I'm sure Merriam Webster is wrong and you are correct since that was their definition and it without a doubt doesn't say its a religion because its a religion, it says it is because its a commitment to a religious faith.
Of course holy, absolute, spiritual and divine apply to deism. Look up the definitions of each of them. Dont cherry pick the parts that help your case rather use all of the definitions.
I suggest you read your link to wikipedia, there are many places where it contradicts what you are saying.
I'm also sure Thomas Payne did not have a clue what he was talking about.
"There is a happiness in Deism, when rightly understood, that is not to be found in any other system of religion. All other systems have something in them that either shock our reason, or are repugnant to it, and man, if he thinks at all, must stifle his reason in order to force himself to believe them.
"But in Deism our reason and our belief become happily united. The wonderful structure of the universe, and everything we behold in the system of the creation, prove to us, far better than books can do, the existence of a God, and at the same time proclaim His attributes."
“The only religion that has not been invented, and that has in it every evidence of divine originality, is pure and simple deism. It must have been the first and will probably be the last that man believes. But pure and simple deism does not answer the purpose of despotic governments. They cannot lay hold of religion as an engine but by mixing it with human inventions, and making their own authority a part; neither does it answer the avarice of priests, but by incorporating themselves and their functions with it, and becoming, like the government, a party in the system. It is this which forms the otherwise mysterious connection of Church and State; the Church humane, and the State tyrannic.”(Age of Reason, pg. 186)
He is only one of the most celebrated Deists out there, so Im sure you are right and he is not.
= new reply since forum marked as read