Anthology of Ideas

During the Age of Enlightenment, western society examined itself through religious texts; it found that the religious doctrines of the past lacked unchanging principles and most of them hearkened to a more mystical mindset and flew in the face of scientific thinking. For some, this demonstrated that the religious texts themselves were flawed: it was in this mindset that the concepts of deism — a religious belief that if there is a god, he is not involved in the day-to-day affairs of human lives, and any human attempts to create rules and rituals concerning this god are corrupted by human nature — were first accepted as, partially, acceptable in mainstream thought.

During the Age of Enlightenment, western society examined itself through religious texts; it found that the religious doctrines of the past lacked unchanging principles and most of them hearkened to a more mystical mindset and flew in the face of scientific thinking. For some, this demonstrated that the religious texts themselves were flawed: it was in this mindset that the concepts of deism — a religious belief that if there is a god, he is not involved in the day-to-day affairs of human lives, and any human attempts to create rules and rituals concerning this god are corrupted by human nature — were first accepted as, partially, acceptable in mainstream thought.