deist

You may have read or heard about some of the criticism of "Bright" to describe freethinkers. A piece I found particularly interesting was on NPR the other day, slightly diminished in value considering the source was the ceo of beliefnet.com (aka dogma supermarket)... but it still had some good points.
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1420408

I don't think many of those points apply to Universism, a similar movement that I'm working with. The main difference is that Bright says naturalists are godless, whereas Universism says whether you believe in a "god" or not is irrelevant - what's important is that you apply reason to metaphysical questions. I think Universism also has another thing going for it - it's not implicity pretentious - it says on its grammatical face exactly what it is, an "ism", a way of thought or worldview, centered on reality itself - the universe. http://universist.org

One reaction which does apply is... "don't label me! I don't like labels!" I don't know if this argument will win those people over, but consider this - universism is simply saying you apply personal reason and experience to these questions, and rational people can disagree over the details. Smart people often move between atheism, agnosticism, deism, pantheism throughout their lives. But has anything really changed? Rational people can disagree in universism, they're still individuals. So, even if you don't like labels, don't make the mistake of saying "Don't label me an individual! I think for myself I'll have you know!" about universism.

I know this religious philosophy has "religious" overtones. It doesn't work for all Atheists. There are many atheists who are anti religion in all its forms, but there are also those who have a sort of benign respect and awe for the universe a la sagan's "billions and billions!" ...that's the potentially "universist" genre I believe.