Talk:Deism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search


Blatant advertisements for Bob Johnson[edit]

Seriously? The first deist organization since Paine? Some of these claims are entirely unsourced and unbelievable. They are also most certainly not NPOV. 66.108.17.70 (talk) 18:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

When I became a Deist in 1984 I searched for several years everywhere I could think of for books on Deism and for Deist organizations. The only books I found were by Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen and Elihu Palmer as well as a scholarly work by Peter Byrne, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism. I could not find any Deist organization at all. Here's the link for a Google search for Deist organizations which shows the World Union of Deists being the oldest, which strongly indicates there were not any Deist organizations prior to the WUD: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Deist+organizations . Bob Johnson, World Union of Deists, www.deism.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.30.44 (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there is blatant advertising "In 1993, Bob Johnson established the first Deist organization since the days of Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer" should at the very least be written "In 1993, Bob Johnson established the first widely known Deist organization since the days of Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer". The current text clearly comes off as bias and unscholarly. 151.207.250.61 (talk) 20:25, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

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

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...

Contemporary deism revisited[edit]

I had raised questions regarding the amount of weight given to contemporary forms of deism earlier on this page, as can be found at Talk:Deism/Archive 6#Contemporary deism. I would welcome any input from any of you regarding the concerns expressed there. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

According to the List of deists page, modern deists, excluding who you listed above include physicist, Andrei Sakharov, Guitarist Brett Gurewitz, physicist Luis Walter Alvarez, writer Martin Gardner, physicist, Max Born and some others. I'm sure there are interviews where they discuss their views on deism. This would help form a better picture of contemporary deism. According to this website http://www.deism.com/deismbook.htm the book Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You is by the founder of the World Union of Deists.

Apollo The Logician (talk) 20:10, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

None of that, however, seems to address the concerns I asked. We cannot use our own pages as sources, so the list of deists is not a source. And a website called "deism.com" can hardly be seen as being an independent reliable source as per WP:RS. There are I believe extremely serious issues regarding WP:WEIGHT regarding the material on contemporary deism in this article, and as I said before I would welcome concerns regarding that issue among others. John Carter (talk) 20:13, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
I didn't intend to use it as a source, I think you've missed my point. My point was that contemporary deists themselves (those listed above) would be able to give insights on contemporary desim if they have given interviews on the topic or spoken about it. Deism.com is the website of the World Union of Deists. Apollo The Logician (talk) 20:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
And you seem to be missing my point, which is that so far as I can tell there are no independent sources on the topic of contemporary deism. And, honestly, there are a huge number of very small religious groups with little or no notability in their own right which claim, in some form, to be a continuation of earlier groups. We, as an encyclopedia, have little if any interest in any such clearly biased sources. Nor are we particularly obliged to provide "insight" into what might be, according to the independent sources meeting WP:RS standards, marginally if at all notable groups and their beliefs in an article whose title is, according to the reference sources I know of, used to discuss only the much more notable older group or movement. If the World Union of Deists is sufficiently notable for its own article, and right now the link at that name it is just a redirect to this article, and it speaks for that modern deism, that material would certainly be reasonable to add material regarding it there, but not necessarily here. John Carter (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
At the very minimum, claims that so-and-so modern person was/is a deist need to be sourced to quotations from said person, possibly to independent biographers analyzing their statements. Looking at Martin Gardner's autobiography, for instance, although he included himself in a larger group of "philosophical theists" which subsumes the deists, it's not clear that he considered himself a deist, and some of what he says might be considered in contradiction to deistic views of an earlier age. Mangoe (talk) 18:24, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I for one agree with John Carter that all references to contemporary Deism should be streamlined to the bare minimum that is warranted by reliable sources. Deism is a historic philosophical concept, and the WP article should be mainly concerned with this specific historical concept. Any contemporary thinking about historic philosophical streams of thought only dilute the historical importance of the topic into current developments that cannot be documented with any historical accuracy through reliable sources. warshy (¥¥) 18:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
One other question, admittedly one I don't myself really want to ask because of possible claims that I might be pushing a POV of some sort myself, is whether we would have any basis of perhaps through OR/SYNTH if required indicating that at least some of the modern deism might be described in the extant article Moralistic therapeutic deism. I sincerely doubt any modern deists want to be described as such, and I haven't read the work itself to see if any groups or individuals are specifically listed there, but that does seem to be at least one form of currently active deism which has been described by independent reliable sources. I guess the question would be whether any of these non-notable deist groups have been described as such, or whether their tenets are similar or identical to those of moralistic therapeutic deism.
I suppose another question is the broad question of whether any internet based organization whose members cannot be accurately determined by independent sources is or should be notable. Groups like these, which apparently have no really obvious organizational structure and no obvious "observances" or independently verifiable group activities, could well be huge, and reasonably deserving of attention on that basis if true, or maybe just one or two people with not much to do but use an army of socks to give the impression that they are big when they might not be. That sort of thing might become more significant and frequent as the years go on. John Carter (talk) 19:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
Leave WTD out of the article except as a "see also". He didn't mean these people were deists per se, only that they didn't have much truck with miracles. Mangoe (talk) 21:40, 5 December 2016 (UTC)
I haven't myself read that article in years, so I'll take your word on it. John Carter (talk) 21:41, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Let's Not Challenge historians From Jefferson's home Plantation[edit]

They acknowledged Jefferson broke with Christianity as he grew and that his deism was aligned with that of Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury.[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:447:4100:1692:2414:63EC:14F0:3AF7 (talk) 16:41, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Your point? It is already acknowledged in the article. Christian deism doesnt mean what you think it does. Apollo The Logician (talk) 16:44, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry comrade, but you need to read the Monticello article for yourself. Your definition of Christian deism doesn't match Jefferson. I know how hard it is to accept that a slave-owner was not a Christian.2601:447:4100:1692:2414:63EC:14F0:3AF7 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:58, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Did you actually read the Christian deism article? Why would that be hard to accept? Apollo The Logician (talk) 17:00, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Because Jefferson was not at all a Christian Deist. They look to mainly Christ's values, whereas Jefferson played agnostic and looked randomly. While his deist influences Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury where aligned with the Anglican Church's war with the Papacy, they were not Christian Deists either.2601:447:4100:1692:2414:63EC:14F0:3AF7 (talk) 17:12, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

"Christian deism, in the philosophy of religion, is a standpoint that branches from Christianity. It refers to a deist who believes in the moral teachings—but not divinity—of Jesus. " This is from the christian deism page. Apollo The Logician (talk) 17:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but that is only part of Jefferson's deism. Why don't you read the Monticello article for yourself.2601:447:4100:1692:2414:63EC:14F0:3AF7 (talk) 17:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

You said it yourself he denied Jesus' divinity. Apollo The Logician (talk) 17:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm not seeing how this has any relevance to this article. The Monticello articles doesn't claim he held deist positions. Mangoe (talk) 20:48, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Deism. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

You may set the |checked=, on this template, to true or failed to let other editors know you reviewed the change. If you find any errors, please use the tools below to fix them or call an editor by setting |needhelp= to your help request.

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

If you are unable to use these tools, you may set |needhelp=<your help request> on this template to request help from an experienced user. Please include details about your problem, to help other editors.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 07:54, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Deism&oldid=754125851"