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Wow, the more you describe, the more I see us having much in common! I would love to see the sights of Rome and medieval Europe. I'm studying Ancient Rome in university right now, and I'm planning on majoring in Medieval Studies, so that will be helpful in giving context to these old European buildings! And I hope you can continue to attend Mass and appreciate the traditions, instead of feeling resentful towards them :)

I do not believe that God is the same as the universe. To reduce some philosophical arguments extremely, God's nature is absolutely simple, not composed of parts. Because God exists necessarily (rather than depending upon anything else in order to exist), there is no way in which God's nature could change. Things that exist in a finite, limited sense (like you, me, a tree, the universe) are defined by the fact that they change, that they have the potential to become something that they are not. I don't exist necessarily, but contingently.

There are definitely a lot of implications that need to be worked out, which I definitely haven't (but I'm pretty sure other philosophers have). I'm not necessarily trying to prove God with this, I'm just giving you a rationale for why I don't think God and the universe are the same. However, I do believe that all things depend on God's existence in order to exist. Because things exist contingently, depending upon things outside of their own existence in order to be, if that is the case with everything in the universe, then nothing could ever come to exist in the first place on its own. As I understand it, there must be some source that is by definition independent of anything (that is, God) that sustains the existence (in an ontological sense) of everything that can't sustain itself. So the relationship that I see between God and the world is that all things come from God (not in the sense that a son comes from a father, in which the former does not cease to exist when the latter dies; more like the way that light comes from a flame, where the blowing out of a flame results in the end of its light), that God has set the laws of nature in motion, and even sustains those laws for all eternity, as everything ultimately depends on God's existence at all times. In this way, I see finite reality to be inherently good, because it has been created by God, and it depends upon God's existence at every moment.

So yes, I very much agree with Thomas Paine. I'm very interested in the topic of aesthetics, and I'd like to read the writings of philosophers like Hegel and Burke on the nature of the sublime that exists in nature. I find creation to be one of the clearest reflections of God's power.

The most influential book that has informed my thinking is The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart. It's an incredible work, a bit difficult to get through at times because it gets kind of technical, but overall it is easy to follow. It's basically a 300+ page definition of God that is found in pretty much all major theistic religious traditions and philosophies. Highly recommended!

One philosopher whose work I love is an Anglican writer named Roger Scruton. He's Anglican, and defends Christianity, but he's not very dogmatic about it; in fact, as far as I know he doesn't believe in the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. He draws more universal meditations out of Christianity that are more philosophical. He's written a lot of books, has a lot of lectures on YouTube, and is an all-around wonderful human being. My favourite that I have read is The Face of God. Another book that might be of interest is The Soul of the World, though I haven't read it, but I'm sure it's great. I hope this helps!

> I'm curious as to what this community thinks of the Messiah [the Christ]

Which Messiah?

The Jewish Mashiach/Messiah (the Christ) in fulfillment of the Jewish prophecies? Within the narrative of the canon of the Christian Gospels, this is the claim Jesus makes. Jesus does not directly make a claim of Divinity (i.e., literally being the essence/avatar/supernatural deity made flash) - though the narratives often have people accuse Jesus of Divinity and Jesus plays to the confirmation bias of the accusers/supporters. Also, the position of the Jewish Mashiach/Messiah does not confer Divinity, merely a special place in relation to Yahweh. From the Jewish perspective, Jesus is NOT the Mashiach/Messiah.

The people that followed the cult of Jesus, and later seeded the movement towards Christian-Jews and then Christians, did believe that Jews was the Messiah, though they seemed to have ignored a number of prophecies and/or make the claim that Jesus will, somehow, fulfill the prophecies for the Messiah at the time of the Second Coming/End of Days and this will, again, somehow, be retroactive to the time of Jesus. The Christians adopted the tradition of Jesus, the Christ, having Divinity, as the God Yahweh made Flesh, in 325 BCE where the divinity of Jesus was made a part of mainstream Christian doctrine at the First Council of Nicaea. From the Christian perspective, Jesus is the Messiah.

> Does anyone share my beliefs?

It appears that your belief worldview incorporates an active intervening Deity and this Deity taking human form on earth in the form of Jesus, the Christ, with Jesus having supernatural attributes. Essential and foundational to the tale of Jesus, the Christ, is that of monotheistic Yahwehism.

