Thread:User talk:Tmtoulouse/Bump: You know that obnoxious thing people do on the internet when they've said something and they feel they haven't been paid enough attention? I'm doing that./reply (33)

All by itself, I can't see how deism can harm society. However, suppose someone claimed: "The deist God will reward you with everlasting bliss if you do right, and punish you with everlasting torment if you do wrong. And doing right is to kill all members of , and doing wrong is failing to exterminate that group." That viewpoint is compatible with deism, since it isn't claiming the deist God is intervening in any way - post mortem reward/punishment is not a form of intervention into this universe. But clearly, such a viewpoint would be very harmful to society.

So deism by itself can't hurt society, but deism + some other ideas can, if those other ideas are bad. I'd say the same thing about theism, actually; plain old theism, by itself, doesn't harm society in any obvious way. Theism + some other ideas can obviously harm society, but then the harm comes from those other ideas, not from theism per se.