[[Image:Hoplites.jpg|thumb|right]]
The '''Hoplites''' (Greek:ὁπλίτης) were [[Greek]] heavy Infantry during the period around 6th to 2nd century BCE.

The hoplite armor was quite varied. Most hoplites were millitas that were conscripted by the state in times of need - the armor hoplites was nothing more than the clothes on their back. As city states grew richer, they could afford better equipment - thus most "middle class" hoplites in later times would've been equipped with linothorax (harded linen armor) or leather. Only the rich upper class could afford quality armor such as bronze. These hoplites wore full-face helmets probably made of [[bronze]] and wielded a heavy shield of wood covered in bronze. Their preferred weapon was a [[spear]], and a short sword as a backup weapon. In battle they often used the phalanx formation, which was essentially a wall of overlapping shields and spears and they moved as a cohesive unit. The name derives from ''Hoplon'', the formal name of their [[shield]]s. The shield was commonly known as an [[Aspis]].

Traditionally hoplites were not professional [[soldier]]s, but often men of ordinary professions. They would purchase their own armor, which could lie unused for years, and the quality of the armor would reflect the material wealth of the bearer. They would be summoned to fight in the event of their city going to war. Hoplite warfare often consisted of "pushing matches" when one hoplite formation would try to push back the opposing hoplite formation. During these realtively short pushing matches, causalities were usually light, and since the leaders/generals would often be in the front rank, the outcome of the battle would be strategically decisive. Heavy infantry hoplites were especially against the Persian army which contained no heavy infantry to speak of. Even the "heavy infantry" 10,000 immortals wore a light metal scale tunic, and wielded wicker shields not suited to hand to hand combat. In the case of the Battle of Marathon, due to their thick bronze armor the Athenians often crushed the Persian troops to death.

Possibly the most renowned hoplites were those of the city of [[Sparta]] on the [[Peloponnese]], who famously wore scarlet red capes. Trained from birth these warriors were professionals, rather than the levied troops of their fellow Grecian cities. They were famous for their courage and their skill, but could often commit acts we would today consider atrocities. Their most famous hour was arguably the [[Battle of Thermopylae]].
The terrain of Thermopylae suited the phalanx formation perfectly, as the narrow confines of the pass meant that the [[Persia]]n's superior numbers could not be brought to bear, not could the vulnerable flanks of the phalanx be exploited by the Persian cavalry.
The phalanx was further developed by the Macedonians and their successors into the sarrissa.

The phalanx as a formation was adopted by the Romans. After suffering disastrous defeats by the hands of other Italian city states, the Romans adopted the maniple formation from their enemies - which was far more flexible than the phalanx.

==Links==
[http://www.hoplites.co.uk/html/hoplites.html]

[[Category:Military History]]

2008-03-16T02:42:52Z

Intranetusa:

What '''''did''''' Jefferson say about his religious beliefs? The fact that he did not call himself a does not mean that he was not one; his beliefs (about Jesus at any rate) seem to be deist. Maybe he described himself as something else? If so it would be worth mentioning.

--[[User:BenjaminS|BenjaminS]] 22:52, 30 January 2007 (EST)

I think that we should define Deism according the same way as the founder of deism did. not the way that modern dictionaries do. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 10:14, 31 January 2007 (EST)

*I think we should mention both and note the differences... [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 11:03, 31 January 2007 (EST)

*Yeah, We should probably mention both, but for purposes of determining who was or wasn't a deist, we need to have a fixed standard, and I think that the founder's version should be used. --[[User:TimSvendsen|TimSvendsen]] 11:21, 31 January 2007 (EST)

==Controversy over Ben Franklin==

The dispute over whether Franklin was a lifelong Deist would enjoy life ever so much more if it could reside as a section of the [[Benjamin Franklin]] article. So I propose moving most of this dispute there. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 12:14, 27 March 2007 (EDT)

== Thoughts ==

Thomas Paine was not a Founding Father of America by a long shot, having spent almost his entire life in England. There is no one founder of deism, as the concepts and ideas have been around for much longer than the 1600's. The only thing the "founder" adds is confusion by having concepts that really don't make much sense together. There is God, but He's stepped aside and does not take any personal role in events, but yet there's also a heaven and a moral standard used for who goes there on a personal one on one basis. Is He a personal God or is He aloof? It appears to be both simultaneously. One can see why deism died out relatively quickly under those conditions. [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 16:55, 19 June 2007 (EDT)

==Deleted the 70 Miracles article==
Deleted this section;
"==70 Years of Miracles Account==
There is a book by Richard H. Harvey, entitled "70 Years of Miracles." In it Harvey relates his experience in a Chemistry class at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania in the 1920's.
According to Harvey, his professor Dr. Lee was a deist who for many years had spent time with each freshman class lecturing against prayer. After a couple of sessions discussing the power of natural laws and the lack of evidence that any god interferes with those laws, Lee would announce that he would drop a flask to the floor and challenged anyone to pray that the flask would remain whole.
Harvey then related that one year, a student finally found the courage to stand up and volunteer to pray. Lee dropped the flask and it rolled off his shoe to the floor without damage. The class cheered and Lee no longer delivered his annual lectures against prayer. [http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathm_urb_chalk.htm fair use]"

1. It resembles this myth/story too much; http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathm_urb_chalk.htm
2. That really doesn't have anything to do with Deism. That story is really just about probability - just because you drop a glass flask doesn't mean it'll break. Also, the "was deist for many years" statement is suspect - the reason why Deists don't believe in Divine Intervention is because a God who created a perfect world would no need to "meddle" in the world. Having to bypass the laws of nature in order to alter the universe as a response to prayer demonstrates imperfection and weakness - meaning God never created the world perfectly in the first place, thus requiring him to constantly change it.

