Le déisme américain : de la jeune république à l'ère de l'Internet

Abstract

In 1794, in The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine claimed that Deism had been the first and would probably be the last religion that man believed in. The originality of his conception of Deism is found in his insistence on the following assumption : “My own mind is my own church.” With this idea, Paine stressed a very private and consequently modern form of religiosity. Today, in a context of religious revival and secularisation, when several New Religious Movements emerge every day, when religious belief itself is undergoing tremendous change, Deism is still an option for people in quest of sense in a technological world that creates doubt and relativity, or in search for some form of religiosity devoid of dogmatic or ecclesiological constraints. Deism is actually gaining ground. At least two deist associations exist today. Both are based in the US and resort to the Web to express their views. Defining Deism as a belief in God based on reason and nature rather than on sacred books, they both look back to Paine. This article addresses the issue of the place and relevance of Deism in the current American spiritual landscape by providing a brief overview of the history of Deism, positioning Deism within the wider sphere of free thought on the Internet, and focusing on the older of the two associations, The World Union of Deists.