Talk:Deism

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Consensus was Against the proposed merge. -- Tevildo (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The Theistic rationalism article recently survived an AfD, so its content is apparently deemed appropriate for keeping. However, I still believe that it has insufficient evidence of independent notability, outside its use by some politically-motivated authors to describe the religious beliefs of Jefferson, Madison, et al, and that "Deism" is sufficiently close in meaning for the articles to be merged. A similar situation exists with Evolutionary creationism and Theistic evolution; terms with slightly different meanings, but for which there isn't a consensus to have seperate articles. I'm therefore proposing that the existing content from Theistic rationalism be merged to the Deism article.

• Support as nominator. Tevildo (talk) 19:12, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
• Againt Theistic rationalism in and of itself in the 18th century was fine. It doesn't mesh with 21st century Deism as Christianity is rejected by the majority of Deists through critical thinking which wasn't popular in the 18th century. It was social and political suicide to reject the bible and Jesus as myth. W mostly agree that it is myth and to merge what we consider myth into a natural religion today, which rejects the myth, would be a step back for Deism. It would be akin to merging Judaism with Christianity because Jesus was a Jew. Deism is shifting from mere philosophy to a religion for many. That is where the shift is. Just as Taoism and Buddhism are both philosophies and religions, Deism is both as well. Rev. Keith R. Wright
• Support Theistic rationalism is a POV fork based on unreliable sources that should've been deleted. The second-best option is a redirect to Deism. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 12:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
• Support. While they may not be quite the same thing, it's clear that theistic rationalism has plenty in common with deism and is related to it; and there doesn't seem to be enough to say about it to justify its own page, so I suggest making it a sub-section of this one. (Although I note that this page is well over 60KB already... perhaps that's a reason not to merge, or to cut this page down somewhere to make room for it.)Terraxos (talk) 04:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
• Against Deism is a separate concept than theistic rationalism, and as the theistic rationalism page shows, there are components of the two that do not agree. We're dealing with apples and oranges: both are fruit but neither are the same. Auror (talk) 04:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
• Against On the rationales that have been presented of non-notability, or non-separateness from Deism, I would be inclined to disagree and keep the article, at least for now. However, a more substantial argument may be made, after some months, that if this article is not improved and less-"orphaned" than it is at present, it should be merged simply because there is insufficient heft to support a separate WP article. N2e (talk) 15:41, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
• Against While Theistic Rationalism may be an offshoot of Deism, it hardly represents widespread Deist beliefs and therefore should not be included in the main Deist page. I could, though, support expanding the Theistic Rationalism page into a listing of Deist offshoots or possibly replacing the TR page entirely with a page devoted to the more organized sects of Deism.Shryer (talk) 23:26, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
• AgainstI don't think it should be included on the main page of Deism because the theistic rationalist(by their wiki definition) think that God intervenes in human affairs and that is not rational. I do agree though that they have alot in common.Luckynumbers (talk) 07:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
• Against Deism is a very distinct religious philosophy, separate enough from theistic rationalism to justify the existence of separate articles. scetoaux ^{(talk) (My contributions.)} 07:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
• Against The belief by Theistic Rationalists that "God plays an active role in human life" thus "rendering prayer effective" is fundamentally different from the beliefs of most Deists. It is the opposite of what most Deists believe. The preceding quotes were taken directly from the "Theistic rationalism" article. Crontron (talk) 20:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
• Against Theistic Rationalism is not the same thing, per the article itself. Any "theism" is going to be the opposite of any "deism" by simple definition. Merging the articles doesn't (and can't) make sense. Might as well merge Protestantism and Catholicism if you do. Their dogmas have more in common with each other than these two articles do. PHARMBOY (TALK) 16:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
• Undecided - Link for the lengthy Afd discussion about Theistic rationalism:

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2008_January_14#Theistic_rationalism

-Delete per WP:OR?? That was a mistake, it should have been delete per WP:Fringe theories.

All that is needed is to find some reliable sources showing that Theistic rationalism is at best a variant of Deism, then you can post that Article again for AfD.

The Vatican, for example doesn't mention Theistic rationalism anywhere, this fact could be used to support a WP:Fringe theories argument against Theistic rationalism. The whole article is based on just 4 references, 2 of them written by the same person.⇨ EconomistBR ⇦ Talk 19:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Against - The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy has an article http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.394/pub_detail.asp on the idea of an American founding creed that contains a lengthy definition of theistic rationalism. Also, L. Harold DeWolf's The Religious Revolt Against Reason (New York: Harper and Row, 1949) contains an analysis of the European Protestant argument professed by Kierkegaard, Niebur, Barth, and Brunner, and an effective response to that argument from the side of theistic rationalism, per Gordon K. Lewis' "America and the New British Radicalism", in The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 6 No. 1 (March 1953), pp. 24-25. For the deism article, there is an interesting discussion of how the neo-orthodox Eur Protestants argued that those supporting reason were losing faith in science and beginning to have doubts. Lewis article available on JSTOR. --Pat (talk) 02:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• Againt - More than enough of a difference to warrant separate articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.221.33 (talk) 06:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• Againt - The article was only created three months ago. the number of links to an entry is a poor argument to subsume it elsewhere. It just went through AfD, and having survived that, it was then hit with a merge proposal. It needs time to develop. Theistic rationalism is worthy of its own article. 06:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueOrb (talk • contribs)

• AgainstSimilar, but the fact that humanities courses differentiate between the two significantly warrant their separation.24.105.236.66 (talk) 02:45, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.