Deism

Deism, religious system developed in the 17th and 18th centuries and championed by such thinkers as Voltaire and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Deists held that the rational nature of the universe was evidence of the existence of a Creator God, but they opposed organized religion and rejected supernatural explanations and religious revelation. Some of the leaders of the American Revolution were deists, among them Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

See also: Atheism; Theism.