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Deism is nothing like fundamentalism. Actually, it's the exact opposite: the belief that God made the universe and then left it to fend for itself, as opposed to fundamentalists, who can't walk across the street without consulting the Bible to see if there's a verse that instructs them how to get safely to the other side.
I know that the word Deism doesn't fall into the traditional meaning of fundamentalism. But isn't is really kind of the same thing?
I mean, Deism is defined as: "belief in God based on natural observation, and a rejection of supernatural revelation."
Isn't that an extreme, to say that there is no supernatural revelation? That God can only be revealed in naturally observable ways.
Yes, it strikes me as a bit extreme, but perhaps it is justified if one concludes (as Jefferson - perhaps the best example of an old -time deist of high repute -did) that there is no believable hand of god in human affairs.
Mind, I always thought that Jefferson was a bit cavalier in simply rejecting Jesus as a divine and miracle -working being out of hand and simply ripping out anything 'supernatural' and keeping the teachings as a moral guide.
Of course, many deists will not do that (citation required ) and will (I suppose) reason that Jesus was able to tap into some divine source of power that originated from God (as did everything else) but still maintain that God is remote and at a distance and does not intervene unilaterally in human affairs let alone micromanage.
Whether this means that God will not grant prayers, but in a way, prayers can tap into divine power, I don't know. I rather think that Deism is more about explaining why God doesn't credibly manifest in our world (and handily gets over the problem of Evil) and doesn't bother itself too much about doctrine or theology, perhaps because either the chicken or egg of Deism (I do not know which comes first) is that remoteness of God means that organized religion has no force, authority or relevance.
Logically that doesn't follow, but that seems to be part of Deist thought. (correction invited)
This would seem to refute any suggestion of fundamentalism, since without a Dogma to insist on, there can be no fund to be mental about .
Deism was adopted by some well-known thinkers in the past 500 years during the so-called "Age of Reason" exactly because it was - if one is being forced, so to speak, to declare a belief in a god - the most reasonable way of doing so. It looked at Reason and Nature and made the conclusion that a divine revelation or miracle from a god was the most UN-reasonable thing to have happened. The same problem attends to historical research into matters that have miraculous events. A historian's task is to find the most probable sequence of events to have occurred, and by the very definition of a miracle, a miracle is the most UN-probable explanation for a historical event. Deism kept God as the Mover, but removed him to a reasonable (pun intended) distance.
Religion as a Tool of Rulers
Baruch Spinoza, in his monumental Theological-Politico Treatise, starts off the work by stating that if it were not for the whims of fortune and misfortune affecting our lives, we would not be so quick to credit either to a superstitious belief in the whims of the gods, or magic. As he is writing a work in favor of Democracy, he wishes to unshackle the bonds of superstition:
It may indeed be the highest secret of monarchical government and utterly essential to it, to keep men deceived, and to disguise the fear that sways them with the specious name of religion, so that they will fight for their servitude as if they were fighting for their own deliverance, and will not think it humiliating but supremely glorious to spill their blood and sacrifice their lives for the glorification of a single man.
(Theological-Politico Treatise, Original Edition: 1670; Current Edition: Translated by M. Silverthrone & J. Israel, Cambridge University Press 2007, p. 6)
The Problem of Miracles
When he arrives at the problem of miracles in chapter 6 - aptly titled "On Miracles" - he illustrates that age-old problem of mankind and their state of knowledge:
Just as men habitually call that knowledge which surpasses human understanding 'divinity', so they likewise classify any phenomenon whose cause us unknown by the common people 'divine' or a work of God. For the common people imagine that the power and providence of God are most clearly evident when they see something happen contrary to the usual course of things and their habitual views about nature, especially should it turn out to their benefit or advantage. They also suppose the existence of God is proven by nothing more clearly than from what they perceive as nature failing to follow its normal course. For this reason they suppose that all those who explain or attempt to explain phenomena and miracles by natural causes, are doing away with God or at least divine providence.
(Ibid, p. 81)
It was dangerous to speak one's mind back then, and Spinoza found this out to his distress, as well as it causing the death of a friend as they were walking one day and some fool tried to murder him. In all fairness, he begged the reader who was not a philosopher to skip reading his book, as it would be misunderstood and misused. He was right to have such fears.
