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As a immigrant to this country I have seen this to be true. George Washington IMO was a Christian, he wrote some of the most beautiful letters proclaiming his love for God. A few years ago when I went to Washington I saw all types of Christian influence from what was written on Thomas Jefferson's tomb, Ten Commandments in the hall of the Supreme Court. In Philadelphia on the Liberty Bell the bible verse etched Leviticus 25:10. There is so much in Washington despite how much the liberals and secularists try to hide or divert the crowd away even deliberately lie about historical records pertaining to Christianity. I am just thankful that they would need a hammer and chisel if they wanted to get rid of the rest.
Last edited by Fundamentalist; 05-06-2009 at 09:08 PM..
Well, as I stated on the other thread, what the personal beliefs of the founding fathers were is irrelevant to the nation they founded.
They came from a state-sanctioned Christian nations, so of course they are going to have a Christian influence, and some certainly did overtly. But the most influential of the founders were clearly Deists. Jefferson was an outspoken critic of the clergy and rewrote the entire Bible to remove the sense of deity and mysticism from it.
"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise" (August 15, 1820). In saying this, Jefferson was merely expressing the widely held Deistic view of his time, which rejected the mysticism of the Bible and relied on natural law and human reason to explain why the world is as it is. Writing to Adams again, Jefferson said, "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter"
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"There is not one redeeming feature in our superstition of Christianity. It has made one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites"
James Madison:
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In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" in which he presented fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion.
George Washington:
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In concluding the interview, Dr. Wilson said "I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges him self as a believer in Christianity.
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Dr. Rush told me (Thomas Jefferson) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice....
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I know that Gouverneur Morris [principal drafter of the constitution], who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed him self to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did" (quoted in Remsberg, p. 123 from Jefferson's Works, Vol. 4, p. 572, emphasis added).
Fundie - I am confused by your claim of what is written on Jefferson's tomb:
[SIZE=4]AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA[/SIZE]
His tomb is quite clear in its rejecting support of any religion by government. The preamble to the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom:
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"to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
More from that Statute:
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"Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise [sic] diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities".
If you really want to see an interesting side of DC, check out all the Masonic and metaphysical symbolism. The whole city center is astrologically aligned.
I also reject support of any religion by government. what's your point? which is what led to seperartion of church and state. The State should not be in the church and not the other way around unfortunately many such as yourself twisted his words.
1. Were the founding father for the most part Christians?
2. Was there [sic] intent to base this country on Christian values?
I provided ample evidence that the answers to these questions are:
1. No.
2. No.
I was seriously curious what you saw on Jefferson's tomb and in Washington's writings.
You have no evidence other than your imagination. All through the supreme court, washington DC are symbol, paintings, statues of Christianity. Evidence speaks for itself, over the years people such as yourselves have rewritten history books to fit your agenda of what you believe America is or what it should be built on.
All through history, show me another secular nation like the U.S. Giving and caring, charities are Christian concepts yet America is the only nation in the world that gives, helps, feeds other nations. I lived in 4 countries.TRUST ME. I know! It was Christianity that created hospitals and charity organizations. The giving spirit of America came from Christian principles.
Fundamentalists, I have to disagree with you, I lived in the Washington, DC area for over 60 years and Washington, DC is not a Christian city and our federal government was not founded on Christian principles, now anybody can read whatever they want into the number statues and buildings and monuments in the capital city as they want but that doesn't make it so, and as somebody who has lived there the majority of their life I think I'm in a better position to speak of it then you are.
Come on. Make legitimate arguments, Fundie! You can't just say that since some guy snuck the 10 Commandments into the Supreme Court or there's a pretty painting that the founding fathers intended for us to be ruled by the 10 commandments. That's no different than the "under God" being snuck into the Pledge in the 1950s.
I have provided ample evidence from historical documents that they did not intend to create a nation dependent upon any one religion. Quite the opposite, in fact. You choose not to read these historical writings and instead pretend, like you do with my spirituality, that it's all in my imagination.
The charity of our nation has nothing to do with religion, though religions obviously do a lot of charity in our country. I doubt in the 4 countries you lived in any were even in the same stratosphere of wealth and mobility as the United States. Even today, the second largest economy (China) is still only half as large as the U.S. That has a lot more to do with our giving and charity than any religion. We have more to give. Anyway, statistics show there is no correlation between giving by those who identify with a religion and those who do not.
I, too, lived in DC for many years. As a resident, I studied its architectural symbols on levels most don't even know is there. They are far from Christian in any conventional sense of the concept. Of course, the Masons were definitely from a Christian background, so in that sense they were. But, the number of Eastern swastikas alone in federal building architecture suggests a far cry from what you would define as Christian.
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