| | :He was regular in his attendance [at] church, taking his prayer book with him. He drew the plan of the Episcopal church in Charlottesville, was one of the largest contributors to its erection, and contributed regularly to the support of its minister. I paid, after his death, his subscription of $200 to the erection of the Presbyterian church in the same village. A gentleman of some distinction calling on him and expressing his disbelief in the truths of the Bible, his reply was, 'Then, sir, you have studied it to little purpose.'" | | :He was regular in his attendance [at] church, taking his prayer book with him. He drew the plan of the Episcopal church in Charlottesville, was one of the largest contributors to its erection, and contributed regularly to the support of its minister. I paid, after his death, his subscription of $200 to the erection of the Presbyterian church in the same village. A gentleman of some distinction calling on him and expressing his disbelief in the truths of the Bible, his reply was, 'Then, sir, you have studied it to little purpose.'" |
| | + | Modernly, as noted above, Deism has both declined and fractured, with some of its original ideas being adopted as part of "[[new age]]" movements. Variations of Deism that have developed or been proposed include [[Pandeism]] (enunciated in the 1850s, and merging Deism with [[Pantheism]], the idea that God is equal to the Universe); [[Polydeism]] (merging Deism with [[polytheism]], proposing that multiple Gods created then abandoned the Universe); and [[Panendeism]] (merging Deism with the 1830s idea of [[Panentheism]], that the Universe was part of God, but was also transcended by God). None of these offshoots has garnered a significant following relative to organized religions. |