How to discuss Deism with family?

The first thing to know is who do you want to be out with and how far do you to take it. With most of my friend, I will openly call myself a deist and talk about things related to science and spirituality. My wife is a hard agnostic and religion doesn't come up much in conversation, but she knows my beliefs. My sibling does not know I am a deist by name, but knows that our beliefs are not the same. I do not actively hide my beliefs from my parents, but go out of my way to avoid the conversations when possible. I grew up pentecostal and my parents are getting older. I do not wish to cause a schism between us if I can help it, especially since we already sit so far apart politically. They know I am not pentecostal, but that I am still something akin to Enlightenment Era Christian that likes science since I have a Jeffersonian Bible(as well as a few other religious books that get conveniently get overlooked). I do nothing to dissuade them of this belief and let them make assumptions. You can always filter different levels to different people.

If you choose to come out to them, you must know beforehand what you are looking for in telling them. You can either try for acceptance, discussion, or conversion.

Do not actively try to convert people, especially those who probably have powdered butt syndrome. You will fail and look like an ass, mainly because you will be one.

There are two types of acceptance, quiet and open. I prefer to be quietly accepted in that people leave me to my own personal beliefs and I do not open flaunt mine. The more open kind of acceptance is being able to flaunt your beliefs loudly regardless of whoever else is around. Think private gay bars versus pride parades. Neither are wrong but everyone has to find their own balance of where they feel comfortable.

There are three types of persuasion, logos(logic) ,pathos(emotion), and ethos(ethics). Logic will be your bread and butter. They will almost certainly respond with emotion masked as logic. The word atheist will probably be thrown around. The most important thing to remember is to keep your cool and not get angry. You will want to highlight similarities. A couple of examples that can change on your personal beliefs:Yes, there is a creator, one powerful enough to create a perfect universe. Yes, the creator is knowledgeable, one smart enough to create a universe and laws that make everything work when odds say that it should. You want to use their own declarations to weaken their own attacks such even if holy books are divinely dictated, they were were written by man, and more importantly edited by man including the many generations of oral history before it was written down, Jewish councils, Catholic councils, Constantine, King James, other editors all before it was made into dozens of versions(KJV, new International version, Youngs literal translation, etc) that have very different meanings. You can mention that an interfering God would mean that you have no free will because God is the ultimate deus ex machina. If God does need to intervene, than the universe wasn't designed perfect in the first place. Reiterate that you don't see how it's consistent and the almighty is perfectly consistent. A God who created the laws that work so well like clockwork values knowledge and will appreciate someone being intellectual consistent if humanly flawed.

I fear that once you tell them that you aren't in the club anymore, things will go bad...and fast. You can try to explain that you will worship in your own way, this might work. Stand your ground, be firm but respectful. Being the black sheep of the family isn't so bad.

Thanks for the input, guys. I feel that my parents will be shocked but not angry and still accept me for me. Guess I'll tell them whenever the time is right. As for my other family members... I'll probably just not bring it up so no drama is created.

Keep it simple

I had the same kind of talk with guys in my military unit. Being in a red state, everyone in my unit are Christians, so I'm the odd man out. Mostly, it was just curiosity as to what deism was. They are pretty understanding after I clearly explained it to them. I didn't experience any negativity.