I posit (from my time as a Deist) that from the baseline Deistic position, that this belief set is not compatible with Deism. Desim includes a cognitive designer creator that after the <whatever> of creation does not act as an active, as a personal, as an intervening, God. So no, a Deist would not share your views on a Divine Jesus, the Christ.

The same applies to the other intervening Gods/demi-Gods you listed.

From my position as an agnostic atheist towards Deism and a gnostic atheist, to a high degree of reliability and confidence, towards the monotheistic God of Abraham, that of monotheistic Yahwehism (which includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam), I do not share your beliefs in the Divinity of Jesus as it is based upon, and unconditionally dependent upon, monotheistic Yahwehism. Since I hold the position that this God does not exist, rather than mere non-belief based upon an overwhelming lack of credible evidence to support or justify rejection of the null hypothesis that supernatural deities do not exist (the agnostic atheist position), I accept that I have assumed the burden of proof; The following is a copy and paste of my position regarding the fallacy and falsehood of monotheistic Yahwehism.

The most foundational belief in Christianity, and in all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), is that Yahweh/YHWH/YHVH, God, or Allah, is that "God" exists and there is the only one true revealed God (monotheism) - or monotheistic Yahwehism. As this is also the core of the Tanakh (Judaism), Bible (Christianity), and Qur'an/Koran (Islam); questions concerning the source of, and the validity of, this monotheistic Deity belief would raise significant doubt as to the Holy Book's validity as the word of God/Yahweh/Allah and to the very foundation of these belief systems. Yet, within the Holy Scriptures of predecessor Babylonian, Ugarit and Canaanite (hypothesis), and early Israelite religions/societies/cultures, the evidence points to the evolution and growth in the belief of the monothesitic Yahweh God from a polytheistic foundation of the El [El Elyon] (the Father God/God Most High) God pantheon. Yahweh (one of many sons of El) was a subordinate fertility/rain/warrior local desert God whom, through a process of convergence, differentiation and displacement (synthesis and syncretism), was elevated from polytheism to henotheism (a monolatry for Yahweh; Yahweh is in charge, there are other Gods) to a monotheistic belief system (there is and, somehow, always has been, only Yahweh) as documented in the revealed holy scriptures of these religions and cultures that directly influenced and/or became the Biblical Israelites.

For your edification, here are some physical archeological and linguistic anthropological evidential sources documenting the development and growth of monotheistic Yahwehism/Allahism from a historical polytheistic foundation of revealed and holy scripture:

• [The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel](http://www.amazon.com/The-Early-History-God-Biblical/dp/080283972X) by Mark Smith<br />

• The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts by Mark S. Smith
  
• A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
  
• The Religion of Ancient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel) by Patrick D. Miller
  
• Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches by Ziony Zevit
  
  Traces of the foundational polytheistic (many many gods, El is in charge) belief, and it's evolution into a man-driven politically and militarily motivated monolatry for Yahweh (Yahweh is in charge, acknowledgement of other gods) to monotheistic Yahwehism (where Yahweh is and, somehow, always been the one and only god “There is no god but Allah”/“You shall have no other gods before Me"), litter the Torah and Old Testament of the Bible which survived editing and redaction. To a lesser extent (as it is based upon already redacted material and with better editing/explicit rationalizations already included) the New Testament and Qur'an also show linkages to this foundational polytheistic belief. Given that the tradition of monotheistic Yahwehism is the essential foundation of the Abrahamic Religions, this falsehood propagates to any/all doctrine/dogma/claims based upon this foundation - rendering these religions, at best, demonstratively invalid; and nominally, morally and culturally reprehensible.
  
  With the dubious claim of monotheistic Yahwehism that the Abrahamic God is based upon, and that serves as the most essential foundation of the Tanakh/Bible/Qur'an narrative, then any claim that the Tanakh/Bible/Qur'an is valid as a source for any "truth" concerning Yahweh/Allah, and Jesus the Christ, is at best, highly questionable and suspect, and nominally, completely "non-truthful."
  
  > > Does anyone share my beliefs?
  
  > I believe that He [Jesus] did in fact exist.
  
  Jesus is the name given to the archetype of the person upon which the Jesus narrative in the New Testament is based upon. Yĕhōšuă‘, Joshua, Jesus, יְהוֹשֻׁעַ, was not an uncommon name within the Hebrew community and may represent the name of this archetypal person. The Jesus character is attributed with what can arguably be described as a lite version of the morality of Buddhism, and was a decent, though with a rather shallow philosophy, fellow.
  
