Help with a term · 7:37pm Jul 13th, 2016
Millions of years ago, chemicals combined to create the first single celled organisms, or so I remember from junior year biology, if I'm wrong, correct me. Well, what's the term for the belief that an incredibly powerful being combined those chemicals to start life on this planet, then left us alone more or less?
I thought the term was Deism, but according to google Deism is belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe. The term is used chiefly of an intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries that accepted the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.
If anyone can help me with this I'd be grateful.
That's a part of the deistic beliefs-- that the Creator basically set reality in motion and then left things as they were, or intervened only very, very rarely. It's also a semi-subset of theistic evolution, though that also can (and more often does) include the idea that evolution may be subtly guided towards a non-apparent end. Deistic evolution might be a nice neologism.