Will Deism ever make a major comeback (in the US)? (user search)
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  Will Deism ever make a major comeback (in the US)? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Will Deism ever make a major comeback (in the US)?  (Read 1540 times)
The Mikado
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« on: May 21, 2015, 01:52:28 PM »

Deism's popularity was also closely tied to intellectual trends in that era and the love for the elegant simplicity of Newtonian mechanics and how they could be used to explain complex things. The popularity of the clockwork clock, where everything in it moved with exact precision due to dozens of tiny gears moving in precisely the right way because a master craftsman had made them so, was a pretty compelling analogy for the way the universe worked, with God as a master craftsman who had made a clockwork universe, wound it up, and let it go seemingly forever and ever with no tune-up needed.

The overthrow of Newtonianism and the 20th/21st century rejection of simplicity in the design of the universe (subatomic particles that obey different rules than everything else? The rules of physics changing near the speed of light?) have created a far murkier conception of the universe that makes the clockwork universe of the Deists seem far less plausible.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2015, 05:10:03 PM »
« Edited: May 21, 2015, 05:11:35 PM by The Mikado »

No, I don't think so. It's an 18th century idea - basically, people were trying to be rational and spiritual/religious simultaneously, and I think we're at a point where that's no longer necessary. If one is inclined to religion and tradition, one will likely choose that intellectual path. If one is inclined toward the physical and science, then that, which was still in its infancy in the 18th century, will be the choice of path. They're now pretty much mutually exclusive. At least I don't see a way of reconciling them in the present.

As long as "Why is there something rather than nothing" is an open question, people will posit some sort of creating entity, and "Being that set the Universe into motion" is basically a god by any sort of definition, even if it isn't an omnipotent being or even a currently-existing being. There's plenty of room for Deism as a modern tradition as an answer to that simple question: "Why is there something rather than nothing."

EDIT: Although, as per my previous post, it won't be an organized movement, just, like DC Fine mentions, a kind of default position for people who have abandoned their "religion" but haven't abandoned their belief in some sort of God.
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