  The Divine narrative attributed to the Jesus character, however, is a different issue and often represents a reprehensible morality.
  
  I accept the evidence that supports the position that there existed a fully human Jewish man who was a preacher/Rabbi/cult leader upon which the Jesus character, and narrative, was built upon.
  
  ----
  
  OP, since you have expressed a position of a Divine (supernatural deity attributes) Jesus, the Christ, will you answer the burden of proof to defend/support your position that Jesus the man existed? That Jesus was Yahweh (in essence/made Flesh)? that the monotheistic version of Yahwehism is correct and Yahweh exists?
  
  TL;DR An active intervening Deity (the Divine Jesus, the Christ, and the required essential monotheistic Yahwehism of the Christ claim) is not compatible with the baseline Deistic position of a non-active, non-intervening, cognitive-designer and creator, supernatural Deity. Then some more stuff on how the foundational and essential basis for a Divine Jesus the Messiah/Christ is fallacious and false.

>War God: "Yahweh, prior to becoming Yahweh, the national god of Israel, and taking on monotheistic attributes in the 6th century BCE, was a part of the Canaanite pantheon in the period before the Babylonian captivity. Archeological evidence reveals that during this time period the Israelites were a group of Canaanite people. Yahweh was seen as a war god, and equated with El. Asherah, who was often seen as El's consort, has been described as a consort of Yahweh in numerous inscriptions.[1] The name Yahwi may possibly be found in some male Amorite names.[2] Yahu may be found in a place name."

This has been addressed multiple time by conservative scholars of ancient Israelite religion (see here and here (the book authored by the writer of this first article). As for the discussion of Asherah in the wikipedia blurb you quoted, I could appeal to this, "

Below an inscription on one of the pithoi (referring to Yahweh and his asherah) are drawings of two figures easily and unquestionably identifiable as the Egyptian god Bes, in fact a collective name for a group of dwarf deities. Is this meant to be a drawing of God (i.e., Yahweh) with his consort Asherah? The scholar who published the chapter about the drawings doesn’t think so. She interprets it as two male deities—probably just the Egyptian god Bes—and not as a drawing of God and his goddess wife. Other scholars disagree, but this much is clear: The drawing was added to the pithos after the inscription was written, so the two may be completely unrelated." - http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/puzzling-finds-from-kuntillet-ajrud%E2%80%94a-drawing-of-god-labeled-yahweh-and-his-asherah-or-the-egyptian-god-bes/

We can spam names at each other for hours, but we need to talk evidence, not names.

>but they are actually the scholarly consensus as documented in Wikipedia and elsewhere. If you are so far down the rabbit hole that you plug your ears when the scholars speak then this conversation has a 99.999% chance of being futile.

Scholarship is absolutely of no value when making determinations on matters. The evidence is what matters, not tossing out names and degrees like that somehow improves the chances of the argument being made. If the evidence is good enough, then there should be no need to have to appeal to a consensus.

>I start from a different place. I sacralize truth. I will burn any belief on the alter of truth. One of those beliefs was my childhood Christianity.

I highly doubt you are this on fire for truth. You haven't demonstrated any meaningful responses aside from insults and characterizations.

>where did God come from (no I do not accept bullshit about Yaweh being a necessary being)

That is the answer. Sorry if you don't like it, but that is how it is. Unless you can demonstrate that Jah is not a necessary being then we can't go any further. Not to mention, an eternal being doesn't have a cause, which is presupposed in your question. Why is God necessary would be much better.

>why does God not speak simply and clearly in a manner that everyone can understand, as he did when he spoke to Moses and Noah (the free will rebuttal to this makes no sense)

Jah gave a general revelation to the entire earth, so He did speak clearly to everyone. Man suppresses that truth in his unrighteousness. Jah had a special purpose of establishing a special covenant relationship with a chosen people, and it is His freedom to so choose. No where does it say that men are all judged on whether they kept the law given only to the Hebrews, I would love for you to find that in the text.

>why did God not directly write a simple and clear book of instructions instead of a meandering, confusing, self-contradictory mess which looks even less coherent than the Koran of the Book of Mormon to an objective reader?

This isn't a question. It is you asserting your conclusion and saying "what about that?" If you want to ask an actual question then we can get somewhere.

