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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Theist: Belief in a God or Gods.

Atheist: Lack of a belief in God or Gods.

Agnostic: Belief that it is impossible to know, with an absolute degree of a certainty whether or not a God or Gods exist.

Gnostic: Belief that it is possible to know, with an absolute degree of a certainty whether or not a God or Gods exist.

Anti-theist: Against a belief in God or Gods i.e. you think that believing in God is not good thing.

Anti-religious: Against the organised belief in God i.e. you think that churches and their followers negatively impact on society etc.[/quote]

How about Deist?  Wasn't Thomas Jefferson a Deist?[/quote]

Henry S. Randall, the only biographer permitted to interview Jefferson's immediate family, recorded that Jefferson "attended church with as much regularity as most of the members of the congregation—sometimes going alone on horse-back, when his family remained at home", and that he also "contributed freely to the erection of Christian churches, gave money to Bible societies and other religious objects, and was a liberal and regular contributor to the support of the clergy. Letters of his are extant which show him urging, with respectful delicacy, the acceptance of extra and unsolicited contributions, on the pastor of his parish, on occasions of extra expense to the latter, such as the building of a house.

While many biographers, as well as some of his contemporaries, have characterized Jefferson as a Deist, historians and scholars have not found any such self-identification in Jefferson's surviving writings. Following the 1800 campaign, Jefferson became more reluctant to have his religious opinions discussed in public. He often added requests at the end of personal letters discussing religion that his correspondents be discreet regarding its contents. Jefferson stated in a letter in 1819, "You say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know." He wrote to William Short on October 31, 1819, he was convinced that the fragmentary teachings of Jesus constituted the "outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man".

Jefferson once wrote to the minister of the First Parish Church (Unitarian) in Portland, Maine, asking for services for him and a small group of friends. The church responded that it did not have clergy to send to the South. In an 1825 letter to Waterhouse, Jefferson wrote,

I am anxious to see the doctrine of one god commenced in our state. But the population of my neighborhood is too slender, and is too much divided into other sects to maintain any one preacher well. I must therefore be contented to be an Unitarian by myself, altho I know there are many around me who would become so, if once they could hear the questions fairly stated.

Jefferson stated he was in a sect “by himself,” and clearly had his own unique ideas about faith. [b]Nowhere did he name himself a deist in his written words, nor did he declare himself a deist in his lifetime.[/b] [/quote]

Thank-you.  I can't really be arsed to look up supporting cites, but I read he was a deist and I don't see anything there that you wrote to rebut the observation made by many that he was a deist - regardless of how he identified himself.[/quote]

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