Thus, I delete the entire section because it is irrelevant to Deism since it contradicts the core concepts of Deist philosophy.
[[User:Intranetusa|Intranetusa]] 22:42, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Deism

2008-03-16T02:39:12Z

Intranetusa:

The founder of the offshoot of '''Deism''' that found a place in [[England]] during the [[Reformation]] and reached the colonies was [[Lord Herbert of Cherbury]]. <ref>http://www.theologicalstudies.org/what_is_deism.html</ref> He came up with 5 essentials of Deism which are "(1) a belief in the existence of the Deity, (2) the obligation to reverence such a power, (3) the identification of worship with practical morality, (4) the obligation to repent of sin and to abandon it, and, (5) divine recompense in this world and the next"<ref>http://www.iep.utm.edu/d/deismeng.htm</ref>. This was a rather odd variant mixing in many Christian virtues without Jesus, and rather foreign to traditional Deism.

Dictionaries' definitions of '''deism''' include:
:The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.<ref>American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition</ref>
and
:"a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe."<ref>Merriam-Webster online: [http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/deism deism]</ref>

The first definition refers to a conception of God sometimes called the ''[[deus otiosus]]''.

The [[Catholic Church]] would denounce Deism as a [[Heresy]] in the 1500s, for it's rejection of the divinity of Jesus Christ, the importance of the church, and eschewing the idea of Divine Intervention. While Lord Herbert would found the movement, by the 1800s his arguments were largely demolished by the philosopher Locke and his deconstruction of the concept of an 'Innate Truth'(Upon which much of Herbert's views on Deism were founded).

Matthew Tindal is generally credited with the modern incarnation of Deism and that practiced by the Founding Fathers who were Deists. "God designed all Mankind should at all times know, what he wills them to know, believe, profess, and practice; and has given them no other Means for this, but the Use of Reason."

Deism would enjoy a brief rise in the Western world through the 1800s, but by the early 20th century, it was on the decline. The Unitarian movement would absorb most of it's teachings and eventually produce the Unitarian Universalists. Deism today is a mixed bag without dogma or teachings beyond the idea that one should employ Reason to understand the universe. As a result, Deists who believe in Divine Intervention, Intelligent Design, and many other ideas that would have been alien to the earlier Deists are now around.

==Deism and the Founding Fathers==
While almost all of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians, some it is believed were deists, at least according to some definitions of the term.

A famous deist in early American history was the Englishman [[Thomas Paine]], who espoused deism and popularized the term in his book [[The Age of Reason]]. It is believed this had an influence on deism in the colonies. [[Benjamin Franklin]] wrote in his autobiography about an earlier period in his life,
<blockquote>Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist.</blockquote>

Franklin later repudiated many of his earlier views and he believed in a God that "ought to be worshiped," and at the [[Constitutional Convention]] less than three years from his death [[Benjamin Franklin]] advocated public prayer. He praised [[Christianity]], but his letter to Ezra Stiles a month before his death was noncommittal as to the divinity of Jesus: <blockquote>"As to [[Jesus]] of [[Nazareth]], my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and His Religion as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see.. I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubt as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I need not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect Soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble. I see no harm in its being believed, if that belief has good consequences, as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed."</blockquote>

Another [[Founding Father]] described as a deist was [[Thomas Jefferson]]. Jefferson personally struggled with the divinity of Christ and produced an edited version of the Gospels, later known as the [[Jefferson Bible]], which contained only the moral and ethical teachings of Jesus and omitted third-person accounts of his life, particularly the accounts of the miracles.

Ten years from his death Jefferson stated that "[The Jefferson Bible] show that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel, and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its Author never said nor saw."<ref>Jefferson, Letter to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1815</ref>

The closer Jefferson approached his death, the more Christian he appeared. He read the Bible daily as the end grew near. His grandson described Jefferson as follows:<ref>Thomas Jefferson Randolph, undated letter to biographer Henry S. Randall, reprinted in Masfield et al., ''The Real Thomas Jefferson'', p. 321.</ref>

:He was regular in his attendance [at] church, taking his prayer book with him. He drew the plan of the Episcopal church in Charlottesville, was one of the largest contributors to its erection, and contributed regularly to the support of its minister. I paid, after his death, his subscription of $200 to the erection of the Presbyterian church in the same village. A gentleman of some distinction calling on him and expressing his disbelief in the truths of the Bible, his reply was, 'Then, sir, you have studied it to little purpose.'"

==Modern Deism==

Modernly, as noted above, Deism has both declined and fractured, with some of its original ideas being adopted as part of "[[new age]]" movements. Variations of Deism that have developed or been proposed include [[Pandeism]] (enunciated in the 1850s, and merging Deism with [[Pantheism]], the idea that God is equal to the Universe); [[Polydeism]] (merging Deism with [[polytheism]], proposing that multiple Gods created then abandoned the Universe); and [[Panendeism]] (merging Deism with the 1830s idea of [[Panentheism]], that the Universe was part of God, but was also transcended by God). None of these offshoots has garnered a significant following relative to organized religions.

----

'''Sources:'''<references/>

==See Also==
:[http://thedcl.org/christia/s/stephwill/agodeieg/agodeieg.html An Account of the Growth of Deism in England] by William Stephens.

[[Category:Types of Theism]]