When historians refer to some of the Founding Fathers as "Deists," it's as if they're talking about an extinct philosophy, like alchemy or phrenology. Very few Americans go around describing themselves as Deists.
Perhaps that ought to change. A new study reveals that a rapidly growing number of Americans hold the belief system that used to be described as Deism.
Deism was a philosophy, especially popular in the 18th century, holding that God had created the universe and its laws but then receded from the action. It was treated as heretical -- akin to atheism -- because Deists rejected Biblical authority. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, wrote that the authors of the canonical Gospels were "ignorant, unlettered men" who laid "a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications." He famously crafted his own Bible sans miracles.
