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Deists don't believe in prayer because they don't believe God is involved with us mere humanity. They believe God created and set us loose and turned His back on all of us and does not communicate, nor hear our prayers. So, they don't pray. To them, there is no such thing as "divine providence".
As to your comment about viewing "3 days" as a happy medium - - OK, but there might have been another reason for Washington to do so.
I think you are describing one flavor of deism. Not all flavors. Certainly there are deists who think that an all-powerful God could hear our prayers, could intercede if He so chose. Unitarianism developed from deism. Unitarianists pray, don't they?
And as for the "3 days", I'm sure if we worked together we could come up with sundry reasons for Washington's statement. But as neither of us is Washington, the mystery of the meaning of his last request will remain a mystery. I kinda like that. I want things about myself to remain mysterious to other people, I prize my privacy, those very personal quirks that define me in my innermost thoughts. I think that's why other people are protective of their privacy too, to preserve that inner identity that is sometimes petty and small-minded, and sometimes generous and filled with wonder. We can wonder about others, like George Washington, but maybe the knowledge that he had his own secrets made our stalwart General smile when he was alive.
They were definitely not Christians in the manner in which the Religious Right portrays them.
And what these people chronically fail to grasp is that in a legal sense, it doesn't matter at all even if they were.
How is that the religious right portrays them? I haven't heard about this. As far as a legal sense goes, no, it doesn't matter, but our country was definitely founded on Judeo Christian philosophies which is why this thread was started to begin with.
You provided one name you believe is not a Christian.
And that's all that was required. The statement, "The Founding Fathers were Christian.", is an inclusive statement. It's disproven by any exceptions. I've provided an exception. I could go on, I could cite private letters written by Alexander Hamilton or John Adams, I could quote from Thomas Paine's book The Age of Reason. But I don't have to go on. I've shown that not ALL the Founding Fathers were Christians. Which has been my argument all along.
Benjamin Franklin as he writes, in his own words, in his autobiography:
"Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."
"The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and guilding, lies here, food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beatiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author" Franklin wrote his own eulogy.
Franklin believed in his resurrection.
Benjamin Franklin, Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (Dublin: P. Wogan, P. Byrne, J. More, and W. Janes, 1793), p. 149
WOW a whole ONE! Well folks there you have it, the founders were definitely not Christians.
I'm not sure, are you making an absolute statement: The Founders were definitely not Christians. (Dragging Canoe, take note, when you edited my post where I was responding to another poster, this is how you turned my rebuttal into an absolute statement. I'm not going to be so unkind to Audit----) I suspect actually that you are conceding, Some Founding Fathers were Christians, and Some were not.
Yeah right.....What exactly would keep people in line?
Most people, given some proper guidance through childhood, keep themselves "in line", by an intelligent interpretation thereof, through understanding the benefits to themselves of civilized behavior. For those few who don't, there is the penal code.
Quote:
What would they be afraid of?
A bogeyman that is a figment of the imagination of lost souls?
Please....you're talking to adults here and the silliness of the answer that we all know is firmly implanted in your head is....well....insurmountable.
The obvious answer, for those few referenced above, is the penalty assigned by the penal code to the offense in question. Fines or prison in most cases.
But you knew that.
Quote:
The laws you speak of that were written by men stem from
men and there is not a shred of credible evidence otherwise, despite the multitude of posts that will follow incredulous of my "ignorance".
They will go unanswered, as I've been down this road many times and know where it leads. We can only hope that some of your children and/or your children's children will assert their right to think for themselves.
"The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer, like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out and stripped of its lettering and guilding, lies here, food for worms.
Yet the work itself shall not be lost; for it will, as he believed, appear once more in a new and more beatiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author" Franklin wrote his own eulogy.
Franklin believed in his resurrection.
Benjamin Franklin, Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (Dublin: P. Wogan, P. Byrne, J. More, and W. Janes, 1793), p. 149
Believed in resurrection, or transformation, or reincarnation?
They were definitely not Christians in the manner in which the Religious Right portrays them.
And what these people chronically fail to grasp is that in a legal sense, it doesn't matter at all even if they were.
And how things have changed! Today, even if one who is not a Christian were to go around quoting the Bible and inscribing verses on government monuments, he or she would be soundly criticized, removed from the scene, and sued by the ACLU or charged with a crime, or both. Let a teacher, even though non Christian, reference a Bible verse or prayer in school and see what happens. I don't see that any of our Founding Fathers were hung for failing to keep a great distance between church and state. Heck, try to put up a Christmas tree, much less a nativity scene on public property and see what happens. Kids get suspended for bringing a Bible to school for their own silent reading periods. Nobody asks whether they're Deists or not. Perhaps if they were Deists, it would be allowed. No, come to think of it, it would not be allowed today because they might mention the word "God," which the Founding Fathers did repeatedly but which is increasingly more often prohibited in the public square.
I guess the left is willing to cut the Founding Fathers some slack as long as they were "not Christians in the manner in which the religious right portrays them."
But who is there to hear or receive it but oneself? So, what's the point?
Who says that only oneself can hear or receive it?
An unresponsive God doesn't have to be a deaf God.
And many people believe that thoughts of beauty, of wonder, prayers of thanks are just good energy, and sending out good energy into the universe is a good thing. There doesn't have to be a receiver. When you hum or sing in the shower, are you doing it for an audience? When you get cut off in traffic and you call the person who cut you off a rude name, are you doing it for an audience? Some things in life, prayers included, serve only a purpose of self-comfort, but that purpose is enough. We surely deserve to comfort ourselves when we can in this world.
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- OK, but there might have been another reason for Washington to do so. 
Perhaps if they were Deists, it would be allowed. No, come to think of it, it would not be allowed today because they might mention the word "God," which the Founding Fathers did repeatedly but which is increasingly more often prohibited in the public square. 
So, what's the point? 
