Is Deism Still Alive in America?

      Deism is a belief system that is based on the idea that God is revealed to man through nature and natural law  and not through Divine Revelation.  Theism is another similar belief system that differs in having the belief that God is a single personal being who is involved in the day to day state of the universe, including human history.

     Historically many prominent scientists, especially Physicists, have been Deists, or at least considered as such. The term Theist would probably be more appropriate in many of these cases.  Many of these people were also not only church members, but devoted church members. I use the term church to mean any type of practicing religious congregation.

     Recently some preachers of the religion of Atheism have  become convinced that they have the right to ram their beliefs down the throats of everyone else. They have become like militant pseudo-Muslims with their swords in hand demanding that we convert or die. Bear in mind that true Muslims don't behave that way.

•      What can be, must be  Richard Feynman is widely credited with quoting the principle from particle Physics that any particle not forbidden by the rules of Particle Physics must exist. Ontological arguments eventually seem to be equivalent to the concept that the lack of proof that God does not exist means that He must exist. They usually use different terms but that is what they mean. 

       Personally I feel that divine revelation can come from logic, at least to some of us. That is probably most true for people with a trace of Asperger's syndrome.  When I was a student at William and Mary  on a Physics Scholarship one of my professors related an anecdote about a Physics Professor who would walk down the hallway studying a book and with his right index finger on the wall. If a classroom door were left open he would circumambulate  the room and proceed down the hallway.  One day he walked into a graduate mathematical physics class where they were trying to prove some high-power problem. They stopped him and asked if he could help them. He looked at the problem and wrote down the answer, which they already knew.  The class professor thanked him but asked if he could show them how he arrived at the solution. He looked at the problem and wrote down the solution again. When the class professor again explained that they were looking for how he found the solution he replied "What do you want, I  solved it two different ways!"  Some things are obvious to one person but not to another.

• Deism does not conflict with religions other than Atheism   Many of our American founding fathers were Deists. Most of them were also devout Christians. Some were Jewish. Remember that the basic tenets of Christianity came not by Divine Revelation but by the teaching of Jesus. St Paul stated that the fact of God was revealed in nature to primitive peoples. Many religious people object to intelligent people seeking revelation by reason. That is because their faith is weak.Not everyone can slay the Existential Dragon.