Spinoza covers divine revelation on his chapters on prophets and prophecy, as well as his examination of Scripture - which he attempts to undertake with no pre-conceived notions or any dogmas of the Church. It is one of the first attempts at a scientific examination of Scripture, the first inklings of Biblical Scholarship.
Einstein is said to have believed in "the god of Spinoza", as the famous quote goes. This makes sense, as far as what I said earlier: if one must believe in a God, and still retain Reason and Science, then Deism is probably the most reasonable approach. Most of the founding fathers of America were Deists, Thomas Paine's work The Age of Reason being the most famous, but Thomas Jefferson's edition of the New Testament (with all miraculous events excised) being a close second nowadays - the so-called "Jefferson Bible".. EDIT: Arequipa beat me to it concerning Jefferson, but we posted at the same time ha ha! Well done!
The Problem of Divine Revelation
Speaking of Thomas Paine, he wrote in The Age of Reason concerning why it is dangerous to ignore Occam's Razor and believe another person's account of divine revelation:
No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other; and consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.
(The Age of Reason: Part One, Original Edition 1794; Current Edition: "Thomas Paine: Collected Writings", The Library of America 1995, pp. 668-9)
He goes on, but he has already outlined what the main danger in "revelation" is: it's hearsay, and very difficult to prove its veracity.
The "Great Agnostic" Robert Ingersoll and the Divine Authorship of Scripture
Robert Ingersoll, that fiery brand of reason in the late 1800s-early 1900s, in his Some Mistakes of Moses, runs through a gamut of terrible, horrible things attributed to God in Scripture and concludes - quite reasonably, I think:
We are told in the Pentateuch, that God, the father of us all, gave thousands of maidens, after having killed their fathers, their mothers, and their brothers, to satisfy the brutal lusts of savage men.
If there be a God, I pray him to write in his book, opposite my name, that I denied this lie for him.
(Some Mistakes of Moses, Original Edition: 1879; Current Edition: Prometheus Books 1986, p. 255)
He made his point, sometimes with a damning finger thrust in one's face to further make sure the point was not missed and well-taken. And damn do I love him for that ha ha! One of my favorite authors. Ingersoll, like most Deists, could not comprehend that a book filled to the brim with such horrors, could ever have had anything at all to do with God via divine revelation, or otherwise.
Deism. It's what had been for dinner for many years among the intellectually honest. Now how intellectually honest they were, and how many people were actual Deists, and not actual agnostics or atheists? That's an entirely different question. Self-preservation, after all, is a powerful instinct! When the smallest misstep can get you murdered by the "Pious", one can be very creative in how one critiques religion, or even expresses one's views on the subject. The upside is that most of what the current crop of atheists have been writings as "ground-breaking" has been done to death by better writers and thinkers hundreds of years prior to them. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens could have saved us some time and spared us their poor reasoning ages ago (straps on Flame-Retardant gear - I love you all! )
I'll say it again...if you're going to try to mock the religion, at least get the details correct. It's a non-stop common thing among you and some others...you can't seem to be bothered to even understand any details.
I'll say it again...if you're going to try to mock the religion, at least get the details correct. It's a non-stop common thing among you and some others...you can't seem to be bothered to even understand any details.
I'll say it again...if you're going to try to mock the religion, at least get the details correct. It's a non-stop common thing among you and some others...you can't seem to be bothered to even understand any details.
I'm game if you're game - and I won't even mock you. If you would like to start a thread with details of each Biblical book's "documented" author, myself and all of Biblical Scholarship shall be most impressed and thankful. Most interesting will be the authors of the Gospels (titles not present in the original Greek Gospel, but added hundreds of years later don't really help us much). I also expect "documented" authors for the various strands that make up books (or sections) which have multiple authors, such as the Yahwist, Priestly, Elohist and Deuteronomist sources of the Pentateuch. Add to that the sources within the Pentateuch (such as Genesis 14) which are none of the above. I will assume you are familiar with the Documentary Sources that scholars have demonstrated for the authorship of the Pentateuch for hundreds of years now, so we won't have to spend too much time on that.
I am being genuine, here, but urge you to take this claim to another thread where I will gladly discuss it with you. Also curious why you limit yourself to 66 books....
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) and will (I suppose) reason that Jesus was able to tap into some divine source of power that originated from God (as did everything else) but still maintain that God is remote and at a distance and does not intervene unilaterally in human affairs let alone micromanage. 
)
