Deism is the Science of Religion, with roots going back to ancient Greek philosophy and Hippocratean medicine, with its contempt for the notion that disease had revelatory or retributive relationships to the gods. If you are getting messages from the gods, you are likely just having an epileptic seizure. If you are feeling like you are being punished by the gods, don't. When confronted with earthly problems, one seeks earthly solutions.

Deism's scientific bottom lines re-emerged in the 11th and 12 centuries in western "Christendom" following the infamous 1054 AD power grab by the Bishop of Rome, followed by the disastrous Crusades. Deism's tenets emerged in the minds of Christian mystics, mostly women, and largely in revulsion at male corruption in the Church and male notions of a vengeful, external god. These ideas would ultimately help motivate the Renaissance, the various and sundry Reformations, the EuroAmerican Enlightenment and the emergence of American Democracy.

And, it was all about God, the God of All People, the seat of authority in the world. Christian mystics, in the name of Christ, placed God, not "out there" and separate from the people, but inside and integral to the people. Julian of Norwich put it this way, "We are in God and God, whome we do not see, is in us." Meister Eckhart proclaimed that "God created all things in such a way that they are not outside himself, as ignorant people falsely imagine." Rather, as urged by Mechtild of Magdeburg, "God is in all things." Julian of Norwich would hold a hazelnut in her palm and point out that if we knew how that small seed worked, we would know how the whole of Life works, a view that is entirely consistent with contemporary molecular biologic knowledge.

With Newton's deductive revolution, it became possible for science and philosophy to further clarify the issue. The God of All People was manifest only from the inside out. It is human ideas, words and actions, mostly actions, which mold and define our God. Accordingly, in a 1791 Cabinet Opinion, Jefferson placed God in the "head and heart" of every person and he placed the highest authority in "the will of the people, substantially declared." One's person relationship with God was an entirely intimate and personal matter, entirely between God and oneself. And, Geothe asked "What sort of a God would it be, who only pushed from without?"

With Einstein's reductive revolution, it became even more possible for science and philosophy to further clarify the issue. It is now clear, for example, that the human body is defined by genomic information literally billions of years in the making. The genomic blueprint, God's biological word, drives life from the inside out. Mapping the human genome has made the entire concept of race an exercise in nonsense. We are all more the same than different, we all have common origins, and we do have intertwined destinies. The notion that one's genes dictate what and how one thinks is ludicrous. If that were true, that our behavior is hardwired, we wouldn't need science or religion. With God on the human inside, Deism restricts itself to those dialectic human values with spiritual content and to pancultural scientific knowledge, in the interest of Godliness.

Deism sees Honesty and Compassion as akin to Godliness.
Deism sees Creativity and the pursuit of Quality as akin to Godliness.
Deism sees Conceptual growth and Spiritual growth as one and the same.

Deism sees the world as not needing supernatural assistance. The real world and its history is simply obscene with “miracles” resulting from human compassion and comprehension directed toward the human good, the emergence of Jeffersonian political philosophy being Deism’s finest accomplishment to date.

Deism admires the first Christian as an enlightened philosopher whose life was an examplar of thought and word and action on the high moral ground. Deism sees with the first Christian that children are the light of the world, that all of our efforts ought be aimed at creating for them an honest and decent, fair and safe home on Earth. Deism sees the first Christian as having died in the name of honesty and compassion, as Socrates died before him in the name of honesty and knowledge.

Deism rejects the sole divinity of the first Christian, finding divinity in the work of all humanist thinkers, poor and rich, East and West, from Socrates to Einstein, from St. Francis to Gandhi, from Crazy Horse to Morhei Ueshiba. In real terms, the prophetic “Second Coming” is the re-emergence of Deism, Enlightenment Humanism, on the global front, when the people stop talking about enlightened humans and start thinking like them, incorporating enlightenment values into global political philosophy where they properly belong.

Deism rejects the Old Testament entirely and accepts only those portions of the New Testament dealing with Jesus’ life and teachings. With regard to Holy Scripture, Deism accepts “The Jefferson Bible” as the most sane version of Western scripture yet edited. Everything Jefferson edited out is irrelevant to Science, Democracy and nascent Christianity.

Deism accepts that the Old and New Testaments espouse mutually-exclusive moralities, a grotesque inconsistency blindly abided by clerics and religious theologians for two millennia in maintaining power in the hands of the rich and powerful and the self-righteous JudeoRomanism that has nourished imperialism, colonialism and capitalism.

Deism does not believe in the notion of an external Heaven and Hell, eternal bliss and eternal damnation. God is a thoughtful and intelligent agent in the world and the notion of a retributive Hell is not an intelligent idea but a fear-based idea aimed at controlling others from birth until death. Heaven and Hell exist only in the here and now, and Life most certainly is as we make it. The people have been blessed by their God inside with the gift of choice.

