Curiously enough, atheism was not at all fashionable in this “polite society.” Most of the prominent “infidels” who ridiculed Christianity during the eighteenth century believed in a supreme being but regarded it superstitious to hold that he interfered with the world-machine. This belief comes to be called deism, a movement especially popular among English speakers. Deism served as a halfway house on the road to atheism. One could keep the idea of God and dismiss the concept that God would engage or interfere with the world.
