Picaro wrote some criticisms of “Deism” and I guess me in comment #60 . Here I try to answer:
I’m not sure why you are so rude, or if you think you are polemicizing against me. I did not say “our Founding Fathers“ were atheists, or all Deists, and indeed spoke of their “religious beliefs” and the predominant religious beliefs of the culture then — which was broadly Protestant (though certainly often “unorthodox”). Deism is frequently
wrongly viewed as atheist by religious, narrow minded, or merely ignorant Christians, but in fact Deists
believed in God ... “God the Creator” whose universe worked by “natural laws.”
Of course Deism was also a product of diverse enlightenment philosophical trends as well, and mostly adopted by more educated people. In that revolutionary era even most common people were interested in questions of Liberty
from Church & Crown despotism, in “Common Sense,” rather than in Biblical mumbo-jumbo. Of course for many half-literate folk the Bible was still the first or only book they ever read. Deists made references to beloved Biblical stories even as they refuted its internal contradictions and superstitious belief in miracles.
Even Thomas Paine, who paid a price later in life for his vigorous Deism, for his criticism of organized priesthoods and religious superstition — he too used Bible stories and moral lessons even as he refuted its claim to be “the word of God.” He was a man of his times. Unlike many others who grew more “conservative” with time and wealth and power, Paine held firm to Deism, but he always believed in One God — the creator of the natural world.
