20 replies to this topic

[olpfan1]

A few months a go I came across the word "Deist" and realized I shared the exact same views..that we have a creator but that the creator does not interfere in our lives, the proof of the creator is the universe, and organized religion is a lie

Lately I've been hearing from American Republican / Tea Party Politicians that America was founded on Christianity
which strikes me as odd because of the research I did it shows the most important Founding Fathers were Deists

Benjamin Franklin
George Washington
James Madison (Father of the Constitution)
Thomas Jefferson

Could it not be said that The Founding Fathers were Deists? Or could it be said that the Founding Fathers were Deists & Christians

[August1991]

The US Constitution was written during the European Enlightenment. In many ways, the 1960s in America were the popularization of late 1700s Enlightenment ideals. IOW, the intellectual elite of the 18th century lived like many ordinary people (hippies) in the 1960s.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, rejected organized religion and insisted that the word "God" appear nowhere in the US Constitution. It did appear in the US Declaration of Independence.

----

In the 18th century, almost all Americans were independent Protestants - Puritans, Lutherans, Wesleyans, Methodists, Lutherans. The Church of England (Episcopalians) was traditional. There were no Catholics. In such a situation, Americans might have created the ideal Protestant Christian society in the New World. (In New France, there was an idea to create a truly Catholic society.)

IMV, the foundation of independent America has two influences: puritan protestant Christianity and the Enlightenment. It's an admirable mix.

Edited by August1991, 13 February 2012 - 05:53 PM.

[dre]

Some of them were religious, some werent.


I like this quote from James Maddison...

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.

[Shady]

I highly recommend the HBO mini-series John Adams on the subjects of independence and the founding of the America. It's fantastic. Especially the process of crafting the constitution.

Edited by Shady, 13 February 2012 - 07:10 PM.

[dre]

Jefferson...

The hocus-pocus phantasm of a God like another Cerberus, with one body and three heads, had its birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs.

[dre]

Lincoln...

The Bible is not my book, nor Christianity my profession.

Edited by dre, 13 February 2012 - 07:33 PM.

[dre]

Franklin...

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.

I wish it (Christianity) were more productive of good works ... I mean real good works ... not holy-day keeping, sermon-hearing ... or making long prayers, filled with flatteries and compliments despised by wise men, and much less capable of pleasing the Deity

[dre]

John Adams...

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes

[dre]

Thomas Paine...

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church. Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

.

The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion.

[August1991]

If there were Deists, they were Jefferson and Paine - true products of the Enlightenment. Washington and Adams were more traditional. And Franklin was a writer; a journalist.

As to Lincoln, he lived in a different era, was a true American and used the language of the Bible.

Edited by August1991, 13 February 2012 - 07:51 PM.

[Moonlight Graham]

Obviously some of the Fathers were deists (including a few of the most influential ones like Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams), but most of them were Protestants. However, from what I gather most simply believed in the importance of the separation of church and state. As August1991 says, the Founding Fathers lived in the time of the Enlightenment where superstitious religious dogma was turned away from in favour science and reason. Many of the Fathers were well-read intellectuals and greatly influenced by Enlightenment political philosophers such as John Locke, Voltaire (also a deist) etc.

They were also not far removed from the Protestant Reformation and the wars that came from it, so they knew the danger that the fusion of church and state could have, and that the tyranny and corruption of church leadership can be just as dangerous as that of a monarch.

Sometimes I feel we need a 2nd Age of Enlightenment.

[olpfan1]

Thomas Paine...


All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

.

Winner winner Chicken dinner

[Moonlight Graham]

Winner winner Chicken dinner

I think many if not most churches are set up with good intentions, but power corrupts, and humans seem to inevitably screw up what at one time may have been good messages.

[olpfan1]

I think many if not most churches are set up with good intentions, but power corrupts, and humans seem to inevitably screw up what at one time may have been good messages.

Live how we say you should live otherwise you're going to hell is not a good message
It never was

[Moonlight Graham]

Live how we say you should live otherwise you're going to hell is not a good message
It never was

Maybe that wasn't the original message? God didn't write the Bible, nor Jesus.