



Deism: About the God who went away The number of Deists in the U.S. How many Deists are there in the U.S.? We have been unable to find a reliable estimate of the number of Deists in North America. In fact, an accurate estimate is impossible to obtain because any public opinion poll result is heavily influenced by the way in which questions are asked: If a pollster simply asks what people's religion is, they will return a miniscule estimate of the number of Deists in the country.

If a pollster delves into the precise nature of the subject's belief about God, they will probably obtain an number of Deists that is many times larger. The ARIS study estimated that there were 6,000 Deists during the year 1990, rising to 49,000 in 2001. 1 They listed Deism the fastest growing religion in the U.S. -- in terms of percentage growth -- with a 717% increase over 11 years. The next highest percentage increase was among Sikhs at 338%. Unfortunately, there are two problems with this massive telephone survey: Many Deists would have identified themselves as Freethinkers, Humanists, persons of no religion, secularists, Agnostics, Scientologists, etc. There might even have been persons with Deistic beliefs who registered as Atheists on the basis that they don't believe in a personal deity actively involved with humanity and the world.

Many Deists who feel a wish to join a spiritual community of searchers for truth become members of congregations associated with the Unitarian Universalist Association or perhaps Progressive Christianity. Sponsored link. 123456789 An alternate way of estimating the number of Deists: Public opinion polls on religion typically rely on each person to define their religious affiliation. Thus they all greatly underestimate the number of believers in Deism. However, there have been two exceptions: 2005/2006: The Baylor University religion survey was conducted during the winter of 2005/2006. They concluded that most American adults hold one of four views of God as defined by their understanding of:



The degree of God's engagement with humans and the rest of the world, and



The degree of God's wrath -- how angry he is towards human sin and how willing he is to punish transgressors. The Baylor study found that those Americans who believed in God had four very different understandings about his nature. The researchers found that Americans are divided among believing in a Type A (Authoritarian) God,

Type B: (Benevolent) God,

Type C: (Critical) God, and

Type D: (Distant) God:

The study found that 24.4% of the population believed in a Type D or Distant God who exhibited both low engagement and low anger. They typically view God as a cosmic force who created the universe and the natural laws by which it runs. He is not seen as interacting much with the world and does not judge or punish humans. This is close to a definition of the God of Deism that many Deists could agree with. This would imply that over 70 million American adults are Deists, even though the vast majority of them haven't the foggiest idea what "Deism" means. A larger percentage of west coasters, Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Jews, men, persons with higher educational attainment, and persons with higher income believe in this type of God than does the average American. More details. 2008: The ARIS study was repeated. This time, they asked for people's belief about God. They found that:



Only 70% of Americans believe in a personal God. This contrasts with the over 90% values that are often misreported by the media.

12% are either Atheists (do not believe in God's existence) or Agnostics (do not know whether a personal God exists).

12% are Deist. They believe in a higher power but not a personal God even though the vast majority have never heard of the term. 2 Apparently, between 12 and 24% of the adult population of the U.S. believe in the principles of Deism. There is a massive untapped resource here! A Deist evangelist who is skilled in publicity techniques might make millions of dollars, like some of the evangelical evangelists. Sponsored link: References used: The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today. "American Religious Identification Survey," The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2001, at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/ This is a PDF file. "American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS 2008]," Trinity College, 2009-MAR, at: http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/ This is a PDF file. Site navigation: Home page > World religions > Deism > here Copyright 1999 to 2018 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance

Latest update: 2018-JAN-28

Author: B.A. Robinson

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