American Enlightenment - Deism

Deism

Both the Moderate Enlightenment and a Radical or Revolutionary Enlightenment were reactions against the authoritarianism, irrationality and obscurantism of the established churches. Philosophes such as Voltaire depicted organized Christianity as a tool of tyrants and oppressors and as being used to defend monarchism, it was seen as hostile to the development of reason and the progress of science and incapable of verification.

An alternative religion was Deism, the philosophical belief in a deity based on reason, rather than religious revelation or dogma. It was a popular perception among the philosophes, who adopted deistic attitudes to varying degrees. Deism greatly influenced the thought of intellectuals and Founding Fathers, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, perhaps George Washington and, especially, Thomas Jefferson. The most articulate exponent was Thomas Paine, whose The Age of Reason was written in France in the early 1790s, and soon reached the United States. Paine was highly controversial; when Jefferson was attacked for his Deism in the 1800 election, Republican politicians took pains to distance their candidate from Paine.