List of deists

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This is a partial list of people who have been categorized as deists, the belief in a God based on natural religion only, or belief in religious truths discovered by people through a process of reasoning, independent of any revelation through scripture or prophets. They have been selected for their influence on Deism, or for their fame in other areas.

• Ethan Allen (1738 – 1789), early American revolutionary and guerrilla leader^[1]
• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821), French military and political leader^[2]
• Marlon Brando (1924 – 2004), famous American actor^[3]
• Cicero (106 BCE – 43 BCE), Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and Roman constitutionalist^[4]
• Paul Davies (1946 – ), British physicist and science writer and broadcaster[21]
• Antony Flew (1923 – ), British philosopher and prominent former atheist^[5]
• Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790), American polymath, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America^[6]
• Frederick the Great (1712 – 1786), Prussian King from the Hohenzollern dynasty^[7]
• Brett Gurewitz (1962 – ), guitarist and songwriter for the American punk rock band Bad Religion^[8]
• Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury (1583 – 1648), British soldier, diplomat, historian, poet and religious philosopher^[9]
• William Hogarth 1697 – 1764), English painter, visual artist and pioneering cartoonist^[10]
• Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885), French writer, artist, activist and statesman^[11][12]
• David Hume (1711 – 1776), Scottish philosopher, one of the principal early philosophers of empiricism^[13]
• Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and the 3rd President of the United States
• Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781), German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic^[14]
• John Locke (1632 – 1704), influential English philosopher in the field of empiricism^[15]
• James Madison (1751 – 1836), politician and the fourth President of the United States of America^[16]
• Moses Mendelssohn (1729 – 1786), German philosopher influential in the Jewish Haskalah^[17]
• Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809), English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual^[18]
• Elihu Palmer (1764 – 1806), American author and advocate of deism^[19]
• Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744), English poet during the eighteenth century
• Maximilien Robespierre (1758 – 1794), French revolutionary and lawyer^[20]
• Adam Smith (1723 – 1790), Scottish Philosopher and economist, considered the father of modern economics^[21]
• Lysander Spooner (1808 – 1887), American anarchist, philosopher and abolitionist^[22]
• Matthew Tindal (1657 – 1733), controversial English author whose works were influential on Enlightenment thinking^[23]
• John Toland (1670 – 1722), Irish philosopher, coined the term "pantheism"^[24]
• Mark Twain (1835 – 1910), American author and humorist^[25]
• George Washington (1732 – 1799), the first President of the United States of America^[26]
• Henrik Wergeland (1808 – 1845), Norwegian poet and theologist (by self-definition).
• Voltaire (1694 – 1778), French Enlightenment writer and philosopher^[27]

[edit] See also

• List of people by belief

[edit] References

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ [2]
3. ^ "Marlon Brando". Nndb.com. http://www.nndb.com/people/721/000022655/. Retrieved on 2008-11-09. 
4. ^ Deism - Entry in the Dictionary of the History of Ideas
5. ^ Atheist Becomes Theist - Biola News and communications
6. ^ The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
7. ^ Frederick the Great - Hyperhistory.net
8. ^ "I don't believe in a God who does much. But I do believe in God, for some reason that I can't explain." Paste Magazine, August 1, 2007[3]
9. ^ [4]
10. ^ [5]
11. ^ [6]
12. ^ [7]
13. ^ Hume's religious views are very ambiguous, as he lived in a time when explicit opposition to Church doctrine could mean death. Most attempts to analyze his spiritual views are based on his philosophical dialogs, and experts are split on whether he was an atheist or a deist based on these. [8]
14. ^ [9]
15. ^ [10]
16. ^ [11]
17. ^ [12]
18. ^ [13]
19. ^ Elihu Palmer - First Presbyterian Church of Newtown
20. ^ [14]
21. ^ The Times obituary of Adam Smith
22. ^ [15]
23. ^ [16]
24. ^ [17]
25. ^ [18]
26. ^ [19]
27. ^ [20]