>why did God create cancer, tornados, AIDS, hurricanes? (As is typical you answered "why not" rather than why)

Natural disasters are not evil. They are the by product of a physical planet abiding by plate tectonics and the formation of weather systems. If you want that to be successful, I want to know why it is evil. As for viruses and cancer, after the moral degeneration that occurred at the fall creation became toxic. Not that hard of a concept.

>why does God need "pets?"

God doesn't need us.

>why would morality consist of a pet obeying its master?

Because God's moral nature (which is the Good in and of itself) is related to man through His moral commands and realized through our moral experiences. Why would you think that is similar to a pet obeying a master? Can you prove that parallel?

>why does the Bible contradict both science and archeology?

That isn't a question, it's your conclusion asserted. Try again.

>why does the Bible contradict common sense?

That isn't a question. You need to learn to ask a meaningful question instead of asserting your point.

>I could list hundreds of ridiculous things in the Bible, from God sending bears to maul children to Jesus cursing fig trees. It is a hilarious book of myths.

That is like totally exactly what all of that was about! You really seem to know the Bible and all of the deep socio-historical background and theological imiplications (which is 0 cause God doesn't real amirite (or God doesn't interact for deists)).

>There is no convincing evidence that the Bible was inspired. Quite the opposite. It's first chapter reads exactly like the creation myth of the Haida or any other pre-scientific society.

Assuming you mean this or this, there isn't even a seemingly meaningful parallel. As for inspiration, "I haven't heard an argument" is not an argument against inspiration.

>You are starting from your conclusion. "God is omniscient, so whenever he asks where are you he must be speaking rhetorically." This is incredibly intellectually dishonest. I approach it the opposite way. "There is a being. The being asks where other beings are. Therefore the being does not have omniscience." That's the objective third party reading of the text.

Not at all. God has sovereignty over His omniscience (in my opinion) and so may choose to have access to whatever knowledge He pleases (future or present). Also, Eatan is right about the use of a rhetorical device. What reason do we have to just read the text without going into some meaningful exegesis or literary analysis? You haven't read the text objectively, you read into the text your conclusion :/

>If I read the phone book with the idea that it is the word of god, I can find any message in there that I want.

Carpet Cleaners On the Go! 1-800-*-**

What a meaningful message you have gotten from that source of information!

>imposing your theology on the text to avoid grappling with the clear and true meaning of the writers.

You mean reading it without trying to figure out what it is saying? And what clear and true meaning? You just proof-texted and asserted your meaning.

>Just as it would be a waste of time for me to try to convince a paranoiac that there is no message in the phone book...

Demonstrate the parallel.

>Why would I not be serious? Your church has failed miserably at solving this problem for 2000 years.

Yeah, that is not the case at all. The logical problem of evil has been dead for a long time and the evidential problem of evil has been sufficiently dealt with. Sorry you don't like the responses, but until you can refute them, asserting they are wrong isn't useful.

>A pet owner who does not do everything possible to relieve extreme suffering on a pet's part would be evil. In fact, to knowingly inflict pain on a pet would be not just illegal but immoral. And yet God in enter cancer and tsunamis. So he is immoral. So he is not perfect. So he is not the God predicted by Christianity or the ontological proof. I can imagine a greater being: one that does not invent and then unleash smallpox.

You have yet to prove that God wouldn't have morally justifiable reasons for doing any of those things. Also, what gives you the idea that God's sole purpose is to provide us with the best possible life right now? Where does that come into play and why would you assume that is God's purpose?

>All of them deserved to be drowned?

Yes. It was God's right to punish a pervasively evil people and cause the cessation of their existence. Are you proposing that God not punish a people who are evil to their core? You also propose an inadequate understanding of the relationship between sin and God's justice that reduces the actual nature of how bad sin is.

>We are "pets". Suffering is a minor issue. Harmful tendencies are just part of the plan.

God has a creative decree in which all things have purpose to the ultimate glory of Jehovah God. As for pets, no. We have a will and we exercise in the way we please, against God. God holds us accountable for our actions and in that justice is ultimately fulfilled. So, I ask you again, demonstrate the parallel.

> what if I'm wrong about everything? It's a lot to consider

Yes, it is, but you need to recognize there are no definitive answers either way. The Age of Reason is a good introduction to Deism and a book I highly recommend you read if you're interested in Deism, it deals with a lot of the questions you have asked.

> why does Jesus have to be divine to be worshipped/followed?

This is often an idea synonymous with Christian Deists, that Christ did a lot of good in the world and this is reason enough to follow him and his moral teachings, he doesn't have to be divine. Read the Jefferson Bible It focuses on Christ's humanity, his morals, and all the good he did in the world, without all the supernatural passages.


