Word for people who believe in a higher power that is not God [closed]

Question

There are people who believe that there is someone or something in the universe that controls everything but it is not a god or gods. What is the term for these people? I know it's not atheism. So, what is it?

Answer 1

I believe "Deist" is the word you're looking for.

Deism:

in religious philosophy is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. According to deists, the creator does not intervene in human affairs or suspend the natural laws of the universe. Deists typically reject supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, tending instead to assert that a god (or "the Supreme Architect") does not alter the universe by intervening in it. This idea is also known as the Clockwork universe theory, in which a god designs and builds the universe, but steps aside to let it run on its own.

Answer 2

There are a handful of alternatives to "god" that may strike closer to what you want:

• deity
• supernatural being or the supernatural
• creator

However, most of these terms are included in the English definition of "god". The only reason to not use "god" is to avoid the connotations of the words.

As for the concept that this controller-being is not actually god but something else entirely (such as a super-being we cannot understand), you could venture into terms such as:

• nontheism — "a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of — or the rejection of — theism or any belief in a personal god or gods." But most of the examples of nontheistic religions are religions that don't have a concept of "god".
• posthuman and transhuman — the idea that humans can become something "more than human" in the sense that classification becomes troublesome. Transhuman refers more to the general concepts of a super-intelligence.

Your comparison to the term atheism makes me think that these later concepts are closer to what you were looking for. If I had to guess at a term for your use it would be "nontheistic god" or "posthuman god".

Unfortunately, these are terms that have varying definitions depending on how technical you want to get and which group of people you are talking to.

Answer 3

"Spiritual" would be a more generic term for people that are believers but not necessarily religious in nature. It may even be too generalized for what you're looking for though.

But something that confuses me in your question: "God" pretty much sums up the definition of "someone in the universe who is controlling everything". God is a generic terms, not a single being tied to a specific religious affiliation.