Deism believes that the only life after death available to humans is in being remembered kindly by those who follow, especially for providing leadership in thought which provides for adequate new knowledge, human comprehension and control. Jesus, Socrates, Hippocrates, Galileo, Newton, Jefferson, Franklin, Pasteur, Koch, Mendeleyev, Einstein, Bohr, have achieved immortality, which is bestowed upon these thinkers because they shed light on the paths to adequate thought, paths which everyone after them had to consider in order to make further contribution.

Copernicus and Galileo have achieved immortality because we still live and breath in the world they defined for us. Regardless of religion or ethic, everyone today lives on the third planet from the Sun, compliments of Science. Within cultural evolution, “survival of the honest” replaces survival of the fittest as the overriding selectional factor. In other words, honesty bestows intellectual fitness and survival advantage in the long run ... if not sometimes in the short run. All school children have heard the name of Galileo, none have heard the name of the Pope who persecuted Galileo for being honest.

Deism believes that death is a natural and necessary part of life. What happens after death is virtually the only aspect of life wherein Science has not eliminated supernatural religious speculation. Even if consciousness somehow survives death in some effervescent configuration, it seems clear that one would not be able to do anything. Life is for the living and the safest assumption is that when you die, you are, for all intents and purposes, dead. Death is an important, if irrelevant, subject which, even though beyond Science’s reach, does not require supernaturalism in order to be comprehended and accepted. Deism chooses not to mourn someone’s death but rather to celebrate their life, as it chooses not to fear death but to love life.

Deism believes in repentance for personal wrongs, not repentance to a supernatural god but repentance to those people wronged. Deism sees no need to apologize to God for human error. God is God (the “will of the people”) and responsibility is ours. One ought strive to avoid committing wrongs against others for which repentance would be difficult or impossible.

Deism does not believe in prayer requesting favored treatment at the expense of others. Such practice represents the height of religious self-righteousness, to expect that God (the "will of the people") actually has time to listen to individual requests for favoritism and that God would even consider playing favorites, least of all in a nation based on fairness and equality. The tenets of Deism, while based in faith in the human mind, do not constitute principles of faith, but rather principles of belief and duty.

Deism does not use God’s name in vain to damn anyone or anything, reserving the term for use when awe-struck and overwhelmed by acts of human intimacy, acts of human courage, and panoramas of natural beauty at all levels of organization. To thank God for having survived a tragedy, which others did not survive, is an act of subtle self-righteousness, implying that the victims were not in God’s favor. Survival always has more to do with intellectual preparedness and a little luck. Belief in a self-righteous and vengeful god produces self-righteous and vengeful people.

Deism does not believe in the notion of a “chosen” people. This implies that God plays favorites, a notion unsupported by historical reality and nourishing of self-righteousness. “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people.” (Jefferson).

Deism rejects the notions of race and gender as a basis for discrimination among the people. Deism likewise rejects the notion of caste, be it religious, political or socio-economic. Deism rejects the notion that individual wealth and power are a reflection of divine attention and favor, their causes likewise being earthbound.

Deism believes that honesty is the only morality, that the honest human truth is the only authority, the authority upon which justice depends entirely. Striving to acquire and act upon the honest human truth in the interest of the whole is the work of God. Striving to control situations with half-truths and coercion, for personal or political ends, is simply not the work of God. Accordingly, Deism sees dishonesty and coercion as a sin against the mind, a sin against the truth, a sin against the people and their God. Deism accepts the challenge of eternal vigilance against all forms of tyranny over the human mind. “What has been the effect of coercion but to make half the world fools and the other half hypocrites?” (Jefferson).

Deism does not see proof of God in ancient Biblical scripture. Deism sees proof of the creator in creation itself, proof of the designer in the design itself, proof of evolution in Life itself. Deism sees Life as being determined on the inside and probabilistic on the outside. We all have five determined fingers per hand. When we do something with those fingers in the outside world, the outcome is probabilistic as a function of our awareness of and ability to deal with potential interferences.

Deism accepts that God’s word and work at the biological level is not found in Biblical scripture but in the enthusiastically-directed genomic orchestration inside all living things. The fertilized human ovum is easily the most information-dense structure on Earth, carrying the most highly-experienced copy of God’s biological word, from which comes everything else, skin cells, liver cells, brain cells ... and ultimately all music, science and philosophy.

God is the natural, evolving information (physical, biological and cultural) resident in matter at all levels of organization, creative potential built in. At the physical, biological and cultural levels of organization, Life comes of itself and Life is as we make it. Deism believes that Life ought be honest and fair, and Deism believes that only the people can make it so.