> fear/guilt over dismissing his divinity......... Oh, God left AFTER Jesus (A close friend proposed this belief.)

Jesus being 'God in the flesh' causes numerous problems for Deism, most notably because it is a claim that God interacted with people in the world and revealed himself to mankind in the form of Christ.

However, when you say God no longer intervened AFTER Christ, you still have numerous problems to contend with when you try to fit those beliefs into Deism:

• If you know Christ is God, you are making the claim that you know God, you know God's characteristics, and you know who He is.
  
• You're believing in revelation; so you're no longer looking to nature and your own reasoning for your beliefs.
  
• The idea of the Holy Spirit especially causes lots problems to Deism, because if you believe in the HS as the 3rd person of the trinity, then you do have God/HS interacting and intervening in the world and swaying people towards belief. You cannot then argue that God does not intervene.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Actually, testing your faith as an outsider is necessary for being able to determine its objective truth and hardly "a waste." For instance, suppose you were raised as a Catholic, baptized as an infant. Ask yourself, how do other reasonable people first become believers, or insiders, if from the outside they can't understand Christianity? Which comes first, faith or understanding? If, as a nonbelieving outsider, someone cannot understand the Christian faith, then how does God expect them to reasonably come to faith in the first place? How do you get from being an outsider to being an insider as a rational, thinking, skeptical adult? If you were raised Catholic from childhood then you know that as children we had not yet developed critical thinking faculties to question what our parents told us. We didn't know any better. Isn't it unfair to bring up a child in that environment? How many Catholic parents have adequately questioned their own faith and investigated its truth content before raising their children Catholic?

How many Catholics would accept Catholicism if it were forced upon them when they were 18 years old? Wouldn't we have asked some questions about what our parents told us? If someone came along and tried presenting you a brand new religious paradigm, for example, Scientology or Mormonism, at your age you would, as an outsider, take a critical, skeptical stance against accepting those views. At some point along the line, as we become adults, we need to critically examine what we were taught as children. Doubt and skepticism are learned virtues and as we learn to question, we become thinking adults. But strangely most people don't seem to question their religious faiths which seem too obvious and have become too ingrained in us, usually because they are a part of the culture we live in. Not only that, your faith has ingrained in you a fear of Hell if you deviate from it (of course there is no evidence for the existence of heaven or hell, either), although if you do deviate from it, you can always return later.

Given the abundance of religions around the globe, the probability that the one you happened to have been brought up in is true is highly unlikely. Basically all religions teach that they are the one true religion. At best, only one can be true, as you pointed out earlier. At worst, they are all false. The only rational way to test one's culturally adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider, a nonbeliever, with the same level of reasonable skepticism that a believer already uses when examining the other religious faiths he or she rejects. If you can do that and show how Catholicism is still objectively true, then Catholicism is the one true religion, and all nonbelievers could rationally convert. The problem is that there is just no evidence to support its truth. Again, Richard Carrier's Proving History and its companion On the Historicity of Jesus are the most comprehensive scholarly treatments on the existence of Jesus. Carrier has done a lot of scholarship on the early history of the church and the facts do not hold up the way that the Catholic church would make you think they do. Not to mention that "God's true church" has been involved in some nasty terrible acts throughout history and held some embarrassingly mistaken views about reality, and it is not the paragon of moral virtue that an institution with divine inspiration would exhibit. I would challenge you to question your faith as an outsider. Read those books by Richard Carrier, for instance. Read The Outsider Test For Faith by John Loftus and question your faith as an outsider would. And if you still hold to Catholicism as the one true religion, then you have not lost anything. But if you are convinced by reasonable, skeptical arguments that Catholicism is mistaken at bare minimum or at most totally false, then you have gained a truer perspective on reality.

> Humankind is predisposed to believe in a higher power. To me, this alone bears a lot of weight - what could cause a mass delusion of over 99% of earth's entire (historical) human population without SOME amount of truth?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Religion-Natural-Science-Not/dp/0199827265

Humans are certainly predisposed to believe in some type of higher power or mysticism or many other types of things.

But I disagree with if enough people feel one way or do something then there must be some divine truth to that.

