Deism

=== Deism in the United States ===
{{Main|Irreligion in the United States}}
Though Deism subsided in the United States post-Enlightenment, it never died out entirely.

[[Thomas Edison]], for example, was heavily influenced by [[Thomas Paine]]'s ''[[The Age of Reason]]''.<ref name="Israel">{{cite book|last=Israel|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Israel (historian)|title=Edison: A Life of Invention|year=2000|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-36270-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/edisonlifeofinve0000isra_l4c0 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an [[atheism|atheist]], but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."<ref name=Israel /> In 1878, Edison joined the [[Theosophical Society]] in New Jersey,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tsmembers.org/|title=Theosophical Society Members 1875–1942 – Historical membership list of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) 1875–1942|website=tsmembers.org|access-date=October 8, 2018|archive-date=October 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092813/https://tsmembers.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> but according to its founder, [[Helena Blavatsky]], he was not a very active member.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Collected Writings, Vol. XII|last=Blavatsky|first=Helena Petrovna|publisher=Theosophical Publishing House|year=1980|location=Wheaton, IL|pages=130}}</ref> In an October 2, 1910, interview in the ''[[New York Times Magazine]]'', Edison stated:
{{blockquote|
Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions.<ref>{{cite news |title="No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul—Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity |quote=Thomas A. Edison in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality. It will be bound to be a most fascinating, an amazing statement, from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age&nbsp;... Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions. |work=The New York Times |date=October 2, 1910}}</ref>
}}
Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter:
{{blockquote|You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.<ref name=Israel />}}

He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=75ldAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt%22 The Freethinker] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200619214033/https://books.google.com/books?id=75ldAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt%22&dq=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt |date=June 19, 2020 }}'' (1970), G.W. Foote & Company, Volume 90, p. 147</ref>

The 2001 [[American Religious Identification Survey]] (ARIS) report estimated that between 1990 and 2001 the number of self-identifying Deists grew from 6,000 to 49,000, representing about 0.02% of the [[Demographics of the United States#Religion|U.S. population]] at the time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2013/11/ARIS-2001-report-complete.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123080152/http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2013/11/ARIS-2001-report-complete.pdf |archive-date=2015-11-23 |url-status=live |title=American Religious Identification Survey, 2001 |year=2001 |access-date=2019-09-18}}</ref> The 2008 ARIS survey found, based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification, that 70% of Americans believe in a [[personal God]]:<ref name="personal" group="lower-roman">The [[American Religious Identification Survey]] (ARIS) report notes that while "[n]o definition was offered of the terms, [they] are usually associated with a 'personal relationship' with Jesus Christ together with a certain view of salvation, scripture, and missionary work" (p. 11).</ref> roughly 12% are [[Atheism|atheists]] or [[Agnosticism|agnostics]], and 12% believe in "a deist or paganistic concept of the Divine as a higher power" rather than a personal God.<ref name="ARIS">{{cite web |url=http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/08/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105073231/http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/08/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf |archive-date=2012-01-05 |url-status=live |title=ARIS Summary Report, March 2009 |year=2009 |access-date=2017-03-18}}</ref>

The term "[[ceremonial deism]]" was coined in 1962 and has been used since 1984 by the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] to the [[Constitution of the United States|U.S. Constitution]], thought to be expressions of cultural tradition and not earnest invocations of a deity. It has been noted that the term does not describe any school of thought within Deism itself.<ref>[[Martha Nussbaum]], [http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2008/undergod Under God: The Pledge, Present and Future] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170807100105/http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2008/undergod |date=2017-08-07 }}</ref>