If you believe in a God that never interferes after he created the cosmos and set it's laws in motion then you qualify as a deist. If you believe there is any interference after the two exceptions outlined in the previous sentence, then you are a theist.

Theist: Believes God exists
Deist: Believes God exists

No, I don't think so.

Clarification.

Why did you clarify? There is no clarification to me made.

Deist is a subset of theist.

Because there is a clarification to be made.

It depends on how nuanced your definition of theism is. Under the broad definition of theism as it's usually used, I would agree.

the·ism
noun /ˈTHēˌizəm/ 
Belief in the existence of a god or gods, esp. belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures

de·ism
noun /ˈdēizəm/ 
Belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.

In any event, you don't qualify as a deist since you think God intervenes in the universe.

I don't' think you completely understand Deism, and you have no authority to tell me what I do, or do not, qualify for. But if it makes you feel better, I've started my own Deist demomination. Care to join?

This may be true, but I've backed up my assertions with definitions. If you can provide a source of someone using deism to mean something other than a God who does not intervene, please provide it.

This just isn't true. You either meet the standards of the word, or you don't. It's that simple. So far as I can tell, you don't.

I don't see why you should take this personally.

asd, just to be clear. I understand the "words" theism, and atheism, to be very specific.

Are you saying I now need to consider "theism", "atheism", and now "deism", to be equal?

I don't think so.

And I take nothing personally. It's all about truth, reality. and logic.

Again, it depends on how nuanced your definition of theism is. Using the most common definition of theism (belief in God or Gods), deism, as mentioned earlier, falls under that umbrella.

Therefore, under this definition all deists would be theists. However, it's often useful to delineate these categories further, so that when someone says 'theist' we specifically know to what they're referring.

No **** sherlock.

You are making this WAY harder than it is.

Let me make it easy for you -- no Deist on the planet would ever say he was an atheist. At the same time, we will ALL disagree with Splendour.

Does that help?

Fair enough. You're still not a deist though.

Ok. asd says I'm not a Deist. There you go. End of discussion.

So, what am I, Lord?

You better stop hanging around this forum if you want to get a promotion from deism to theism.

People are way to perfectionistic on here and think the world has to reflect God's perfectness only when maybe we're living through a stage that's reflecting both God's perfection, the devil's crazy hatefulness and people's imperfectness.

There's no reason for me to take an atheistic assessment of things seriously. They are the outsiders looking in who didn't experience what I'm experiencing. Believe me an outsider can never know what a doer does. Rather like my sky diving experience the other day...it was not exactly like I thought it would be before I did it.

So atheists trying to objectively judge theism while a few deists sit around on the sidelines laughing...really don't know their @**** from their elbows.

To really know about something you have to do it. Just like God says in his book...

James 1:22-25: "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."

Misinformed about the common usage of words.

I'm glad I asked you now (although that was in a different thread). But perhaps it would have been better to have asked the obligatory "what do you believe and why?"

I thought asdf's deism / theism definitions were correct, but I disagree about one being a subset of the other. A deist specifically rejects the idea of supernatural interventions like revelation and miracles (as part its definition), whereas the theist clings to them (as part of its definition). So one is not a subset of the other, they both belong to the basic set "a God/creator exists". Is there a word for this?

This isn't necessarily true, as it depends on how specifically you define 'theist'. And therein, as they say, lies the rub.

The word 'theist' is the most basic claim of "a God/creator exists" when used broadly. It's also the specific claim of intervention when that subject comes up. This is unnecessarily convoluted, and ideally we should use theist/deist as you laid out, and perhaps use the word 'believer' (or something) as the umbrella term.

If you are an AGNOSTIC deist, IMO the agnostic part really helps define whatever follows it. Since Roundguy is agnostic, he believes that he knows that he doesnt know, therefore the part that follows (the belief part) is basically just a guess/intuitive. I am also agnostic and believe in infinite possibilities, and I would personally believe that God (and I believe there is more likelyhood than not that some form of god/hgher order exists) most likely does not intervene in the universe (deism), BUT ITS CERTAINLY POSSIBLE HE DOES. So basically by claiming the agnostic part first you are humbling the balance of your opinions/beliefs and its all just speculation from that point (but all very very fun to think about). Who agrees with what I am saying here?

It doesn't really have anything to do with being humble. When referring to agnosticism, you're only defining/clarifying what you consider knowledge. For instance, in a strong epistemological sense, I don't know I'm sitting on my couch. I could be an unconscious dog dreaming, or in the matrix, or...

Insofar as your speculation claim goes, it's all speculation. The only thing you can every really know is that you exist.

(No, I'm not a solipsist. Or at the very least, I don't adhere to it's possible implications).

Kind of, yeah. Though, when you know your concepts of God are somewhat idiosyncratic it's helpful to either lay them out for everyone to see or to not get annoyed if people are confused by your use of words that have common definitions.

Sorry Splendour, I'm a Deist. God doesn't have a book. But, thanks for playing.

^^^

Look, you guys can argue semantics all you want. For me, there are two catagories: Atheist, or Theist.

I'm a Theist.

Thank you jon. I'm a Deist, but since I'm also an agnostic, I will not rule out the fact that God COULD interfere, if he wishes. To think otherwise would just make me like Splendour.

And under all definitions of the word to boot.