frequently is the charge that he was an atheist. Much of Leviathan is devoted to arguing (tendentiously) that passages in the Bible that seem to contradict Hobbes's metaphysics or political philosophy in fact do not. Were Hobbes a deist, he wouldn't think that the quotations in the Bible are authoritative in the first place, and he wouldn't use them as evidence to support his positions.68.63.148.22 (talk) 18:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)