Lots of people find puppies and small animal babies to be cute. Does that mean that god loves puppies? Extrapolating human feelings to aspects or the existence of god is VERY SILLY =)

> It is widely accepted that there are other life forms outside of our planet. It is also (somewhat less widely) accepted that other beings may exist in dimensions other than the 3rd, in which we exist. Therefore, the concept of an omniscient life form is within the realm of possibility.

Definitely a possibility, yes. Literally anything 'may' exist.

> To assert with certainty that there is no god claims knowledge and insight. Since atheists have no evidence that there is no god (and claim to need none, which is true) they obviously have no insight or knowledge, and thus cannot be certain. I am an agnostic atheist after all - I don't claim to "know" there is a god, I simply choose to believe there is one until I know for certain there isn't.

Yes, agnostic atheist/deist is good...but still haven't heard many good reasons for believing that there probably is a god...do you also believe in the tooth fairy until you know for certain it doesn't exist?

> The god I believe in isn't within the realm of human comprehension. It doesn't resemble a person in any way, and if it were to attempt to communicate with us, we would almost certainly have no idea.

How in the heck would you know if it resembles or doesn't resemble a person? You are claiming insights here. And second, if it were an omnipotent being then by definition it could communicate with humans if it wished.

> Regardless, to claim that something we can't even COMPREHEND does not exist, based on a lack of evidence, makes no sense to me. If you can't understand it, how can you understand the manner in which it does or does not exist?

Yes, strong theism/deism or strong atheism is silly.

> Regardless, to claim that something we can't even COMPREHEND does not exist, based on a lack of evidence, makes no sense to me.

One could say the same thing about theism/deism. If you can't comprehend it how in the world can you say that is does exist?

> However, I do believe in a higher consciousness that probably played some role in the creation of everything we can perceive - in other words, the universe.

That's fine, but the only arguments I heard from you in your post were 1. that lots of people believe in a god and 2. that it is possible for a god to exist.

Ad populum + you can't prove it doesn't exist is your evidence for god. This is not good lol!

I had never thought about a point of creation being creating a past and a future. The Christian that believe the universe is only a few thousand years could be right.

Number Two. Nobody has the correct answer to this one. As a deist, I believe that something with intelligence started it. That intelligence doesn't have a personal interaction with the people of earth.

The founding fathers had a mixture of religions. Faiths of the Founding Fathers is a great book on the subject.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Faiths-Founding-Fathers-ebook/dp/B000SEHT1Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1342184348&sr=1-1&keywords=faiths+of+the+founding+fathers

How in the world did your post get formatted that way? Lol...here's a couple books that I recommend:

Deism: A Revolution in Religion - A Revolution in You written by Bob Johnson, the founder of the World Union of Deists, which is online here if you haven't found them yet.

Definitely check out Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason. It may not be the easiest read, but this book is a cornerstone of our beliefs and community. People always tend to bring it up when talking about Deism.

Welcome to Deism. You are among some great people.

There are various schools of thought within Deism, and I encourage you to continue on the path you have started which inevitably leads to perusing them.

Monodeism is the traditional "one being outside our Universe" concept of Deism.

Pandeism combines Deism with Pantheism and is the concept that the Creator wholly becomes our Universe, and is unable to interact with it because (for now) our ongoing Universe is all that remains of its Creator.

Panendeism combines Deism with Panentheism (or, as alternately interpreted, adds an -en- to Pandeism) to propose that the Creator in part became the Creation and in part remains outside of the Creation and able to interact with it if it wished.

Polydeism is an esoteric combination of Deism and Polytheism proposing multiple Creators cooperatively created our Universe and thence left or otherwise did not interact with it (possibly because they individually lacked the capability to do what they could do cooperatively).

There are other variations as well.

Links:

https://deismuk.wordpress.com/tag/monodeism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandeism

https://www.amazon.com/Pandeism-Anthology-Knujon-Mapson-ebook/dp/B01N0MHK72/

https://panendeism.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydeism

I will link you to a couple of sites. I enjoy reading the Amazon reviews people submit, although you're going to find a lot of "this guy is just profiting...he's insane...this is NOT the Bible" type of stuff. But pay attention to the 5-star ratings, and what those people have to say. It is a VERY relevant book in my opinion.

Conversations With God - all three books in one

The Tao is Silent by Raymond M Smullyan. I don't know much about Eastern philosophy, but based on that except it looks very interesting and relevant.

Here, I recommend this book instead: Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World.

From the wiki entry on it: "Sagan's book aims to explain the scientific method to laypeople, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. It explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience."