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As has been stated numerous times, the fundamental flaw in your argument is that you post quote after quote that references a general "God" figure or "heaven" or even discusses "Jesus", but little, if any, of it refers directly to a specific religion.
Yes, they were influenced by the major religion of Europe at the time and so used spiritual language derived from it. They did not have such ready exposure to all the global religions that we possess today.
The bottom line is - founders of this country were in many cases Deists, in other cases "true Christians" who rejected all that orthodox (or what we would call fundamentalist today) Christianity espoused, and the primary founders most certainly did not set out to create a Christian nation, as their statements about separating church and state were quite adament and clear.
The one person that espoused separation of Church and state was Jefferson. That person specifically chose the Bible to create his own ideals -- the Jefferson Bible. That in no way discredits Christianity's influence on our founding forefathers. I can be a Christian and still understand that government establishing a supreme religion is counter-intuitive.
If the forefathers espoused anything, they espoused the knowledge that humans are inherently different. That they would never come to a consensus that one religion should be the basis on anything. It goes right along with inherent freedoms of "natural rights" of free people. To go even further it goes right along with limited government, and a frugal government.
Have you even read this thread? All the quotes I used, the numerous ones, are from the people that are supposedly Deist. Do you understand Deism? The thought that God wound a clock up and set it in motion and there is no changing its course. Does that sound like quantum mechanics to you? Does that sound like the founding forefathers would have needed, at all, to call for action? Why, if they thought God was some sort of deity that hand no role in how events played out would anyone even need to call for action?
Do I need to bring the Magna Carta to William Tyndall just to prove a point -- one which I already have -- that Christianity was the sole religion that influenced that thought process? I'd propose that the burden is on you to prove otherwise. I gave the definition of Deism so the thought that no one understands what it is in your thoughts. Those thoughts aren't founded on any realism.
Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it.
These things aren't my opinion but they are the facts of history. I know it's frustrating to find out everything you've been taught is a farce.
You are wrong. Your definition of deism may match what deism has become, how the meaning has been refined over the past 200 years, but is not reflective of the time of the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers, every single one of them, was to some degree a free thinker. They were men who lived in a world where existing systems, existing power structures were being widely challenged. It was their inheritance. For centuries European power structures were relatively stable. Challenges to the power-holders were made by other power-holders, and the people were largely pawns. Even in the contest between Henry VIII and the Catholic Church, the presumptions were that whither the king goes, so go the people. But that schism weakened the Catholic Church. Luther further weakened it. Calvinism weakened it. And the challenges were not against Christianity, they were against specific tenets of the Catholic Church that reinforced the Church's power. The Puritans, the Quakers, they sprang from a new idea, that people could challenge the all-powerful Catholic Church. And this was a new idea, for more than 1000 years, people had toiled along, hiding their doubts, suppressing their dissatisfactions. But alongside this new idea, that the Catholic Church wasn't the only authority, came other new ideas. Locke and Hume and eventually Paine, all putting forth new ideas about the relationship between rulers and the people they ruled. The concept that there was a mutual responsibility in that relationship. These were new ideas. This was the advent of free-thinking.
The Founding Fathers were generally wealthy, upper-class gentleman. Some may have had middle-class backgrounds, but they were all well-read men who would have been exposed to Locke's ideas. Men who embraced science and the ideas of rationalism. Who would have been familiar with what was a natural progression for the religious free-thinkers, the idea that perhaps Christ was not divine. Perhaps Christ was just a man. And if you believe that Christ was just a man, you are not a Christian. That's all it takes to depart from Christianity. They can believe that Christ existed. They can honor the Bible, and the teachings of Christ. They can believe that he was exceptional in every way. But if they don't believe in the divinity of Christ, they have departed from the Christian religion. And there is ample evidence that several of the Founding Fathers did not believe in the divinity of Christ. They were free thinkers.
It was free-thinking that allowed them to create a new political system of governing, that gave control of the government to the citizens of this new country. It was free-thinking that led them to reject many of the tenets of traditional religions. These were men that were embracing rationalism and rejecting the mysticism of religion. Deism was in its infancy, and the Unitarian Church actually sprang from the Deist beliefs in this era.
His funeral in Philadelphia attracted the largest crowd of mourners ever known. An estimated 20,000 people crowded around the Christ Church Burial Ground where he was buried beside his wife Deborah Read Rogers Franklin who had died sixteen years before him. The tombstone on their grave said "Benjamin and Deborah Franklin: 1790."
The result was such a development of the immeasurable superiority of the doctrine of Christianity that he declared "its Author had presented to the world a system of morals which, if filled up in the style and spirit of the rich fragments he has left us, would be the most perfect and sublime that has ever been taught by man."
Of course I'm sure you know who founded the University of Virginia...
Quote:
And if you believe that Christ was just a man, you are not a Christian.
It sounds more like you've given your own opinion without much of anything to back it up. They might not have been the "Christians" that burned witches a the stake but, in Franklin's case, found himself burying his wife -- 16 years prior to his death -- and himself in a Christian burial ground. Jefferson thought his teaching were the "best ever been taught by man."
These were the two that were the most ardent "deist" in the eyes of people wishing to prove this nation wasn't founded on Christian beliefs. In looking at what the Founding Forefathers actually believed in, only the intellectually weak could muster up a conclusion that wished to dismiss Christianities role. Claiming they were not Christians by some obscure requirement that Jesus was "just a man" is kinda strange to this Christian. He was born to a human mother and taught all of the realities of being human. Maybe your idea of what a Christian is is skewed for whatever reason.
maybe another Christian that has visited this thread will come out and say Jesus was a God and not a human born unto this earth. I don't know any that claim that.
Last edited by BigJon3475; 06-22-2010 at 07:50 PM..
The Founding Fathers were Diests, a philosophy radically different from Christianity
So, what's your point? Some of the founders practiced their relationships with their Gawdz in different ways. Does this change anything?
George Washington, among others, was a Freemason and Grand Master of his states lodges. As a Mason he laid the cornerstone of the Capital building. I could, but don't, wonder how liberals would feel that a Freemason and Diest was involved in political affairs. Or maybe that's what makes them liberals.
Ahh the Diest myth surfaces again. LOL only two of the signers of the Declaration of Independance were in fact Diests and one recanted those views later in his life in favor of Christianity.
Of course I'm sure you know who founded the University of Virginia...
It sounds more like you've given your own opinion without much of anything to back it up. They might not have been the "Christians" that burned witches a the stake but, in Franklin's case, found himself burying his wife -- 16 years prior to his death -- and himself in a Christian burial ground. Jefferson thought his teaching were the "best ever been taught by man."
These were the two that were the most ardent "deist" in the eyes of people wishing to prove this nation wasn't founded on Christian beliefs. In looking at what the Founding Forefathers actually believed in, only the intellectually weak could muster up a conclusion that wished to dismiss Christianities role. Claiming they were not Christians by some obscure requirement that Jesus was "just a man" is kinda strange to this Christian. He was born to a human mother and taught all of the realities of being human. Maybe your idea of what a Christian is is skewed for whatever reason.
maybe another Christian that has visited this thread will come out and say Jesus was a God and not a human born unto this earth. I don't know any that claim that.
And old Ben declares in his autobiography, that he is a deist.
And to be a Christian you HAVE to believe in the divinity of Christ. If you don't, then you're not a Christian. It doesn't get simpler than that. You can spit in the wind all you want, but it's pretty basic. It's intellectually weak to refuse to accept the most basic tenet of Christianity when trying to force your opinion on others.
Your post is nothing but bald faced lies. Read some real history, and learn the truth.
Good piece of advice. It would bother me..but somehow I suspect you are responding to a foreigner..so therefore..who cares. Obviously this person is not a patriotic American..so it is usually best to ignore Those People on here...
Good piece of advice. It would bother me..but somehow I suspect you are responding to a foreigner..so therefore..who cares. Obviously this person is not a patriotic American..so it is usually best to ignore Those People on here...
I have to say, "ignore Those People", what a way to have a debate. If you don't have a cogent rebuttal, "ignore Those People." If you can't cite any support for your argument, "ignore Those People." If you're backed into a corner in a debate, "ignore Those People." If you can't defend your own argument, "ignore Those People."
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And who might those "several" be?
Obviously this person is not a patriotic American..so it is usually best to ignore Those People on here...
